Page:The Heimskringla; or, Chronicle of the Kings of Norway Vol 3.djvu/257

 KINGS OF NOEWAY. 245 Hamar's fiord, to the Gangdaga-thing.* They took all saga xiv. the goods that were at the farm, and a long-ship of twenty-two benches which belonged to Einar; and also his son, four years old, who was living with one of his labouring people. Some wanted to kill the boy, but others took him and carried him with them. The labouring man said, " It will not be lucky for you to kill the child; and it will be of no use to you to carry him away, for it is my son, and not Einar' s." And on his word they let the boy remain, and went aAvay. When Einar came home he gave the labourer money to the value of two ore of gold, thanked him for his clever invention, and promised him his con- stant friendship. So says Eric Oddsson^ who first wrote down this relation ; and he heard himself Einar Paalsson telling these circumstances in Bergen. Sigurd then went southward along the coast all the way east to Yiken, and met Finn Sauda-Ulfsson east at Kevelda, as he was engaged in drawing in King Inge's rents and duties, and hanged him. Then they sailed south to Denmark. The people of Yiken and of Bergen complained that Chapter it was wrong for King Sigurd and his friends to be of King sitting quietly north in the town of Nidaros, while ^"^^^'^ his father's murderer was cruising about in the ordi- King si- nary passage at the mouth of the Drontheim fiord ; ^""^ ' and King Inge and his people, on the other hand, were in Yiken in the midst of the danger, defend- ing, the country and holding many battles. Then King Inge sent a letter north to the merchant-town Nidaros, in which were these words: "King Inge Haraldsson sends his brother King Sigurd, as also Sada-Gyrder, Ogmund Swipte, Ottar Birking, and all lendermen, court-men, house-people, and all the Ascension Week, two weeks before Whitsuntide. 11 3
 * Gangdaga-thing — a Thing held in the procession days of the