Page:The Heimskringla; or, Chronicle of the Kings of Norway Vol 1.djvu/322

 birth, both men and women. Then it was the custom, with people of consideration, to choose with great care the man who should pour water over their children, and give them a name. Now when the time came that Thora, who was then at Moster, expected her confinement, she would go to King Harald, who was then living at Safim; and she went northwards in a ship belonging to Earl Sigurd. They lay at night close to the land; and there Thora brought forth a child upon the land, up among the rocks, close to the ship's gangway, and it was a man child. Earl Sigurd poured water over him, and called him Hakon, after his own father, Hakon earl of Lade. The boy soon grew handsome, large in size, and very like his father King Harald. King Harald let him follow his mother, and they were both in the king's house as long as he was an infant.

At this time a king called Athelstan had taken the kingdom of England. He sent men to Norway to King Harald, with the errand that the messengers should present him with a sword, with the hilt and