Page:The Heimskringla; or, Chronicle of the Kings of Norway Vol 3.djvu/187

 KINGS OF NORWAY. 175 son was Sigurd Ostraad, a lenderman, and father to saga xh. John who was married to Sigrid, a sister of King Inge Baardsson. After Olaf's death, Eystein and Sigurd ruled the country, the three brothers together having been kings of Norway for twelve years ; namely, five years after King Sigurd returned home, and seven years before. King Olaf was seventeen years old when he died, and it happened on the 24th of December. King Eystein had been about a year in the east part of the country at that time, and King Sigurd was then in the north. King Eystein re- mained a long time that winter in Sarpsburg. There was once a powerful and rich bonder called 5xiii'^ Olaf of Dal, who dwelt in Great Dal in Aamord*, Magnus and had two children, — a son called Hakon Fauk, and his birth. '' a daughter called Borghild, who was a very beautiful girl, and prudent, and well skilled in many things. Olaf and his children were a long time in winter in Sarpsburg, and Borghild conversed very often with King Eystein ; so that many reports were spread about their friendship. The following summer King Eystein went north, and King Sigurd came eastward, where he remained all winter, and was long in Kong- helle, which town he greatly enlarged and improved. He built there a great castle of turf and stone, dug a great ditch around it, and built a church and several houses within the castle. The holy cross he allowed to remain at Konghelle, and therein did not fulfil the oath he had taken in Palestine ; but, on the other hand, he established tithe, and most of the other things to which he had bound himself by oath. The reason of his keeping the cross east at the frontier of the country was, that he thought it would be a pro- tection to all the land ; but it proved the greatest misfortune to place this relic within the power of the heathens, as it afterwards turned out.
 * Somewhere about Fredericstad.