Page:The Early Kings of Norway.djvu/32

 22 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY. father and all his kindred were apt to be stingy about food, though liberal enough with money." At length, one Osbjorn (or Bear of the Asen or Gods, what we now call Osborne), one Osbjorn of Medal- husin Gulathal, stept forward, and said, in a distinct manner, " We Bonders (peasant proprietors) thought. King Hakon, when thou heldest thy first Thing-day here in Trondhjem, and we took thee for our king, and received our hereditary lands from thee again, that we had got heaven itself. But now we know not how it is, whether we have won freedom, or whether thou intendest anew to make us slaves, with this wonderful proposal that we should renounce our faith, which our fathers before us have held, and all our ancestors as well, first in the age of burial by burning, and now in that of earth burial ; and yet these departed ones were much our superiors, and their faith, too, has brought prosperity to us I Thee, at the same time, we have 'Joved so much that we raised thee to manage all [the laws of the land, and speak as their voice to us all. And even now it is our will and the vote of all Bonders to keep that paction which thou gavest us ^here on the Thing at