found in English history and even in English popular poetry (Havelok the Dane). But their leader Sverre was not merely a captain of bandits. He had ideas and he carried them out. He was one of Carlyle's heroes, though unfortunately Carlyle was old and tired before he came to him in his notes on the kings of Norway, and could not tell the history of Sverre in full. He was a good talker, and used to speak straight to his Birkibeinar about their faults, and give them the whole duty of man in simple moral tales. He drilled his own army, and with them he drilled the country, 'making the peace' there effectively, so that a time came when the Birkibeinar were received as benefactors, and the power of King Sverre was established and made legitimate.
The difficulty about Carlyle's heroes is to know what is going to happen when the hero dies. After Sverre's death in 1202 the old games began again—faction fights as ruinous as those of Iceland. The difference between the two countries was that in Norway there was always a semblance of a principle to fight about; which did not make things any more comfortable for Norway.
As a specimen, there is the fight in Trondhjem, at the end of April, 1206.
Ingi, the Birkibein king (Sverre's nephew), was in Trondhjem at his sister's wedding. The other faction, the Crosiers (Baglar)—'bloated Aristocracy', as Carlyle called them—had been sailing for three weeks from Tunsberg in the south, round the Ness and up the west coast, meaning to attack; news of this was sent to the king from Bergen, but it did not interrupt the feast. Orders were given to the king's guard to set a proper watch round the hall at night, but when the time came the bridegroom said it would be a pity to spoil the
