Page:The Heimskringla; or, Chronicle of the Kings of Norway Vol 2.djvu/153

 KINGS OF NORWAY. 145 have one third and Thorfinn two thirds of the land, saga vn. but should undertake the defence of the land for the whole. Although this exchange did not take place immediately, it is related in the saga of the earls that it was agreed upon at last ; and that Thorfinn had two parts, and Bruse only one, when Canute the Great subdued Norway, and King Olaf fled the country. Earl Thorfinn Sigurdsson has been the ablest earl of these islands, and has had the greatest dominion of all the Orkney earls ; for he had under him Orkney, Shetland, and the Hebudes, besides very great pos- sessions in Scotland and Ireland. Arnor, the earl's scald, tells of his possessions : — " From Thurso-skerry to Dublin, All people hold with good Thorfinn — All people love his sway, And the generous chief obey." Thorfinn was a very great warrior. He came to the earldom at five years of age, ruled more than sixty years, and died in his bed about the last days of Harald Sigurdsson.* But Bruse died in the days of Canute the Great, a short time after the fall of Saint Olaf.f Having now gone through this second story, we Chapter shall return to that which we left, — at King Olaf 0f ^; ek Haraldsson having concluded peace with King Olaf the of Thiotto. Swedish king, and having the same summer gone north to Drontheim. He had then been king in Norway five years. In harvest time he prepared to take his winter residence at Nidaros, and he remained all winter there. Thorkel the Fosterer, Aamund's son, as before related, was all that winter with him. King Olaf inquired very carefully how it stood with Chris- tianity throughout the land, and learnt that it was not observed at all to the north of Halogaland, and was vol. 11. l
 * About 1069. t After 10 ^-