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Updated: June 20, 2025
Everywhere it was told how, having by help of his mother's bravery escaped the wrath of the wicked Queen Gunnhild, he had lived as a slave in Esthonia, how he had been rescued by Sigurd Erikson and educated at the court of King Valdemar, how he had roved as a viking on the Baltic, and, after invading England, had at last come back to his native land to claim his own.
"No longer could Queen Gunnhild hope to dwell at peace in England. Her husband's estates were forfeited, and she had no home. So she took her children and sailed east to Denmark. There she was well received by the Danish king, Harald Bluetooth. But in spite of her misfortune her ambitions were not dead, for she had many sons growing up, and she had a mind to make them all kings in Norway.
Now it came into my mind that the thrall was not so far wrong, and that there was a chance that Gunnhild might have some hiding place among those woods about the mere, for no man willingly searches them, and Danes fear these places more than we, being heathenish altogether. So I asked Brand if the Danes knew about the White Lady. "Ay, master, they soon learned that.
They had many battles with Triggvi, but they could not conquer him. But at last King Hakon came to his nephew's help, and with him pursued the sons of Gunnhild into Denmark. "This attack upon Danish soil brought about a war between the kings of Denmark and Norway, and in a battle at Sotoness Triggvi Olafson was defeated. He was forced to abandon his ships and save himself by flight.
But then I would not keep back what Ailwin had said, for Olaf might have advice for me. Therefore I sat down and told them all the story of my talks with the priest and the thrall, adding that I was the more sure that Gunnhild was hard by, because Ailwin had said that it was but yesterday she had given him the message for me. Then Olaf said: "Cousin, I think these two old folk are right.
As he worked he asked himself who the tall man could be who had spoken with him last night upon the beach, and he began to regret that he had told so much, believing now that the stranger might be an enemy perhaps even a spy of the wicked Queen Gunnhild, who had so often sought to add to her own security by clearing her path of all who had power to dispute her rights.
"Now, while Hakon was away in England, his elder brother, Erik Bloodaxe, went a-warring in his viking ships to many lands Scotland, Wales, Ireland, and Normandy, and north away in Finland. And in Finland he found a certain woman, the like of whom he had never seen for fairness in all his roamings. She was named Gunnhild, and had learned all kinds of sorcery and witchcraft among the Finns.
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.
The half-Danish and Danish folk of the East Angles owned Swein as king, though not willingly, and a housecarle from Wormingford made his way to us with word from Gunnhild that set our minds at rest. Truly our hall and Osgod's had been burnt by parties from the Danish host, and for a time the danger was great, for Swein's vengeance for his sister's death was terrible.
First, we have a portrait of the young Ragnvald as Kali Kolson in his youth at Agdir in Norway, with his mother Gunnhild, sister of Jarl St. Magnus Erlend's son, and his shrewd old father Kol.
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