| |
| OLAF the King, one summer morn, | |
| Blew a blast on his bugle-horn, | |
| Sending his signal through the land of Drontheim. | |
| |
| And to the Hus-Ting held at Mere | |
| Gathered the farmers far and near, | 5 |
| With their war-weapons ready to confront him. | |
| |
| Ploughing under the morning star, | |
| Old Iron-Beard in Yriar | |
| Heard the summons, chuckling with a low laugh. | |
| |
| He wiped the sweat-drops from his brow, | 10 |
| Unharnessed his horses from the plough, | |
| And clattering came on horseback to King Olaf. | |
| |
| He was the churliest of the churls; | |
| Little he cared for king or earls; | |
| Bitter as home-brewed ale were his foaming passions. | 15 |
| |
| Hodden-gray was the garb he wore, | |
| And by the Hammer of Thor he swore; | |
| He hated the narrow town, and all its fashions. | |
| |
| But he loved the freedom of his farm, | |
| His ale at night by the fireside warm, | 20 |
| Gudrun his daughter, with her flaxen tresses. | |
| |
| He loved his horses and his herds, | |
| The smell of the earth, and the song of birds, | |
| His well-filled barns, his brook with its water-cresses. | |
| |
| Huge and cumbersome was his frame; | 25 |
| His beard, from which he took his name, | |
| Frosty and fierce, like that of Hymer the Giant. | |
| |
| So at the Hus-Ting he appeared, | |
| The farmer of Yriar, Iron-Beard, | |
| On horseback, in an attitude defiant. | 30 |
| |
| And to King Olaf he cried aloud, | |
| Out of the middle of the crowd, | |
| That tossed about him like a stormy ocean: | |
| |
| “Such sacrifices shalt thou bring | |
| To Odin and to Thor, O King, | 35 |
| As other kings have done in their devotion!” | |
| |
| King Olaf answered: “I command | |
| This land to be a Christian land; | |
| Here is my Bishop who the folk baptizes! | |
| |
| “But if you ask me to restore | 40 |
| Your sacrifices, stained with gore, | |
| Then will I offer human sacrifices! | |
| |
| “Not slaves and peasants shall they be, | |
| But men of note and high degree, | |
| Such men as Orm of Lyra and Kar of Gryting!” | 45 |
| |
| Then to their Temple strode he in, | |
| And loud behind him heard the din | |
| Of his men-at-arms and the peasants fiercely fighting. | |
| |
| There in the Temple, carved in wood, | |
| The image of great Odin stood, | 50 |
| And other gods, with Thor supreme among them. | |
| |
| King Olaf smote them with the blade | |
| Of his huge war-axe, gold inlaid, | |
| And downward shattered to the pavement flung them. | |
| |
| At the same moment rose without | 55 |
| From the contending crowd a shout, | |
| A mingled sound of triumph and of wailing. | |
| |
| And there upon the trampled plain | |
| The farmer Iron-Beard lay slain, | |
| Midway between the assailed and the assailing. | 60 |
| |
| King Olaf from the doorway spoke: | |
| “Choose ye between two things, my folk, | |
| To be baptized or given up to slaughter!” | |
| |
| And seeing their leader stark and dead, | |
| The people with a murmur said, | 65 |
| “O King, baptize us with thy holy water!” | |
| |
| So all the Drontheim land became | |
| A Christian land in name and fame, | |
| In the old gods no more believing and trusting. | |
| |
| And as a blood-atonement, soon | 70 |
| King Olaf wed the fair Gudrun; | |
| And thus in peace ended the Drontheim Hus-Ting! | |
| |
