.

Soon after this Earl Haakon died and the little fellow, who had hitherto
lived in his house, was taken to the king's court, where he was treated
like a prince. The king was growing feeble from sickness and he loved to
have the boy with him, finding his talk very amusing and entertaining.
Soon after this he also died, Prince Haakon then being fourteen years
old.

Though Earl Haakon, the king's brother, who had hoped to be king, died,
as we have said, before him, there was another brother named Skule who
was quite as ambitious and of whom the Birchlegs were much afraid. A
body-guard of these faithful warriors took charge of the boy as soon as
King Inge was dead, with orders to follow him day and night.

Earl Skule at once began to plan and plot to seize the throne, and in
this he was supported by the archbishop, but in spite of them the
Birchlegs proclaimed Haakon king and Skule had to yield to the strong
sentiment in his favor. As for the noble then called king by the Baglers,
he too died just at this time and left no children, so that the way was
clear for the boy king, and Haakon soon sailed to the south with a large
fleet and took possession of Viken and the Uplands, the chief dominions
of the Baglers.

By the wise policy of the young king and his advisers the Baglers were
made his friends and the next year they were fighting with the Birchlegs
against the Slittungs or Ragamuffins, who were made up of robbers,
tramps, and wandering vagabonds of all kinds, thousands of whom had been
set adrift by the civil war.

But Haakon's worst foe was Earl Skule, who continued his plots and
intrigues, and who was supported by the clergy, these saying they had
doubts if the boy was really the son of the elder Haakon and grandson of
King Sverre. Such things were not in those days usually settled in courts
of law, but by what was called the ordeal, one form of which was to walk
barefoot over red-hot irons. If not burned the accused was thought to
have proved the justice of his cause.

[Illustration: LINKOPING FROM TANNEFORS.]

For a king already in possession of the throne to submit to such a demand
and humble himself by thus trying to prove who he was, was a thing never
done before and an old peasant gave vent to the general sentiment in
these words:

"Who can show in history a case of the sons of peasants prescribing terms
like these to an absolute king? It would be wiser and more manly to bear
another kind of iron--col