“So! so!” laughed Earl Sigvalde. “That were a pity, for our Olaf doth surely need a friend in power; he hath turned so many of his people against him by his insisting upon their becoming Christians. Then too he is filling the land with churches and priests, and they are covering Norway with learning. True the people are gaining in knowledge; but what use have the Norsemen for psalm-books and for the runes of other lands? The true viking should love better to fight than to read or to pray. Olaf hath dwelt so long in other lands he is but half a Norseman. In Ireland he was taught to write upon parchment; and he can read the runes of other lands as swift and sure as an Irish priest can read the language of Rome or Constantinople. Of what use is writing to a man that should live by his sword? Olaf doth even keep tablets of parchment under his pillow, where he can find them when he would write a sudden thought in the night. These be queer days, when a Norse viking takes to writing in the night, when he should be snoring after his ale.”
Thorgills was listening impatiently. “King Olaf keeps the needs of his kingdom very close to his heart day and night,” he said. “Even in this matter of his marriage to Erik’s widow, he thought more of his kingdom than of his own choice of a wife.”
Earl Sigvalde shrugged his shoulders: “I am no longer concerned with the plans of the king. My
