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Updated: June 24, 2025
During the absence of Thorir from Norway, Hakon had committed certain acts which had gained for him the hatred and contempt of the whole nation. The peasants of Thrandheim were united in open rebellion against him; they had sent a war summons through the countryside, and had gathered in great numbers, intending to fall upon the Evil Earl and slay him.
So he went North to Thrandheim where the king was, and had heard the whole story before Grettir came, for many had been busy in slandering him. Grettir waited several days in the town before he was able to appear before the king. One day when the king was sitting in judgment Grettir came before him and saluted him respectfully. The king looked at him and said: "Are you Grettir the Strong?"
Believing every word that Thorir told him, and trusting in the man's seeming honesty, Olaf accepted the advice, and fared northward day and night until he came to Agdaness, at the mouth of the Thrandheim fiord, and here he made a landing. Now a great surprise was in store for Thorir Klakka.
But, as he could not be king by favour alone, he resolved to become so by other means. Two winters after Erik's enthronement his brother Halfdan died a sudden and painful death at a feast in Thrandheim. It is told that he was cunningly poisoned by Queen Gunnhild.
He therefore sent his messengers through all the lands bordering on Thrandheim fiord summoning a great meeting of the bonders at a place named Frosta. Now the bonders quickly guessed the meaning of this summons. They knew that the king would have them abandon their old customs and accept the new faith.
By their evil work Queen Gunnhild and the sons of Erik Bloodaxe had, as they thought, put an end to the family of Harald Fairhair, for they had lost all trace of Queen Astrid and her boy Olaf, and none remained to dispute the throne of Norway. In the province of Thrandheim, however, there reigned a certain Earl Sigurd, who yet gave them great trouble.
Olaf steered her out into the blue waters of Thrandheim Fiord, and then as the wind caught her sails the oars were shipped and she sped onward with such even speed that all were astonished. Not far had she gone when she came in sight of Olaf's other dragonship the Short Serpent, as she was now called which had been sent out an hour in advance.
"I, too, should be not ill pleased to be once more upon the open sea, although I shall be sorry to make an end to our close intercourse, for the sooner we sail the sooner must we part." "The parting need not be for long," said the king. "I am hoping that you will soon see your way to coming north to Thrandheim, there to spend many happy summer months with us.
"Northward he sallied with a vast army and conquered Orkadale, Trondelag, and Naumdale, and all the country about Thrandheim, making himself the overlord of all the old kings who thereafter became his earls and vassals. Those who would not be subdued he killed or maimed. He made new laws, took from the peasants their odal estates, and declared all land to be the king's property.
King Olaf then had his seat in Thrandheim, and Thorkell sought forthwith a meeting with King Olaf, and his son Gellir with him. They had there a good welcome. So highly was Thorkell accounted of that winter by the king, that all folk tell that the king gave him not less than one hundred marks of refined silver. The king gave to Gellir at Yule a cloak, the most precious and excellent of gifts.
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