den
and sought Olaf, with the grisly trophy in his hand.

Olaf heard his story with lowering face. It was not to traitors like this
that he had offered reward. In the end, burning with indignation at the
base deed, he ordered the thrall's head to be struck off. Thus Kark's
dream, as interpreted by Haakon, came true. The ring put by Olaf around
his neck was not one of gold, but one of blood.

_HOW OLAF, THE SLAVE-BOY, WON THE THRONE._

Many sons had Harold the Fair-Haired, and of some of them the story has
been told. One of them, Olaf by name, left a son named Tryggve, who in
turn had a son to whom he gave his father's name of Olaf. Wonderful was
the story of this Olaf in his youth and renowned was it in his age, for
he it was who drove the heathen gods from Norway and put Christ in their
place. But it is the strange and striking adventures of his earlier days
with which this tale has to deal.

Prince Tryggve had his enemies and by them was foully murdered. Then they
sought his dwelling, proposing to destroy his whole race. But Aastrid,
his wife, was warned in time, and fled from her home with Thorold, her
foster-father. She hid on a little island in the Rand fiord, and here was
born the son who was afterwards to become one of Norway's most famous
kings.

The perils of Aastrid were not yet at an end. Gunhild, the sorceress
queen, was her chief enemy, and when her spies brought her word that
Aastrid had borne a son, the wicked old woman sought to destroy the
child.

The summer through Aastrid remained on the little isle, hiding in the
weedy bushes by day and venturing abroad only at night. Everywhere
Gunhild's spies sought her, and when autumn came with its long nights,
she left the isle and journeyed with her attendants through the land,
still hiding by day and travelling only under the shades of night. In
this way she reached the estate of her father, Erik Ofrestad.

The poor mother was not left in peace here, the evil-minded sorceress
still pursuing her. A body of murderers was sent to seek for her and her
son on her father's estate, but Ofrestad heard of their mission in time
to send the fugitives away. Dressed as beggars, Aastrid and her child and
Thorolf, her foster-father, travelled on foot from the farm, stopping at
evening to beg food and shelter from a peasant named Bjoern. The surly
fellow drove them away, but they were given shelter farther on by a
peasant named Thorstein.

Meanwhile the murd