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58 own valley the peasants gathered and swore to avenge the insult.

In fear of the threatening bands of armed peasants that constantly greeted them, Erlend persuaded his father to send Aasa to the house of Thora, Earl Haakon’s favorite. Here poor Aasa remained in tears and sorrow, while Thora, furiously angry at her presence, devised some means to carry out Erlend’s suggestion that Aasa be sent back to her husband. But events were rapidly hastening. Scarcely had Erlend sent the wife of Brynjulf to Rimul, and had, as he hoped, removed the cause of the anger of the peasants, when Earl Haakon again sent Kark to bring him the wife of a wealthy yeoman named Orme Lyrja. Warned by the experience of Brynjulf, Lyrja kept the thralls by feasting them, until he had gathered a formidable array of his neighbors. Then he drove out the thralls of Jarl Haakon with jeers of contempt for them and for their master. This was the beginning of the great uprising of the peasants of Norway, that ended in disaster for the wicked earl.

To the door of every yeoman in Gauldale came the war arrow, bidding every hind prepare for battle. The arrow was drawn out of the door where it had been stuck by the messenger, and each man again stuck it in his neighbor’s door. Banded together under the leadership of Orme Lyrja, they marched to Medalhaus to find Earl Haakon.