Page:The Heimskringla; or, Chronicle of the Kings of Norway Vol 2.djvu/161

 KINGS OF NORWAY. 153 favour. The wife whom Olver of Egge* had left saga vii. was young and handsome, of great family, and rich, so that he who got her might be considered to have made an excellent marriage ; and her land was in the gift of the king. She and Olver had two sons, who were still in infancy. Kalf Arneson begged of the king that he would give him to wife the widow of Olver ; and out of friendship the king agreed to it, and with her he got all the property Olver had pos- sessed. The king at the same time made him his lenderman, and gave him an office in the interior of the Drontheim country. Kalf became a great chief, and was a man of very great understanding. When Kino- Olaf had been seven years in Norway Chapter CX VII the earls Thorfinn and Bruse came to him, as before King related, in the summer, from Orkney, and he became olats 7 ' J > journey to master of their land. The same summer Olaf went to the u P - North and South More, and in autumn to Raumsdal. He left his ships there, and came to the Uplands, and to Lesso. Here he laid hold of all the best men, and forced them, both at Lesso and Dovre, either to re- ceive Christianity or suffer death, if they were not so lucky as to escape. After they received Christianity, the king took their sons in his hands as hostages for their fidelity. The king staid several nights at a farm in Lesso called Bover, where he placed priests. Then he proceeded over Orkedal and Liardal, and came down from the Uplands at a place called Stafa- breka. There a river runs along the valley, called the Otta, and a beautiful hamlet, by name Loar, lies on both sides of the river, and the king could see far down over the whole neighbourhood. " A pity it is," said the king, " so beautiful a hamlet should be burnt." And he proceeded down the valley with his people, ceding chapter, is the farm of Egge, near Stenkiaer, at the head of the Drontheim fiord.
 * Egge, the estate of Olver, whose murder is related in the pre-