main and hold their
properties, but no mulct should be paid for Svein's wound.

Then Sigurd Sigurdson asked if the king wished that he should go forth
out of the country.

"That will I not," said the king; "for I can never be without thee."

38. OF KING OLAF'S MIRACLE.

There was a young and poor man called Kolbein; and Thora, King Sigurd
the Crusader's mother, had ordered his tongue to be cut out of his
mouth, and for no other cause than that this young man had taken a piece
of meat out of the king-mother's tub which he said the cook had given
him, and which the cook had not ventured to serve up to her. The man had
long gone about speechless. So says Einar Skulason in Olaf's ballad:--

"The proud rich dame, for little cause,
Had the lad's tongue cut from his jaws:
The helpless man, of speech deprived,
His dreadful sore wound scarce survived.
A few weeks since at Hild was seen,
As well as ever he had been,
The same poor lad--to speech restored
By Olaf's power, whom he adored."

Afterwards the young man came to Nidaros, and watched in the Christ
church; but at the second mass for Olaf before matins he fell asleep,
and thought he saw King Olaf the Saint coming to him; and that Olaf
talked to him, and took hold with his hands of the stump of his tongue
and pulled it. Now when he awoke he found himself restored, and joyfully
did he thank our Lord and the holy Saint Olaf, who had pitied and helped
him; for he had come there speechless, and had gone to the holy shrine,
and went away cured, and with his speech clear and distinct.

39. KING OLAF'S MIRACLE WITH A PRISONER.

The heathens took prisoner a young man of Danish family and carried him
to Vindland, where he was in fetters along with other prisoners. In
the day-time he was alone in irons, without a guard; but at night a
peasant's son was beside him in the chain, that he might not escape from
them. This poor man never got sleep or rest from vexation and sorrow,
and considered in many ways what could help him; for he had a great
dread of slavery, and was pining with hunger and torture. He could not
again expect to be ransomed by his friends, as they had already restored
him twice from heathen lands with their own money; and he well knew that
it would be difficult and expensive for them to submit a third time to
this burden. It is well with the man who does not undergo so much in the
world as this man knew he ha