Page:The Early Kings of Norway.djvu/75

 REIGN OF OLAF TRYGGVESON. 65 Bonders for tliis time. The appointed place of meeting was again a Hakon-Jarl Temple, not yet done to ruin ; chief shrine in those Trondhjem parts, I believe : there should Tryggveson appear at Yule. Well, but before Yule came, Tryggveson made a great banquet in his palace at Trondhjem, and in- vited far and wide, all manner of important persons out of the district as guests there. Banquet hardly done, Tryggveson gave some slight signal, upon which armed men strode in, seized eleven of these principal persons, and the king said : " Since he himself was to become a heathen again, and do sacrifice, it was his purpose to do it in the highest form, namely, that of Human Sacrifice; and this time not of slaves and malefactors, but of the best men in the country ! " In which stringent circumstances the eleven seized persons, and company at large, gave unanimous con- sent to baptism ; straightway received the same, and abjured their idols ; but were not permitted to go home till they had left, in sons, brothers, and other precious relatives, sufiicient hostages in the king's hands. By unwearied industry of this and better kinds, Tryggveson had trampled down idolatry, so far as