Page:The Heimskringla; or, Chronicle of the Kings of Norway Vol 3.djvu/234

 222 CHRONICLE OF THE SAGA XIII. Vitli 2freat zeal for the God to whom it is dedicated; but, me thinks, he has shown little regard for the town or house : so I see their God has been angry at those who defended them." King Rettibur gave the priest Andreas the church, the shrine, the holy cross, the Bible, the altar-book, and four clerks (prisoners); but the heathens burnt the Castle-church, and all the houses that were in the castle. As the fire they had set to the church went out twice, they hewed the church down, and then it burnt like other houses. Then the heathens went to their ships with the booty ; but when they mustered their people and saw their loss, they made prisoners of all the people, and divided them among the vessels. Now Priest Andreas went on board the king's ship with the holy cross, and there came a great terror over the heathens on account of the por- tentous circumstance which took place in the king's ship ; namely, it became so hot that all thought they were going to be burnt up. The king ordered the interpreter to ask the priest why this happened. He replied, that the Almighty God on whom the Christians believed, sent them a proof of his anger, that they who would not believe in their Creator pre- sumed to lay hands on the emblem of his suffering ; and that there lay so much power in the cross, that such, and even clearer miracles, happened to heathen men who had taken the cross in their hands. The king had the priest put into the ship's boat, and the priest Andreas carried the holy cross in his grasp. ^ They led the boat along past the ship's bow, and then along the side of the next ship, and then shoved it with a boat-hook in beside the pier. Then An- dreas went with the cross by night to Solberg, in rain and dreadful weather; but brought it in good preservation. King Kettibur, and the men he had remaining, went home to Vendland, and many of the people who were taken at Konghelle were long after-