Page:The Heimskringla; or, Chronicle of the Kings of Norway Vol 3.djvu/80

 68 CHRONICLE 0¥ THE SAGA IX. Chapter LXXII. Of Earl Hakon. Chapter LXXIIL Agreement between King Ha- rald and King Swend. up with all his men, had all his loose property re- moved from the farm to the forest, and all the people left the house in the night. When the king came he halted there all night ; but Hakon rode away, and came east to Sweden to King Steinkel, and staid with him all summer. King Harald returned to the town, travelled northwards to Drontheim district, and re- mained there all summer ; but in autumn he returned eastwards to Viken. As soon as Earl Hakon heard the king had gone north, he returned immediately in summer to the Uplands, and remained there until the king had returned from the north. Then the earl went east into Yermeland, where he remained during the winter, and where the Swedish king gave him fiefs. For a short time in winter he went west to Eauma- rige with a great troop of men from Gotland and Vermeland, and received the scatt and duties from the Upland people which belonged to him, and then returned to Gotland, and remained there till spring. King Harald had his seat in Opslo all winter, and sent his men to the Uplands to demand the scatt, together with the king's land dues, and the mulcts of court ; but the Uplanders said they would pay all the scatt and dues which they had to pay, to Earl Hakon as long as he was in life, and had not forfeited his life or his fief ; and the king got no land dues that winter. This winter messengers and embassadors went be- tween Norway and Denmark, whose errand was that both Northmen and Danes should make peace, and a league with each other, and to ask the kings to agree to it. These messages gave favourable hopes of a peace ; and the matter proceeded so far, that a meet- ing for peace was appointed at the Gotha river be- tween King Harald and King Swend. When spring approached, both kings assembled many ships and