Page:The Heimskringla; or, Chronicle of the Kings of Norway Vol 2.djvu/188

 IgO CHRONICLE OF THE saga vii. the king was doing, namely, plundering and burning, and saw the smoke and flame of their houses, they dispersed, and each hastened to his own home to see if he could find those he had left. As soon as there came a dispersion among the crowd, the one slipped away after the other, until the whole multitude was dissolved. Then the king rowed across the lake again, burning also on that side of the country. Now came the bonders to him begging for mercy, and offering to submit to him. He gave every man who came to him peace if he desired it, and restored to him his goods; and nobody refused to adopt Christianity. The king then had the people christened, and took hostages from the bonders. He ordered churches to be built and consecrated, and placed teachers in them. He remained a long time here in autumn, and had his ships drawn across the neck of land between the two lakes.* The king did not go far from the sides of the lakes into the country, for he did not much trust the bonders. When the king thought that frost might be expected, he went farther up the country, and came to Thoten. Arnor, the earl's scald, tells how King Olaf burnt in the Uplands, in the poem he composed concerning the king's brother King Harald : — " Against the Upland people wroth, Olaf, to most so mild, went forth : The houses burning, All people mourning; Who could not fly Hung on gallows high. It was, I think, in Olaf 's race The Upland people to oppress." Afterwards King Olaf went north through the val- leys to Dovreiield, and did not halt until he reached the Drontheim district and arrived at Nidaros, where the Myosen and the Sledre lakes.
 * The Eid, or neck of land between two lakes, is here the neck between