ribute.

|| In the days that were to come after waxed Earl Eirik, and men knew him
as a mighty chieftain. All this while abode Olaf Tryggvason in Garda,
at the court of King Valdamar, where he had much honour & enjoyed the
faithful love of the Queen.

King Valdamar made him lord of the host which he sent out for the
defence of his country, and for him fought Olaf divers battles and
proved himself to be an able captain, and himself maintained a large
host of warriors on the fiefs allotted to him by the King. Of no
niggardly disposition, Olaf was ever openhanded to the men that were
with him and who for this self-same reason held him in affection; but as
oft times happens when men who are not of the country are exalted to
power, or are so greatly honoured that they take the lead of the men of
the land, many there were who envied him the love he had of the King,
& even so much the more that of the Queen.

Spake many men of that matter to the King, charging him to beware lest
he should make Olaf over great: 'For a man of the kind might be harmful
to thee, would he lend himself to such a deed as to make thee and thy
realms suffer, so crafty & beloved of men is he; nor wot we what he &
the Queen have thus oft whereon to commune one with the other.'

|| Now it was in those days generally the custom among great kings for
the queen to possess half the court and to maintain it at her own
charge, and for this purpose levied she her taxes and dues, in amount as
much as she stood in need therefor. In this wise was it also with King
Valdamar.

The Queen held no less splendid a court than pertained to the King, and
vied they one with the other as to which might procure men of prowess,
each having it at heart to possess such men for themselves. Now it
happened that the King gave heed unto words of this fashion, which men
spake unto him, & he waxed silent and with countenance aloof from Olaf.
And Olaf marking it well spake thereof to the Queen, and opened to her
likewise how that it was the desire of his heart to journey even unto
the north. His kin, said he, had held dominion there in days of yore,
& therefore he thought it likeliest that he would there obtain the more
advancement.

So the Queen bade him farewell, saying that wheresoever he might chance
to tarry there would all deem him a man of prowess.

Olaf thereafter made him ready for his journey, went aboard his ship,
and stood out into the Eystrasalt (the Baltic). Th