Page:The Heimskringla; or, Chronicle of the Kings of Norway Vol 3.djvu/350

338 CHRONICLE OF THE SAGA XVI. brave and gallant, if they have once been defeated and driven to flight, they will not easily be brought to turn round. JSTow the main body of the Birke- beiners began to fly, and many fell ; because Magnus's men killed all they could lay hold of, and not one of them got quarter. The whole body became scattered far and wide. Eystein in his flight ran into a house, and begged for his life, and that the bonder would conceal him; but the bonder killed him, and then went to King Magnus, whom he found at Kamnes, where the king was in a room warming himself by the fire along with many people. Some went for the corpse, and bore it into the room, where the king told the people to come and inspect the body. A man was sitting on a bench in the corner, and he was a Birkebeiner, but nobody had observed him ; and when he saw and recognised his chief's body he sprang up suddenly and actively, rushed out upon the floor, and with an axe he had in his hands made a blow at King Magnus's neck between the shoulders. A man saw the axe swinging, and pulled the king to a side, by which the axe struck lower in the shoulder, and made a large Avound. He then raised the axe again, and made a blow at Orm the King-brother, who was lying on a bench, and the blow was directed at both his legs ; but Orm, seeing the man about to kill him, drew in his feet instantly, threw them over his head, and the blow fell on the bench, in which the axe stuck fast ; and then the blows at the Birkebeiner came so thick that he could scarcely fall to the ground. It was discovered that he had drasrored his entrails after him over the floor ; and this man's bravery was highly praised. King Magnus's men followed the fugitives, and killed so many that they were tired of it. Thor- finn of Snaas, and a very great number of Drontheim j)eople, fell there.