Page:The Heimskringla; or, Chronicle of the Kings of Norway Vol 2.djvu/297

 KINGS OF NORWAY. 289 and a man swung the axe to execute him ; but Jokul SAGA vit hearing the sound, raised his head, and the blow struck him in the head, and made a dreadful wound. As the king saw it would be his death-wound, he ordered them to let him lie with it. Jokul raised himself up, and he sang : — " My hard fate I mourn, — Alas ! my wounds burn, My red wounds are gaping, My life-blood escaping. My wounds burn sore; But I suffer still more From the king's angry word, Than his sharp-biting sword,'* Kalf Arneson went with Earl Hakon north to Chapter Drontheini, and the earl invited him to enter into his of Kaif service. Kalf said he would first go home to his farm Arneson - of Egge, and afterwards make his determination ; and Kalf did so. When he came home he found his wife Sigrid much irritated ; and she reckoned up all the sorrow inflicted on her, as she insisted, by King Olaf. First, he had ordered her first husband Olver to be killed. " And now since," says she, " my two sons ; and thou thyself, Kalf, wert present when they were cut off, and which I little expected from thee." Kalf says, it was much against his will that Thorer was killed. " I offered money -penalty for him," says he ; " and when Griotgard was killed, I lost my brother Arnbiorn at the same time." She replies, "It is well thou hast suffered this from the king ; for thou mayst perhaps avenge him, although thou wilt not avenge my in- juries. Thou sawest how thy foster- son Thorer was killed, with all the regard of the king for thee." She frequently brought out such vexatious speeches to Kalf, to which he often answered angrily ; but yet he allowed himself to be persuaded by her to enter into the earl's service, on condition of renewing his fiefs to him. Sigrid sent word to the earl how far she had vol. ir. u