and able man, and was earl after his father, who was King Hakon's dearest friend.
Chapter XIII.
Of Eystein the Bad.
Eystein, a king of the Uplands, whom some called the Great, and some the Bad, once on a time made war in Drontheim[1] and subdued Eyna district and Sparbo district, and set his own son Onund over them; but the Drontheim people killed him. Then King Eystein made another inroad into Drontheim, and ravaged the land far and wide, and subdued it. He then offered the people either his slave, who was called Thorer Faxe, or his dog, whose name was Sauer, to be their king. They preferred the dog, as they thought they would sooner get rid of him. Now the dog was, by witchcraft, gifted with three men's wisdom; and when he barked, he spoke one word and barked two. A collar and chain of gold and silver were made for him, and his courtiers carried him in their hands when the weather or ways were foul. A throne was erected for him, and he sat upon a high place, as kings are used to sit. He dwelt in Inderoen, and had his mansion in a place now called Saurshoug. It is told that the occasion of his death was that the wolves one day broke into his fold, and his courtiers stirred him up to defend his cattle; but when he ran down from his mound, and attacked the wolves, they tore him to pieces. Many other extraordinary things were done by this King Eystein against the Drontheim people, and in consequence of this persecution and trouble, many chiefs and people fled and left their udal properties.
Chapter XIV.
The colonising of Jemteland and Helsingland.
Ketil Jemte, a son of Earl Onund of Sparbo, went eastward across the mountain ridge, and with him a
- ↑ Drontheim here, and in all the sagas, means not the present town of Drontheim, which was not founded until Olaf Trygvesson's reign, and is always called Nidaros,—that is, the mouth of the river Nid,—and sometimes, as if contemptuously, the Kiopstad, the merchant town; but Drontheim means the whole district on each side of the Drontheim fiord, which is 120 miles in length.
