people have not forgotten Erling’s death, and they say above their breath that they want not an overlord with his hands red from the blood of his own son. Let the woman go. Her husband is a strong man among the peasants of his valley. Dost thou not remember, my father, the long years of contest thou didst have with the sons of Erik Blood-Ax, before thou couldst be overlord; and what broke their power and the power of their mother Gunhild, the sorceress who bewitched all Norway, till nothing could withstand her? Her brood would be overlords of Norway to-day, save that her son, Sigurd Sleva, strove to steal the wife of the boor, Klypp Thorson, and all the yeomen rose up against him; and Thorson’s own dagger avenged the insult to his fireside; and for this was the whole brood of Gunhild swept away. The Norsemen love us not too dearly. They give their taxes none too gladly. There is a rumor on the winds of Olaf Tryggevesson sailing along the coasts of Denmark. Olaf of the race of Harold Fairhaired, whom the Norsemen worship. The scalds even say that this valiant, daring Olaf is Odin himself come again to Norway, as he comes, once in a hundred years.”
“They say he is Odin?” Earl Haakon laughed loudly. “The fools! The miserable, dumb fools! This Olaf, this hunted orphan of a murdered king, is the vowed apostle of the Christ. He carries on his shield the crucifix, the image of the Nazarene, who
