Page:The Early Kings of Norway.djvu/191

 OLAF, MAGNUS, AND SIGUllD. 181 come with me," said Gilchrist, " who declares my real baptismal name to have been Harald, given me by that great King; and who will carry the red-hot ploughshares or do any reasonable ordeal in testimony of these facts. I am King Sigurd's veritable half- brother : what will King Sigurd think it fair to do with me ? " Sigurd clearly seems to have believed the man to be speaking truth ; and indeed nobody to have doubted but he was. Sigurd said, " Honourable sustenance shalt thou have from me here. But, under pain of extirpation, swear that, neither in my time, nor in that of my young son Magnus, wilt thou ever claim any share in this Government." Gylle swore ; and punctually kept his promise during Sigurd's reign. But during Magnus's, he con- spicuously broke it ; and, in result, through many reigns, and during three or four generations after- wards, produced unspeakable contentions, massa- crings, confusions in the country he had adopted. There are reckoned, from the time of Sigurd's death (a.d. 1130), about a hundred years of civil war : no king allowed to distinguish himself by a solid reign of well-doing, or by any continuing reign at aU, — some-