ple, there having risen at a Yule-feast, loud,
almost stormful demand that Hakon, like a true man and brother, should
drink Yule-beer with them in their sacred hightide, Sigurd persuaded him
to comply, for peace's sake, at least, in form. Hakon took the cup in
his left hand (excellent hot _beer_), and with his right cut the sign
of the cross above it, then drank a draught. "Yes; but what is this with
the king's right hand?" cried the company. "Don't you see?" answered
shifty Sigurd; "he makes the sign of Thor's hammer before drinking!"
which quenched the matter for the time.

Horse-flesh, horse-broth, and the horse ingredient generally, Hakon all
but inexorably declined. By Sigurd's pressing exhortation and entreaty,
he did once take a kettle of horsebroth by the handle, with a good deal
of linen-quilt or towel interposed, and did open his lips for what of
steam could insinuate itself. At another time he consented to a particle
of horse-liver, intending privately, I guess, to keep it outside the
gullet, and smuggle it away without swallowing; but farther than this
not even Sigurd could persuade him to go. At the Things held in regard
to this matter Hakon's success was always incomplete; now and then it
was plain failure, and Hakon had to draw back till a better time. Here
is one specimen of the response he got on such an occasion; curious
specimen, withal, of antique parliamentary eloquence from an
Anti-Christian Thing.

At a Thing of all the Fylkes of Trondhjem, Thing held at Froste in that
region, King Hakon, with all the eloquence he had, signified that it was
imperatively necessary that all Bonders and sub-Bonders should become
Christians, and believe in one God, Christ the Son of Mary; renouncing
entirely blood sacrifices and heathen idols; should keep every seventh
day holy, abstain from labor that day, and even from food, devoting the
day to fasting and sacred meditation. Whereupon, by way of universal
answer, arose a confused universal murmur of entire dissent. "Take away
from us our old belief, and also our time for labor!" murmured they in
angry astonishment; "how can even the land be got tilled in that way?"
"We cannot work if we don't get food," said the hand laborers and
slaves. "It lies in King Hakon's blood," remarked others; "his father
and all his kindred were apt to be stingy about food, though liberal
enough with money." At length, one Osbjorn (or Bear of the Asen or Gods,
what we now call Osborne),