Page:The Heimskringla; or, Chronicle of the Kings of Norway Vol 3.djvu/133

 KINGS OF NORWAY. 121 When he came to the gallows he said, ^' Bad counsel sagaxi. comes to a bad end." Then Thorer was hanged; but when he was hoisted up the gallows tree he was so heavy that his neck gave way, and the body fell down to the ground ; for Thorer was a man exceedingly stout, both high of stature and thick. Egil was also led to the gallows ; and when the king's thralls were about hanging him he said, " Ye should not hang me, for in truth each of you deserves much more to be hanged." People sang these verses about it: — ^' I hear, my girl, that Egil said, When to the gallows he was led. That the king's thralls far more than he Deserved to hang on gallows-tree. It might be so; but, death in view, A man should to himself be true, — End a stout life by death as stout. Showing no fear, or care, or doubt.'* King Magnus sat near while they were being hanged, and was in such a rage that none of his men was so bold as to ask mercy for them. The king said, when Egil was spinning at the gallows, '' Thy great friends help thee but poorly in time of need." From this people supposed that the king only wanted to have been en- treated to have spared Egil's life. Biorn the Cripple- hand speaks of these things : — " King Magnus in the robbers* gore Dyed red his sword ; and round the shore The wolves howled out their wild delight. At corpses swinging in their sight. Have ye not heard how the king's sword Punished the traitors to their lord ? How the king's thralls hung on the gallows Old Thorer and his traitor-fellows ? " After this Kiner Mao^nus sailed south to Drontheim, Chapter . . VII and brought up in the fiord, and punished severely ofthepu- all who had been guilty of treason towards him ; kill- "J-^JjJ^^"' ing some, and burning the houses of others. So says Drontheim Biorn Cripplehand : — ^^"^ ^*