Page:The Early Kings of Norway.djvu/157

 REIGN OF KING OLAF THE SAINT. 147 he had a clear open ground still rather raised above the plain in front ; he could see how the Bonder army had not yet quite arrived, but was pouring forward, in spontaneous rows or groups, copiously by every path. This was thought to be the biggest army that ever met in Norway ; * certainly not much fewer than Snorro; great Bonders several of them, small Bonders very many, — all of willing mind, animated with a hot sense of intolerable injuries. * King Olaf says Snorro ; ' which appeared to the chief people of ' a most generous man towards his friends. But that ' alone was the cause of the discontent raised against ' him, that he appeared hard and severe in his retri- L 2
 * a hundred times a hundred men,' according to
 * had punished great and small with equal rigour,'
 * the country too severe; and animosity rose to the
 * highest when they lost relatives by the King's just
 * sentence, although they were in reality guilty. He
 * again would rather renounce his dignity than omit
 * righteous judgment. The accusation against him, of
 * being stingy with his money was not just, for he was
 * butions. Besides, King Knut offered large sums of
 * money, and the great chiefs were corrupted by this,