Page:The Heimskringla; or, Chronicle of the Kings of Norway Vol 2.djvu/313

 vision. KINGS OF NORWAY. 305 will advance you to great dignities ; but if ye will not saga vii. do so, return to your former vocation." Afarfaste said he would not take on Christianity, and he turned away. Then said Gauka-Thorkel, "It is a great shame that the king drives us thus away from his army, and I never before came where I was not received into the company of other people, and I shall never return back on this account." They joined accordingly the rear with other forest-men, and followed the troops. Thereafter the king proceeded west up to the keel- ridge of the country. Now when King Olaf, coming from the east, went Chapter over the keel-ridge and descended on the west side of the of Kino- ' Fielde, where it declines towards the sea, he could see 9¥^ s from thence far over the country. Many people rode before the king and many after, and he himself rode so that there was a free space around him. He was silent, and nobody spoke to him, and thus he rode a great part of the day without looking much about him. Then the bishop rode up to him, asked him why he was so silent, and what he was thinking of; for, in general, he was very cheerful, and very talk- ative on a journey to his men, so that all who were near him were merry. The king replied, full of thought, " Wonderful things have come into my mind a while ago. As I just iioav looked over Norway, out to the west from the Fielde, it came into my mind how many happy days I have had in that land. It appeared to me at first as if I saw over all the Dron- theim country, and then over all Norway ; and the longer this vision was before my eyes the farther, rae- thought, I saw, until I saw over the whole wide world, both land and sea. Well I know the places at which I have been in former days ; some even which I have only heard speak of, and some I saw of which I had never heard, both inhabited and uninhabited, in this VOL. II, x