United States or Dominica ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Gudrun's husband incites the Bonders to throw off the yoke of the licentious despot, Olaf Tryggvesson is proclaimed king, and the "great Jarl of Lade" is now a fugitive in the land he so lately ruled, accompanied by a single thrall, named Karker.
As we have here mentioned the three different classes that existed in Norway, it may be well to explain that the masters were peasants or "bonders", but not by any means similar to peasants in other lands; on the contrary, they were the udal-born proprietors of the soil the peasant-nobility, so to speak, the Udallers, or freeholders, without any superior lord, and were entitled to attend and have a voice in the "Things" or assemblies where the laws were enacted and public affairs regulated.
They said that they deemed the slain men were bonders of equal worth. Then Skapti asked, which was the first, the outlawry of Grettir or the slaying of Atli? So, when that was reckoned up, there was a week's space betwixt Grettir's outlawry at the Althing and the slaying of Atli, which befell just after it.
This was the news Olaf met on venturing out; and that his worst anticipations were not beyond the sad truth all, or almost all, the chief Bonders and men of weight in Norway had declared against him, and stood with triumphant Knut. Olaf, with his twelve poor ships, steered vigorously along the coast to collect money and force, if such could now anywhere be had.
Then the bonders deemed that things were taking a strange turn, and hailed those men and asked them who they were: Grettir named himself and his fellows withal: but the bonders asked who had brought him there. Grettir answered, "He who owned the keel and had the hands, and who was more my friend than yours."
Which tremendous message they even forwarded to Olaf, by Gudbrand's younger son at the head of 700 armed men; but did not terrify Olaf with it, who, on the contrary, drew up his troops, rode himself at the head of them, and began a speech to the Bonders, in which he invited them to adopt Christianity, as the one true faith for mortals.
"Great wonder had those of Dinby when thou wentest by e'en now unhooded, in the foul weather," said Noise, "as to whether thou wouldst have as little fear of men as of the cold: there were two bonders' sons, both men of great strength, and the shepherd called them forth to go to the sheep-watching with him, and scarcely could they clothe themselves for the cold."
His subjects, alienated by the sternness with which he administers his own severely religious laws, or corrupted by the bribes of Canute, king of Denmark and England, are fallen from their allegiance. The brave, single-hearted monarch is marching against the rebellious Bonders, at the head of a handful of foreign troops, and such as remained faithful among his own people.
Now at the folding time in the autumn Grettir went down to Flysia-wharf and got sheep for himself; he had laid hold on four wethers; but the bonders became ware of his ways and went after him; and these two things befell at the same time, that he got up under the fell-side, and that they came upon him, and would drive the sheep from him, yet bare they no weapon against him; they were six altogether, and stood thick in his path.
Take a sample or two of that wonderful conversion process: At one of his first Things he found the Bonders all assembled in arms; resolute to the death seemingly, against his proposal and him. Tryggveson said little; waited impassive, "What your reasons are, good men?"
Word Of The Day