Page:Sturla the Historian.djvu/15

 Rh Sturla thought he saw that the king's whole frame of mind was brighter than the day before. So he said to the king that he had made a poem about him, and another about his father: 'I would gladly get a hearing for them'. The queen said: 'Let him recite his poem; I am told that he is the best of poets, and his poem will be excellent'. The king bade him say on, if he would, and repeat the poem he professed to have made about him. Sturla chanted it to the end. The queen said: 'To my mind that is a good poem'. The king said to her: 'Can you follow the poem clearly?' 'I would be fain to have you think so, Sir', said the queen. The king said: 'I have learned that Sturla is good at verses'. Sturla took his leave of the king and queen and went to his place. There was no sailing for the king all that day. In the evening before he went to bed he sent for Sturla. And when he came he greeted the king and said: 'What will you have me to do, Sir?' The king called for a silver goblet full of wine, and drank some and gave it to Sturla and said: 'A health to a friend in wine!' (Vin skal til vinar drekka). Sturla said: 'God be praised for it!' 'Even so', says the king; 'and now I wish you to say the poem you have made about my father'. Sturla repeated it: and when it was finished men praised it much, and most of all the queen. The king said: 'To my thinking, you are a better reciter than the Pope'.—Sturlunga Saga, vol. ii, p. 269 sqq.

King Hacon never came back from his Scottish voyage; Sturla the Icelander wrote his life. The history of the former kings of Norway had by this time come into shape; they were read to King Hacon as he lay on his sick bed in the Orkneys, when he was too