st thou not apprehend that thou art in such a condition
that, hereafter, there can be neither victory nor defeat for thee?'

_Hakon._ "'That is what only thou canst determine, King, according to
thy pleasure.'

_King._ "'What wilt thou give me, Jarl, if, for this time, I let thee
go, whole and unhurt?'

_Hakon._ "'What wilt thou take, King?'

_King._ "'Nothing, except that thou shalt leave the country; give up thy
kingdom; and take an oath that thou wilt never go into battle against
me.'" [12]

Jarl Hakon accepted the generous terms; went to England and King Knut,
and kept his bargain for a good few years; though he was at last driven,
by pressure of King Knut, to violate it,--little to his profit, as we
shall see. One victorious naval battle with Jarl Svein, Hakon's uncle,
and his adherents, who fled to Sweden, after his beating,--battle not
difficult to a skilful, hard-hitting king,--was pretty much all the
actual fighting Olaf had to do in this enterprise. He various times
met angry Bonders and refractory Things with arms in their hand; but by
skilful, firm management,--perfectly patient, but also perfectly ready
to be active,--he mostly managed without coming to strokes; and was
universally recognized by Norway as its real king. A promising young
man, and fit to be a king, thinks Snorro. Only of middle stature, almost
rather shortish; but firm-standing, and stout-built; so that they got
to call him Olaf the Thick (meaning Olaf the Thick-set, or Stout-built),
though his final epithet among them was infinitely higher. For the
rest, "a comely, earnest, prepossessing look; beautiful yellow hair in
quantity; broad, honest face, of a complexion pure as snow and rose;"
and finally (or firstly) "the brightest eyes in the world; such that,
in his anger, no man could stand them." He had a heavy task ahead, and
needed all his qualities and fine gifts to get it done.

CHAPTER X. REIGN OF KING OLAF THE SAINT.

The late two Jarls, now gone about their business, had both been
baptized, and called themselves Christians. But during their government
they did nothing in the conversion way; left every man to choose his own
God or Gods; so that some had actually two, the Christian God by land,
and at sea Thor, whom they considered safer in that element. And in
effect the mass of the people had fallen back into a sluggish heathenism
or half-heathenism, the life-labor of Olaf Tryggveson lying ruinous or
almost quite overset. T