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The evening which had thus grown so unexpectedly big with present facts and future portents had begun in a very small way in a way somewhat equivalent to the modern "small tea party". Ulf of Romsdal, feeling a disposition "to make a night of it", had propounded to Dame Astrid the idea of "going up to Haldorstede for the evening." His wife, being amiably disposed, agreed.
By this time the hay was all cut, and that portion which was sufficiently dry piled up, so Ulf and Haldor left the work to be finished by the younger hands, and stood together in the centre of the field chatting and looking on. Little change had taken place in the personal appearance of Ulf of Romsdal since the occasion of that memorable duel related in the first chapter of our story.
The man replied with look of scorn, "I am Einar, the son of King Thorkel of Denmark; and know thou for a certainty that many shall fall to avenge my death." Ulf said, "Art thou certainly Thorkel's son? Wilt thou now take thy life and peace?" "That depends," replied the Dane, "upon who it is that offers it." "He offers who has the power to give it Ulf of Romsdal."
Nowhere in Europe can one see such a variety of waterfalls as in Norway, for every district has its fos, and in some districts the cascades are innumerable. In the Romsdal, for instance, an English traveller once counted within a mile no fewer than seventy-three waterfalls, "none of which were less than 1,000 feet high, while some plunged down 2,000 feet."
Ulf of Romsdal did not die of his wounds, neither did he die of love. Disappointed love was then, as now, a terrible disease, but not necessarily fatal. Northmen were very sturdy in the olden time. They almost always recovered from that disease sooner or later.
While this was going on at the right wing, the left wing was led by Ulf of Romsdal and Glumm the Gruff; but Ulf's men were not so good as Haldor's men, for he was not so wise a man as Haldor, and did not manage his house so well. It was a common saying among the people of Horlingdal that Haldor had under him the most valiant men in Norway and as the master was, so were the men.
When his wounds were healed, Ulf married a fair girl of the Horlingdal district, and went to reside there, but his change of abode did not alter his title. He was always spoken of as Ulf of Romsdal. He and his old enemy Haldor the Fierce speedily became fast friends; and so was it with their wives, Astrid and Herfrida, who also took mightily to each other.
The work which was thus destined to mark the opening of a new era in Norwegian letters was written in the twenty-fifth year of its author's life. The son of a country pastor, Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson was born at Kvikne, December 8, 1832. At the age of six, his father was transferred to a new parish in the Romsdal, one of the most picturesque regions in Norway.
When it is said that Erling was a Sea-king, it is much as if we had said he was an admiral in a small way. Ulf of Romsdal had a daughter named Hilda. She was fair, and extremely pretty. The young men said that her brow was the habitation of the lily, her eye the mirror of the heavens, her cheek the dwelling-place of the rose.
Over the head of the valley, which here turns westward to the low water-shed dividing it from the famous Romsdal, rose two or three snow-streaked peaks of the Hurunger Fjeld; and the drifts filling the ravines of the mountains on our left descended lower and lower into the valley. At Dombaas, a lonely station at the foot of the Dovre Fjeld, we turned northward into the heart of the mountains.
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