n these conversion operations, and
became important to him, he did not even know of, and would have much
despised if he had. It was this: Sigrid, queen dowager of Sweden,
thought to be amongst the most shining women of the world, was also
known for one of the most imperious, revengeful, and relentless, and had
got for herself the name of Sigrid the Proud. In her high widowhood she
had naturally many wooers; but treated them in a manner unexampled. Two
of her suitors, a simultaneous Two, were, King Harald Graenske (a cousin
of King Tryggveson's, and kind of king in some district, by sufferance
of the late Hakon's),--this luckless Graenske and the then Russian
Sovereign as well, name not worth mentioning, were zealous suitors of
Queen Dowager Sigrid, and were perversely slow to accept the negative,
which in her heart was inexorable for both, though the expression of
it could not be quite so emphatic. By ill-luck for them they came
once,--from the far West, Graenske; from the far East, the Russian;--and
arrived both together at Sigrid's court, to prosecute their importunate,
and to her odious and tiresome suit; much, how very much, to her
impatience and disdain. She lodged them both in some old mansion, which
she had contiguous, and got compendiously furnished for them; and there,
I know not whether on the first or on the second, or on what following
night, this unparalleled Queen Sigrid had the house surrounded, set on
fire, and the two suitors and their people burnt to ashes! No more of
bother from these two at least! This appears to be a fact; and it could
not be unknown to Tryggveson.

In spite of which, however, there went from Tryggveson, who was now a
widower, some incipient marriage proposals to this proud widow; by
whom they were favorably received; as from the brightest man in all the
world, they might seem worth being. Now, in one of these anti-heathen
onslaughts of King Olaf's on the idol temples of Hakon--(I think it
was that case where Olaf's own battle-axe struck down the monstrous
refulgent Thor, and conquered an immense gold ring from the neck of him,
or from the door of his temple),--a huge gold ring, at any rate, had
come into Olaf's hands; and this he bethought him might be a pretty
present to Queen Sigrid, the now favorable, though the proud. Sigrid
received the ring with joy; fancied what a collar it would make for her
own fair neck; but noticed that her two goldsmiths, weighing it on their
fingers, e