Page:The Heimskringla; or, Chronicle of the Kings of Norway Vol 1.djvu/463

 many sorts of precious effects; and all the men who were with Raud he either had baptized, or if they refused had them killed or tortured. Then the king took the dragon-ship which Raud had owned, and steered it himself; for it was a much larger and handsomer vessel than the Crane. In front it had a dragon's head, and aft a crook, which turned up, and ended with the figure of the dragon's tail. The carved work on each side of the stem and stern was gilded. This ship the king called the Serpent. When the sails were hoisted they represented, as it were, the dragon's wings; and the ship was the handsomest in all Norway. The islands on which Raud dwelt were called Gilling and Hsering; but the whole islands together were called Godö Isles, and the current between the isles and the mainland the Godö Stream. King Olaf baptized the whole people of the fiord, and then sailed southwards along the land; and on this voyage happened much and various things, which are set down in tales and sagas,—namely, how witches and evil spirits tormented his men, and sometimes himself; but we will rather write about what occurred when King Olaf made Norway Christian, or in the other countries in which he advanced Christianity. The same autumn Olaf with his fleet returned to Drontheim, and landed, at Nidaros, where he took up his winter abode. What I am now going to write about concerns the Icelanders.

Kiartan Olafsson, a son's son of Hoskuld, and a daughter's son of Egil Skalagrimson, came the same autumn from Iceland to Nidaros, and he was considered to be the most agreeable and hopeful man of any born in Iceland. There was also Haldor, a son of Gudmund of Modrovald; and Kolbein, a son of Thord, Frey's godar, and a brother's son of Brenno-Flose; together with Swerting, a son of the godar Runolf. All these were heathens; and besides them there were many more,—some men of power, others