Page:The Heimskringla; or, Chronicle of the Kings of Norway Vol 3.djvu/248

 236 CHRONICLE OF THE SAGA XIV. The painted shield, and steel-plate mail. Before thy fierce attack soon fail. To iVJagnus, who belongs to heaven, ^Vas no such fame in battle given." Magnus fled eastward to Gotland to Earl Karl, Avho was a great and ambitious man. Magnus the Blind and his men said, wherever they happened to meet with chiefs, that Norway lay quite open to any great chieftain who would attack it ; for it might well be said there was no king in the country, and the kingdom was only ruled by lendermen, and, among those who had most sway, there was, from mutual jealousy, most discord. Now Karl, being am- bitious of power, listens willingly to such speeches ; collects men, and rides west to Yiken, where many people, out of fear, submit to him. "When Thiodolf Aleson and Amund heard of this, they went with the men they could get together, and took King Inge with them. They met Earl Karl and the Gotland army eastward in Krogskoven, where there was a great battle and a great defeat, King Inge gaining the victory. Munan Ogmundsson, Earl Karl's mother's brother, fell there. Ogmund the father of Munan was a son of Earl Orm Eilifsson, and Sigrid a daughter of Earl Finn Arneson. Astrid, Ogmund's daughter, was the mother of Earl Karl. Many others of the Gotland people fell at Krogskoven ; and the earl fled eastward though the forest. King Inge pursued them all the way out of the kingdom ; and this expedition turned out a great disgrace to them. So says Kolli : — " I must proclaim how our great lord Coloured deep red his ice-cold sword ; And ravens played with Gotland bones, And wolves heard Gotlanders' last groans, 'JMieir silly jests were well repaid,-^ In Kroka-skov their laugh was laid: 'I'hy battle power was then well tried. And they who won may now deride."