During those years, while Ogmund was faring prosperously with his father and was thinking of marrying a girl of those parts, misfortune overtook Earl Haakon, who fell out with some of his sworn friends, became suspicious of others, and at last took to his bed with a troublesome complaint, and died in it, but not of the complaint. He had a servant called Kark, whom he trusted inordinately, and used to have him to sleep in his chamber at the foot of his bed. He had bad dreams and used to throw himself about and cry out against his enemies. One night he had a very bad dream, and sat up in bed, staring at the wall and screaming, "They are coming, they are coming, they are here!" Kark sprang up in a fright and with a sword in his hand slashed about him. He slashed the Earl in the neck; and that was his death-blow. The deed was done, and by misadventure, but being done, Kark thought he might as well make profit off it. So he cut off Earl Haakon's head and put it in a bag. Then he carried it with all speed over the mountains to King Olaf Trygvasson, who he knew would be chosen King of Norway, as his right was. That was the end of the Earl, who was a great man. But his death made way for a greater.

King Olaf was still a youngish man when the Thing chose him. He may have been thirty years old, and the wife he had was his second, if not third. He was a great-grandson of King Harold Fairhair, and had been bred up in Russia, then in Vendland, which is the country round about the Vistula; then he went viking and did great things in Orkney, in Iceland and in England also. He sailed to Scilly at one time, and there he was baptized and became a Christian. The way of it was this: He heard tell of a prophet in those islands who knew everything that was going to happen, and determined to see what he could do. So he sent a fine man of his out to visit him, dressed in the best clothes that he had, rings, chains and I don't know what else. "Now," he said, "go to the prophet, and say you are a king. Ask him what he has to tell you, and report it all to me." The man went as he was bid, found the prophet and said, "Here is a king come to visit you and hear what you have to say." The prophet, who was old, and white, and had a loose, wrinkled skin and remarkable finger-nails, like a bird's claws, plucked at the roots of his beard. "You are not a king," he said, "but I advise you to be faithful to the man who is one, and sent you here. I have nothing to tell you, and if I had I should not tell it. Go away."

There was little else to do, indeed, there was nothing else. When Olaf heard the story, he said, "This is certainly a prophet. I will go to see him."

Olaf was a very noticeable man, very tall and broad, with a golden beard; he was high-coloured and had bright blue eyes. The prophet was sitting in the mouth of his cave, which he had swept out and put in order. When he saw Olaf he bowed until his head was level with his knees. Olaf sat down beside him, and they had a long conversation.

The prophet presently began to prophesy. He said, "You will become a notable king in a country which is yours, though you have never seen it. And you will be a Christian king and cause all your people to become so before the end. And in case you doubt what I say, as you may easily do, listen to this token. When you take to your ships again, all of you, there will be a plot against you, and a rising by night. Then there will be a battle—but on land; and you will lose men, and be wounded. They will carry you on a shield to your ship, and in seven days you will be well. The first thing you will do will be to seek out a bishop hereabouts, and go down into the water with him and be baptized. After you all your men will go, and that will be the beginning of Christianity in Norway and Iceland."

Now the odd thing about this tale is that it all fell out as the holy man had foreseen. That very man of the king's whom he had warned against treachery was himself the beginner of a treacherous attack. There was fierce fighting, the king sorely wounded. He was carried on a shield to the boats, and laid aboard his own long ship. There he lay for seven days, and on the seventh he was well. The first thing he did was to visit the man of God.

"You told me the truth," said Olaf; and the prophet said, "That is why I am here and living in sanctity."

Olaf said, "The least I can do is to fulfil the prophecy which has so far fulfilled itself. I will go into the water when you please."

The man of God said, "The sooner the better. You will find the bishop very ready for you."

"I will send for him," King Olaf said, "but you shall tell me something of the religion which I suppose gives you the powers you possess."

The prophet agreed to that. "It is a very good religion for a king," he said, "because it may make him humble-minded before God, which he has no reason otherwise to be—or so he is apt to think. In any event it must make his subjects so, which is very useful to the king."

"Oh, very," said Olaf, and became attentive to what the wise man had to say.

To be short about it, King Olaf was baptized and all the men with him in the long ships; and soon afterwards he sailed for Norway where, in the time of Earl Haakon's sickness, he made a landing and gathered a company about him. When the Earl was killed by Kark, his head was brought to King Olaf in a bag by the malefactor. Olaf accepted it as his due; but he hanged Kark then and there on a convenient ash-tree.

I said that the Thing chose Olaf for king; and one of the first of his acts was to proclaim that he chose Christianity for the religion of Norway, and willed that all his people should be baptized. He had brought back priests with him from Scilly, and a bishop as well, so everything was in order.

The common sort gave him no trouble, for they either ran down into the water in herds, or withdrew themselves to the mountains and forests; but some of the great men were stiff about it, and did not choose to forsake their gods. They debated about it among themselves, and sent chosen champions to debate about it with the king. But in this they had mistaken their man. King Olaf listened to one or two, and then, lifting his large hand, slammed it down upon the board in front of him. "Enough of this," he said. "It may be a good religion or a bad, but it is my own religion, and I desire it to be that of my people. See you to it, and let me have no more talk, for I am sick of it." They went away, and a good many of them were baptized, but by no means all.

There were two brothers living in a dale of Drontheim—Sigurd was the elder, and his brother was Gunnar. Both were called Helming. They were well descended, and neither of them was thirty years old, though Sigurd was near it. He was married and a friend of the King's. Gunnar was twenty-six years old, a cheerful high-coloured man with a reddish beard, though his hair was much darker, and might have been taken for black. Sigurd was a councillor, Gunnar was not, but had been to sea, and fought in Sicily, and as far as Micklegarth. When he was not voyaging he lived with his brother. The pair were great friends.

Sigurd Helming was one of those who followed Olaf's example, and went down into the water. When it was over and all his household had been made Christians, he said to Gunnar, "Now it's your turn."

Gunnar laughed. "Not for me," he said. "I will go into the water when my time comes, but that will be the end of me. I know too much about the water."

Sigurd said, "It's soon over."

"The sooner the better," said Gunnar, "when it is to be—and also, the later the better."

Sigurd said, "This is the king's religion."

"Why not?" said Gunnar.

"The king will be displeased. He loves his own way."

"We all do that, I believe," said Gunnar.

"What am I to tell him when he asks me of you?" Sigurd asked him.

"Tell him that I follow him because he is a man," said Gunnar. "Tell him that I will serve him all the better for following my own counsel in this business of religion. You will see that he understands me."

"I am sure he will not," said Sigurd, "but I will try him."

He made the best case he could, and King Olaf heard him out. When Sigurd had done he said, "Send Gunnar to me." So Gunnar went to the King's house.

King Olaf looked at him with his bright blue eyes like swords. "You are a fighting man, I hear."

Gunnar said that he was.

"And now you will fight with me."

Gunnar said, "If you go fighting, King Olaf, I will go with you, if you will have me."

"My religion says that he who is not with me is against me."

Gunnar said, "That's a good saying. But I am with you."

"Not at all," said King Olaf, "since you refuse to take my religion."

"If I were to take your religion I should be a liar," said Gunnar, "and if I were a liar I should not be worth your while. Better take me as I am."

"I will take you as you are sooner than not at all," the king said. "But I do not like a stiff-necked man."

Gunnar said, "The neck of a man is part of the back of the man. If he is too supple in the neck it is likely he will give in the back, and that at a time when stiffness may be useful."

King Olaf frowned. "Beware of talking too much. It makes me angry."

"I had much rather not talk at all," Gunnar said, "but it would be ill-mannered to be glum when a king speaks to me."

Olaf said, "Will you consult with my bishop, and hear what he has to say?"

"I will," said Gunnar, "but you must let me tell you that I am not a scholar, but a man of hands. There will be more talking. Heat will be engendered, and you will be angry again."

Olaf liked Gunnar very well, and was silent for a bit. Then he said, "You are one of the few who gainsay me; yet I don't feel badly disposed to you. I think you are a fool; but you seem to know it yourself."

"The fact is, that I do," said Gunnar. "Your bishop alarms me."

"You will find out in time that I am right and you wrong," said the king. "Be off with you, and serve me as well as you can."

"Have no fear about that," said Gunnar, and kept to his own religion, which was not, with him, a very great matter. But he did not feel at all inclined to change it because he was told to do so. King Olaf soon got over his vexation; but, as it will shortly appear, he kept it at the back of his mind.

OGMUND DINT COMES AGAIN TO NORWAY, AND MEETS GUNNAR ON THE HARD OF DRONTHEIM