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We left King Haakon VII Plateau, which lay there bathed in sunshine, as we had found it on our outward journey. The mean temperature during our sojourn there was 13° Centigrade. It seemed, however, as though the weather was much milder. I shall not tire you by a detailed description of our return, but shall limit myself to some of the interesting episodes.
It would be wiser and more manly to bear another kind of iron cold steel against the king's foes, and let God judge between them in that way." But Inga, the king's mother, declared that she was ready to endure the ordeal and Haakon consented to it.
That her stories were read and prized for at least a century and more is evident from the manuscripts five in number, and all of the thirteenth, or the beginning of the fourteenth, century which still exist. Her renown, too, had travelled even beyond the seas, for in about A.D. 1245 a translation of her lays into Norse was made by order of the king, Haakon the Fourth.
Evidently we were at the top of Possession Bay, and the island at that point could not be more than five miles across from the head of King Haakon Bay. Our rough chart was inaccurate. There was nothing for it but to start up the glacier again. That was about seven o'clock in the morning, and by nine o'clock we had more than recovered our lost ground.
Orm, her husband, refused to let her go and sent news of the outrage to all the peasants in the valley. From farm to farm flew the tidings, and the peasants, furious at the shameful deeds of the earl, seized their arms and gathered in a great band, which marched upon him at Medalhus. Earl Haakon was taken by surprise. He had not dreamed of a revolt and only a few men were with him.
"Once more they take us unawares," said Haakon to his men. "They are many and we are few. Never yet have we faced such odds. The danger lies before you. Are you ready to meet it? I am loath to flee before any force, but I leave it to the wise among you to decide."
Now it all came back and Hartigan shouted out the rede: "Haakon is dead! Haakon is dead! Haakon of the bronze-hilt sword is dead. His son's in his stead; Aymal, tall son of Haakon, Swings now the bronze-hilt sword of his father.
But with the death of Haakon the male line of King Harold's descendants was finally broken, and only a woman remained to represent that great royal stock, Princess Ingeborg, the daughter of King Haakon. This fair maiden was promised in marriage while still a child to Duke Erik, son of the late king of Sweden.
Egil had not long to wait for his curse to take effect, for Erik's reign was soon threatened from a new source. He had not killed all his brothers. In the old days of King Harold, when near seventy years old, he had married a new wife, who bore him a son whom he named Haakon, destined in later life to reign with the popular title of Haakon the Good.
Thus death claimed the noblest of the Norsemen, at once heathen and Christian, but in his life and deeds as in his death a great and good man. Chief among the nobles of Haakon the Good, of Norway, was Earl Sigurd of Hlade; and first among those who followed him was Earl Haakon, Sigurd's son.
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