Page:The Early Kings of Norway.djvu/38

28 EAKLY KINGS OF NORWAY. This seems to have been King Hakon's finest battle, and the most conspicuous of his victories, due not a little to his own grand qualities shown on the occasion. But, alas! it was his last also. He was still zealously directing the chase of that mad Danish flight, or whirl of recoil towards their ships, when an arrow, shot most likely at a venture, hit him under the left armpit ; and this proved his death. He was helped into his ship, and made sail for Alrekstad, where his chief residence in those parts was ; but had to stop at a smaller place of his (which had been his mother's, and where he himself was born) — a place called Hella (the Flat Eock), still known as * Hakon's Hella,' faint from loss of blood, and crushed down as he had never before felt. Having no son and only one daughter, he appointed these invasive sons of Eric to be sent for, and if he died to become kings ; but to "spare his friends and kindred." " If a longer life be granted me," he said, "I will go out of this land to Christian men, and do penance for what I have committed against God. But if I die in the country of the heathen, let me have such burial as you yourselves think fittest."