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"It has been so long since I saw the flash of sword that I feared I would die in my bed of old age, though it has been my hope to fall in battle at my chieftain's back. Now will my wish be gained." To land came the sons of Erik, having six men to Haakon's one.
Certainly it gives to the town a low look anything but imposing. Whatever may be the esthetic shortcomings of King Haakon's coronation city, it was amply atoned for by the enthusiasm and whole-hearted devotion of his new people. The king and queen are in very truth "the father and mother of the land."
The latter Thore did, finding Olaf ready for any new adventure, and under Thore's treacherous advice he sailed with five ships and landed in Hördaland, where Haakon's power was the greatest, and thence sailed northward to Tröndelag where the earl was and where he hoped to take him by surprise.
Only Vagn Aakesson and Bue the Big were left to keep up the fight. Yet they kept it up in a way to win them fame. When Earl Haakon's ship drew up beside that of Bue, two of the viking champions, Haavard the Hewer and Aslak Rock-skull, leaped on deck and made terrible havoc.
Driven out by the smoke and heat, Skule stepped from the gate, holding his shield above his head and saying: "Strike me not in the face; for it is not right to treat warriors thus." In a minute more he lay dead, slain by Birchleg swords. The next act in King Haakon's reign was to have himself crowned king, and thus to rid himself of the blot on his claim to the throne.
Skreyja bounded towards him and struck a furious blow, but it was turned aside by a Norse warrior and at the same instant Haakon's sword cleft the foeman's head down to the shoulders. This kingly stroke gave new spirit to the Norsemen and they rushed with double fury upon the foe, whom the fall of their best warrior filled with fear.
King Haakon's friends sought to put an end to this secret plotting by arranging a marriage between the young monarch and Earl Skule's still younger daughter Margaret. But this did not check him in his plots, and he finally set sail for Denmark to try and get aid from King Valdemar.
At once, forgetting his quarrel with his father, he hastened north with all the men he could gather to Earl Haakon's aid, preceding the Jomsvikings, who were sailing slowly up the shores of Norway, plundering as they went in their usual fashion. They had a fleet of sixty ships and a force of over seven thousand well-trained warriors.
But Haakon's worst foe was Earl Skule, who continued his plots and intrigues, and who was supported by the clergy, these saying they had doubts if the boy was really the son of the elder Haakon and grandson of King Sverre. Such things were not in those days usually settled in courts of law, but by what was called the ordeal, one form of which was to walk barefoot over red-hot irons.
Harold, Gunhild's third son, commanded the invaders, who far outnumbered Haakon's small force. And now there was no Egil to defeat the foe by stratagem, but the battle was hand to hand and face to face, with stroke of sword and thrust of spear, the war-shout of the fighters and the death-wail of the fallen. King Haakon that day showed himself a true and heroic warrior.
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