Page:The Heimskringla; or, Chronicle of the Kings of Norway Vol 3.djvu/262

 250 CHRONICLE OF THE SAGA XIV troops that he was taken, the army set up a shout of joy. When Sigurd heard it he said, " Many a bad man will rejoice over my head this day." Then Thiostolf Aleson went to where Sigurd was sitting, struck from his head a silk hat edged with silver fringes, and said, " Why wert thou so impudent, thou son of a slave ! to dare to call thyself King Magnus Barefoot' s son ?" Sigurd replied, " Presume not to compare my father to a slave ; for thy father was of little worth compared to mine." Hall, a son of the doctor Thorgeir Steinsson, King Inge's court-man, was present at this circumstance, and told it to EricOddsson, who afterwards wrote these relations in a book, which he called  Back Pieces." In this book is told all concerning Harald Gille and his sons, and Magnus the Blind, and Sigurd Slembi- diakn, until their deaths. Eric was a sensible man, who was long in Norway about that time. Some of his narratives he wrote down from Hakon Mage's account ; some were from the lendermen of Harald' s sons, who along with his sons were in all this feud, and in all the councils. Eric names, moreover, several men of understanding and veracity, who told him these accounts, and were so near that they saw or heard all that happened. Something he wrote from Avhat he himself had heard or seen. ^xiT ^^^^^ ^^y^ ^^^* ^^^ chiefs wished to have Sigurd Tortures killed iustautly; but the men who were the most siembc. cruel, and tliought they had injuries to avenge, ad- vised torturing him ; and for this they named Bein- tcin's brothers, Sigurd and Gyrder the sons of Kolbein. Peter Jjyrdar-Swend would also avenge his brother Finn. J^ut the chiefs and the greater part of the people Avent away. They broke his shin-bones and nrms with an axe-hammer. Then they stripped him, and would flay him alive ; but when they tried to