Page:The Early Kings of Norway.djvu/151

 REIGN OF KING OLAF THE SAINT. 141 was fixed to return, and by God's help try again. An evidently very pious and devout man ; a good man struggling with adversity, such as the gods, we may still imagine with the ancients, do look down upon as their noblest sight. He got to Sweden, to the court of his brother-in- law ; kindly and nobly enough received there, though gradually, perhaps, ill-seen by the now authorities of ^N'orway. So that, before long, he quitted Sweden; left his queen there with her only daughter, his and hers, the only child they had ; he himself had an only son, * by a bondwoman,' Magnus by name, who came to great things afterwards ; of whom, and of which, by and by. With this bright little boy, and a selected escort of attendants, he moved away to Eussia, to King Jarroslav ; where he might wait secure against all risk of hurting kind friends by his presence. He seems to have been an exile altogether some two years, — such is one's vague notion ; for there is no chronology in Snorro or his Sagas, and one is reduced to guessing and inferring. He had reigned over Norway, reckoning from the first days of his landing there to those last of his leaving it across