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They claimed him as their king, calling him Hakon the Good, and he reigned in Norway for many years, nor did he seek to do any ill to his nephew, Triggvi Olafson, but confirmed him as king in Viken. "Now when Hakon the Good returned it was an ill day for his elder brother Erik Bloodaxe, for the people had become so wroth against him that he could find no peace.
These sons, as you may well suppose, had little goodwill for Hakon the Good, who had dispossessed them of their inheritance. The eldest of them had roved for a while as vikings, and were already skilled in warfare, so Gunnhild contrived to get them ships and followers, and sent them across to Viken, the part of Norway where, as I have said, King Triggvi Olafson reigned.
I am the son of King Triggvi Olafson, who was the grandson of King Harald Fairhair." At hearing these words the whole crowd of people arose with one accord and rent the air with their joyous greetings, for it needed no great proof for them to be assured that he was indeed of the race of the old kings of Norway.
He had made himself the king of all Norway, even as his father had been. Yet the people misliked him sorely, they were for ever striving to displace him and to set up Triggvi Olafson in his stead. Then Queen Gunnhild swore that, if Erik would not make his rule a certainty, she at least would not rest until she had exterminated all the race of Harald Fairhair outside of her husband's line."
And he determined in his mind very quickly, that when they were on the sea he would free himself from his chain and jump overboard and swim to land. But then came the thought that if he did this he would be quite alone in the world, and no one would ever believe him if he told them that he was the son of Triggvi Olafson, and perhaps he would again be taken into slavery.
You are the son of King Triggvi Olafson. It was you who, in your infancy, were pursued through the land by Queen Gunnhild's spies. It was you who, escaping from Sweden with your mother, were captured by Esthonian vikings and sold into slavery. Then, by some chance which I know not of, you were received at the court of King Valdemar the Sunny.
And then he looked yet more keenly into the boy's face, as if to seek some likeness there. "Even so," returned Olaf. "And what of that? Little good can it do me to be a king's son if I am also a slave, made to work hard for my daily portion of black bread and tough horse flesh. Triggvi is in Valhalla, with Harald Fairhair and the rest of them, and he cannot help me now.
Gunnhild was a very wily woman, and it might well be that she had secretly discovered the abiding place of the young son of King Triggvi, and that she had sent this man into Esthonia to entrap him. "Never again shall I be so free in telling my story to a stranger," said Olaf to himself. "Thorgils was wise to counsel me to keep secret my kinship with Triggvi Olafson.
Triggvi Olafson's widow, Queen Astrid, when she heard tidings of his murder, guessed rightly that Gunnhild would pursue her, so she fled from Viken, and journeyed north towards the Uplands, taking with her her two young daughters, Ingibiorg and Astrid, together with such chattels as she might have with her.
Howbeit, there now lives in Viken a woman who is said to be the widow of King Triggvi Astrid is her name and she has declared that her son Olaf is surely dead, else would he have come back to Norway of his own accord to claim his great inheritance."
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