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King Olaf crossed himself and said:
"I know that Odin the Great is dead;
Sure is the triumph of our Faith,
The one-eyed stranger was his wraith."
Dead rides Sir Morten of Fogelsang.

VII.-IRON-BEARD.

OLAF the King, one summer morn,
Blew a blast on his bugle-horn,

Sending his signal through the land of Drontheim.

And to the Hus-Ting held at Mere
Gathered the farmers far and near,

With their war weapons ready to confront him.
Ploughing under the morning star,
Old Iron-Beard in Yriar

Heard the summons, chuckling with a low laugh.
He wiped the sweat-drops from his brow,
Unharnessed his horses from the plough,
And clattering came on horseback to King Olaf.
He was the churliest of the churls;
Little he cared for king or earls;

Bitter as home-brewed ale were his foaming passions.
Hodden-gray was the garb he wore,

And by the Hammer of Thor he swore; He hated the narrow town, and all its fashions.

But he loved the freedom of his farm, His ale at night, by the fireside warm, Gudrun his daughter, with her flaxen tresses. He loved his horses and his herds,

The smell of the earth, and the song of birds, His well-filled barns, his brook with its water-cresses. Huge and cumbersome was his frame;

His beard, from which he took his name,
Frosty and fierce, like that of Hymer the Giant.

So at the Hus-Ting he appeared,
The farmer of Yriar, Iron-Beard,

On horseback, with an attitude defiant.

And to King Olaf he cried aloud,
Out of the middle of the crowd,

That tossed about him like a stormy ocean:
"Such sacrifices shalt thou bring,

To Odin and to Thor, O King,

As other kings have done in their devotion !"

King Olaf answered: "I command This land to be a Christian land; Here is my Bishop who the folk baptizes!

"But if you ask me to restore Your sacrifices, stained with gore, Then will I offer human sacrifices!

"Not slaves and peasants shall they be,
But men of note and high degree,

Such men as Orm of Lyra and Kar of Gryting!"

Then to their Temple strode he in,
And loud behind him heard the din

Of his men-at-arms and the peasants fiercely fighting.
There in the Temple, carved in wood,

The image of great Odin stood,

And other gods, with Thor supreme among them.

King Olaf smote them with the blade
Of his huge war-axe, gold-inlaid,

And downward shattered to the pavement flung them.
At the same moment rose without,
From the contending crowd, a shout,

A mingled sound of triumph and of wailing.

And there upon the trampled plain

The farmer Iron-Beard lay slain,

Midway between the assailed and the assailing.

King Olaf from the doorway spoke:
"Choose ye between two things, my folk,
To be baptized or given up to slaughter!"

And seeing their leader stark and dead,
The people with a murmur said,

"O King, baptize us with thy holy water!"

So all the Drontheim land became
A Christian land in name and fame,
In the old gods no more believing and trusting.

And as a blood-atonement, soon
King Olaf wed the fair Gudrun;

And thus in peace ended the Drontheim Hus-Ting!

VIII. GUDRUN.

ON King Olaf's bridal night

Shines the moon with tender light,
And across the chamber streams
Its tide of dreams.

At the fatal midnight hour,
When all evil things have power,
In the glimmer of the moon
Stands Gudrun.

Close against her heaving breast,
Something in her hand is pressed;
Like an icicle, its sheen

Is cold and keen.

On the cairn are fixed her eyes
Where her murdered father lies,
And a voice remote and drear
She seems to hear.

What a bridal night is this!
Cold will be the dagger's kiss;
Laden with the chill of death
Is its breath.

Like the drifting snow she sweeps
To the couch where Olaf sleeps;
Suddenly he wakes and stirs,
His eyes meet hers.

"What is that," King Olaf said,
"Gleams so bright above thy head?
Wherefore standest thou so white
In pale moonlight?"

""Tis the bodkin that I wear
When at night I bind my hair;
It woke me falling on the floor;
'Tis nothing more."

"Forests have ears, and fields have eyes; Often treachery lurking lies Underneath the fairest hair!

Gudrun beware!"

Ere the earliest peep of morn
Blew King Olaf's bugle-horn;
And forever sundered ride
Bridegroom and bride!

IX. THANGBRAND THE PRIEST.

SHORT of stature, large of limb,
Burly face and russet beard,
All the women stared at him,
When in Iceland he appeared.
"Look!" they said,

With nodding head,

"There goes Thangbrand, Olaf's Priest."

All the prayers he knew by rote,
He could preach like Chrysostome,
From the Fathers he could quote,
He had even been at Rome.
A learned clerk,

A man of mark,

Was this Thangbrand, Olaf's Priest.

He was quarrelsome and loud,
And impatient of control,
Boisterous in the market crowd,
Boisterous at the wassail-bowl,
Everywhere

Would drink and swear, Swaggering Thangbrand, Olaf's Priest.

In his house this malecontent
Could the King no longer bear,
So to Iceland he was sent

To convert the heathen there,
And away

One summer day

Sailed this Thangbrand, Olaf's Priest.

There in Iceland, c'er their books
Pored the people day and night,
But he did not like their looks,
Nor the songs they used to write.

66

"All this rhyme

Is waste of time!"

Grumbled Thangbrand, Olaf's Priest.

To the alehouse, where he sat,
Came the Scalds and Saga-men;
Is it to be wondered at,

That they quarrelled now and then,
When o'er his beer

Began to leer

Drunken Thangbrand, Olaf's Priest?

All the folk in Alftafiord

Boasted of their island grand;

Saying in a single word,

"Iceland is the finest land

That the sun

Doth shine upon!"

Loud laughed Thangbrand, Olaf's Priest.

And he answered: "What's the use
Of this bragging up and down,
When three women and one goose
Make a market in your town!"

Every Scald

Satires scrawled

On poor Thangbrand, Olaf's Priest.

Something worse they did than that;
And what vexed him most of all
Was a figure in shovel hat,

Drawn in charcoal on the wall;
With words that go
Sprawling below,

"This is Thangbrand, Olaf's Priest." Hardly knowing what he did,

Then he smote them might and main, Thorvald Veile and Veterlid

Lay there in the alehouse slain.
"To-day we are gold,
To-morrow mould!"

Muttered Thangbrand, Olaf's Priest.
Much in fear of axe and rope,
Back to Norway sailed he then.
"O, King Olaf! little hope

Is there of these Iceland men !"
Meekly said,

With bending head,

Pious Thangbrand, Olaf's Priest.

X.-RAUD THE STRONG.

"ALL the old gods are dead,

All the wild warlocks fled;

But the White Christ lives and reigns,

And throughout my wide domains
His Gospel shall be spread!"

On the Evangelists

Thus swore King Olaf.

But still in dreams of the night
Beheld he the crimson light,
And heard the voice that defied
Him who was crucified,

And challenged him to the fight.
To Sigurd the Bishop
King Olaf confessed it.

And Sigurd the Bishop said,
"The old gods are not dead,
For the great Thor still reigns,
And among the Jarls and Thanes
The old witchcraft still is spread."
Thus to King Olaf

Said Sigurd the Bishop.

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