Page:The Heimskringla; or, Chronicle of the Kings of Norway Vol 2.djvu/318

 310 SAGA VII. CHRONICLE OF THE I may advise. We should go with armed hand over all the inhabited places, plunder all the goods, and burn all the habitations, and leave not a hut standing, and thus punish the bonders for their treason against their sovereign. I think many a man will then cast himself loose from the bonders' army, when he sees smoke and flame at home on his farm, and does not know how it is going with children, wives, or old men, fathers, mothers, and other connections. I expect also," he added, " that if we succeed in breaking the assembled host, their ranks will soon be thinned ; for so it is with the bonders, that the counsel which is the newest is always the dearest to them all, and most followed." When Finn had ended his speech it met with general applause ; for many thought well of such a good occasion to make booty, and all thought the bonders well deserved to suffer damage; and they also thought it probable, what Finn said, that many would in this way be brought to forsake the assem- bled army of the bonders. Thormod Kolbrunarscald made these verses to the same effect : — " Fire house and hut throughout the land ! Burn all around, our mountain-band ! And with our good swords stout and bold The king's own we'll win back, and hold. The Drontheimers should nothing find But ashes whirling in the wind, Where houses stood — what melts the ice Should burn the hut, by my advice." Now when the king heard the warm expressions of his people he told them to listen to him, and said, " The bonders have well deserved that it should be done to them as ye desire. They also know that I have formerly done so, burning their habitations, and punishing them severely in many ways ; but then I proceeded against them with fire and sword because they rejected the true faith, betook themselves to sacrifices, and would not obey my commands. We