Page:The Heimskringla; or, Chronicle of the Kings of Norway Vol 1.djvu/445

 dared to speak against it; and all the people were baptized, and adopted Christianity.

Erling Skialgsson held his wedding in summer, and a great many people were assembled at it. King Olaf was also there, and offered Erling an earldom. Erling replied thus: "All my relations have been hersers only, and I will take no higher title than they have; but this I will accept from thee, king, that thou makest me the greatest of that title in the country." The king consented; and at his departure the king invested his brother-in-law Erling with all the land north of the Sogn fiord, and east to the Lidandisness, on the same terms as Harald Haarfager had given land to his sons, as before related.

The same harvest King Olaf summoned the bonders to a Thing of the four districts at Drogseid, in Stad; and there the people from Sogn, the Fiord district, South More, and Raumsdal, were summoned to meet. King Olaf came there with a great many people who had followed him from the eastward, and also with those who had joined him from Rogaland and Hordaland. When the king came to the Thing, he proposed to them there, as elsewhere, Christianity; and as the king had such a powerful host with him, they were frightened. The king offered them two conditions,—either to accept Christianity, or to fight. But the bonders saw they were in no condition to fight the king, and resolved, therefore, that all the people should agree to be baptized. The king proceeded afterwards to North More, and baptized all that district. He then sailed to Lade, in Drontheim; had the temple there rased to the ground; took all the ornaments and all property out of the temple, and from the gods in it; and among other things the great gold ring which