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I cannot be altogether certain that he will shelter one who has broken Olaf's laws. Tyrker advises me, by Saint Michael, you are all as wise as Mimir!" He flung the crust from him with a gesture of good-humored impatience. "Do you all think I am a fool, that I do not know what I am doing? It appears that you forget that Leif Ericsson is my foster-father."
His son was Solmund, the father of Kari the Singed; father and son dwelt abroad a long time afterwards. Thrand bade Onund and Olaf to his house, and so did Thormod Shaft, and they backed Olaf's wooing, which was settled with ease, because men knew how mighty a woman Aud was. So the bargain was made, and, so much being done, Onund rode home, and Aud thanked him well for his help to Olaf.
In the meantime Sweyn's other ships not one of which was larger than the smallest of King Olaf's eleven dragons made a vigorous onset upon Olaf's left and right wings.
At his feet lay Einar Eindridson, a sturdy lad of sixteen years, whom Olaf had adopted as his favourite page and cup bearer, even as he himself had been adopted by King Valdemar. Between the folds of the silken curtains that overhung the open air spaces in the wall the light of the full moon came in, falling upon King Olaf's handsome face and long golden hair.
For, see all the Danes from the bridge are going to help." So it was, and from the deck of Olaf's ship I looked on at the fight for half an hour. At one time I thought that we had won the place, for our men charged valiantly through the moat and up the steep sides of the earthworks. There waited for them the Danish axes, and an axeman behind a wall is equal to two men below him.
"It seems to me," said Sweyn, on a certain morning when they were talking this matter over, "that the fairest way of all would be that we should cast lots or throw the dice; and let it be that he who throws the highest shall be first to attack King Olaf's own ship." So they brought out the dice box and each cast his lot in turn. Earl Erik threw a two and a five.
It seemed for a long time that they could come to no agreement; but finally the matter was so arranged that the gold was delivered into Olaf's hands and the messengers departed, with a mere half promise of peace and the assurance that Olaf would remove his ships within twenty days. Olaf did not hold himself bound to keep these conditions; nevertheless he resolved to abide by them.
Here was a school of splashing swimmers; there, a fleet of fishing-smacks; a provision-ship loading for a cruise as consort to one of the great war vessels. They passed King Olaf's ship-sheds, where fine new boats were building, and one brilliantly-painted cruiser stood on the rollers all ready for the launching.
But he feasted us for two days before he would speak a word with Olaf as to what he had come to ask him, saying that it was enough for him to see the bridge breaker and the taker of Canterbury town, and to do him honour. For Olaf's fame had gone widely through all England.
The doctrine of peace upon earth was set forth as one of the first principles of Olaf's mission, and he was never tired of showing that, while Odin and Thor took pleasure in bloodshed and rejoiced in war, Christ the White was a lover of peace, and accorded no merit to the manslayer.
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