So says Sigvat:--

"The king, who at the helm guides
His warlike ship through clashing tides,
Now gives one law for all the land--
A heavenly law, which long will stand."

King Olaf was a good and very gentle man, of little speech, and
open-handed although greedy of money. Sigvat the skald, as before
related, was in King Olaf's house, and several Iceland men. The king
asked particularly how Christianity was observed in Iceland, and it
appeared to him to be very far from where it ought to be; for, as
to observing Christian practices, it was told the king that it was
permitted there to eat horse-flesh, to expose infants as heathens do,
besides many other things contrary to Christianity. They also told the
king about many principal men who were then in Iceland. Skapte Thorodson
was then the lagman of the country. He inquired also of those who were
best acquainted with it about the state of people in other distant
countries; and his inquiries turned principally on how Christianity was
observed in the Orkney, Shetland, and Farey Islands: and, as far as
he could learn, it was far from being as he could have wished. Such
conversation was usually carried on by him; or else he spoke about the
laws and rights of the country.

57. KING OLAF'S MESSENGERS.

The same winter (A.D. 1016) came messengers from the Swedish king,
Olaf the Swede, out of Svithjod: and their leaders were two brothers,
Thorgaut Skarde and Asgaut the bailiff; and they, had twenty-four men
with them, when they came from the eastward, over the ridge of the
country down into Veradal, they summoned a Thing of the bondes, talked
to them, and demanded of them scat and duties upon account of the king
of Sweden. But the bondes, after consulting with each other, determined
only to pay the scat which the Swedish king required in so far as King
Olaf required none upon his account, but refused to pay scat to both.
The messengers proceeded farther down the valley; but received at every
Thing they held the same answer, and no money. They went forward to
Skaun, held a Thing there, and demanded scat; but it went there as
before. Then they came to Stjoradal, and summoned a Thing, but the
bondes would not come to it. Now the messengers saw that their business
was a failure; and Thorgaut proposed that they should turn about, and go
eastward again. "I do not think," says Asgaut, "that we have performed
the king's errand unless we go to King Olaf the