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Updated: June 1, 2025
It was at a great feast that Sigvald made the rash vow which led to this mighty battle. After the horn of mead had been handed round not once or twice only, Sigvald arose and vowed that, before three winters had passed, he and his band would go to Norway and either kill or chase Earl Hakon out of the country.
He was a venerable figure, conspicuous by his long, wintry locks and embroidered cloak of blue, straight as a spear-shaft, but grown too old for warfare. His hand rested on the shoulder of Earl Sigvald of Askland, a bluff old warrior, long the king's most faithful counsellor and companion in arms.
"Thou shalt have all this cattle," cried one of the vikings, "if thou wilt show us the way to the jarl." Then the peasant went on board the vikings' boat, and they hastened to Sigvald to tell him that the earl lay in a bay but a little way off.
"Nay, rather ask her what her errand is about," said Estein. "And tell her," added Helgi as the bird-man turned away, "that here sits the king's foster-brother, a most proper person at all times to hear a maiden's tale, and now most persuasively charged with ale." The man went down the hall again, and Earl Sigvald exclaimed testily,
The others who had sailed with them laid no such restraint on their tongues, and stories of a spell and an Orkney witch, vague and contradictory, but none the less eagerly listened to and often repeated, went the round of the country. The king at last began to take alarm, and one day he called Earl Sigvald to him and talked with him alone.
He met Earl Sigvald on the pier, and by the light of a lantern he saw that the old man's face was grave and sad. "Steel your heart to hear ill tidings, King Estein," he said. The "King" smote upon Estein's ears like a knell, and he guessed the earl's news before he heard it. "King Hakon joined his fathers three days past," said the earl.
Estein's words were few and unsteady with emotion, and those who heard them wondered at their meaning. "Fare thee well, my father! I will yet keep my promise to thee!" Loudest of all cried Earl Sigvald, "May Odin be as good a friend to thee as thou hast been to me! Keep me a place beside thee, Hakon.
As another winter passed, he gradually seemed to come to himself. He was sadder and more reserved than of yore, but the king saw with joy that the gloom was lifting. One day in the season when spring and winter overlap, and the snow melts by day and hardens again over-night, Earl Sigvald returned to Hakonstad from his seat by a northern fiord. King Hakon greeted him cheerfully.
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