and counted and weighed the silver.Karl took the helmet off his head, and received in it the weighed silver.They saw a man coming to them who had a stick with an axe-head on it in his hand, a hat low upon his head, and a short green cloak.He was bare-legged, and had linen breeches on tied at the knee.He laid his stick down in the field, and went to Karl and said, "Take care, Karl Morske, that thou does not hurt thyself against my axe-stick." Immediately a man came running and calls with great haste to Leif Ossurson, telling him to come as quickly as possible to Lagman Gille's tent; "for," says he, "Sirurd Thorlakson ran in just now into the mouth of the tent, and gave one of Gille's men a desperate wound." Leif rose up instantly, and went off to Gille's tent along with his men.Karl remained sitting, and the Norway people stood around in all corners.Gaut immediately sprang up, and struck with a hand-axe over the heads of the people, and the stroke came on Karl's head; but the wound was slight.Thord the Low seized the stick-axe, which lay in the field at his side, and struck the axe-blade right into Karl's skull.Many people now streamed out of Thrand's tent.Karl was carried away dead.Thrand was much grieved at this event, and offered money-mulcts for his relations; but Leif and Gille, who had to prosecute the business, would accept no mulct.Sigurd was banished the country for having wounded Gille's tent comrade, and Gaut and Thord for the murder of Karl.The Norway people rigged out the vessel which Karl had with him, and sailed eastward to Olaf, and gave him these tidings.He was in no pleasant humour at it, and threatened a speedy vengeance; but it was not allotted by fate to King Olaf to revenge himself on Thrand and his relations, because of the hostilities which had begun in Norway, and which are now to be related.And there is nothing more to be told of what happened after King Olaf sent men to the Farey Islands to take scat of them.But great strife arose after Karl's death in the Farey Islands between the family of Thrand of Gata and Leif Ossurson, and of which there are great sagas.
154.KING OLAF'S EXPEDITION WITH HIS LEVY.
Now we must proceed with the relation we began before, -- that King Olaf set out with his men, and raised a levy over the whole country (A.D.1027).All lendermen in the North followed him excepting Einar Tambaskelfer, who sat quietly at home upon his farm since his return to the country, and did not serve the king.
Einar had great estates and wealth, although he held no fiefs from the king, and he lived splendidly.King Olaf sailed with his fleet south around Stad, and many people from the districts around joined him.King Olaf himself had a ship which he had got built the winter before (A.D.1027), and which was called the Visund (1).It was a very large ship, with a bison's head gilded all over upon the bow.Sigvat the skald speaks thus of it: --"Trygvason's Long Serpent bore, Grim gaping o'er the waves before, A dragon's head with open throat, When last the hero was afloat:
His cruise was closed, As God disposed.
Olaf has raised a bison's head, Which proudly seems the waves to tread.
While o'er its golden forehead dashing The waves its glittering horns are washing:
May God dispose A luckier close."
The king went on to Hordaland; there he heard the news that Erling Skjalgson had left the country with a great force, and four or five ships.He himself had a large war-ship, and his sons had three of twenty rowing-banks each; and they had sailed westward to England to Canute the Great.Then King Olaf sailed eastward along the land with a mighty war-force, and he inquired everywhere if anything was known of Canute's proceedings; and all agreed in saying he was in England but added that he was fitting out a levy, and intended coming to Norway.As Olaf had a large fleet, and could not discover with certainty where he should go to meet King Canute, and as his people were dissatisfied with lying quiet in one place with so large an armament, he resolved to sail with his fleet south to Denmark, and took with him all the men who were best appointed and most warlike; and he gave leave to the others to return home.Now the people whom he thought of little use having gone home, King Olaf had many excellent and stout men-at-arms besides those who, as before related, had fled the country, or sat quietly at home; and most of the chief men and lendermen of Norway were along with him.
ENDNOTES:
(1) Visundr is the buffalo; although the modern bison, or American animal of that name, might have been known through the Greenland colonists, who in this reign had visited some parts of America.-- L.
155.OF KING OLAF AND KING ONUND.