The bonde replies, "He knows the consequences now of slaughtering my cattle in summer, and taking all that was in my house, and forcing me to follow him here.I determined to give him some return when the opportunity came."After this King Harald's army took to flight, and he fled himself, with all his men.Many fell; and Ingemar Sveinson of Ask, a great chief and lenderman, got there his death-wound, and nearly sixty of King Harald's court-men also fell.Harald himself fled eastward to Viken to his ships, and went out of the country to King Eirik Eimune in Denmark, and found him in Seeland and sought aid from him.King Eirik received him well, and principally because they had sworn to each other to be as brothers (1); and gave him Halland as a fief to rule over, and gave him seven long-ships, but without equipment.Thereafter King Harald went northwards through Halland, and many Northmen came to meet him.After this battle King Magnus subdued the whole country, giving life and safety to all who were wounded, and had them taken care of equally with his own men.He then called the whole country his own, and had a choice of the best men who were in the country.When they held a council among themselves afterwards, Sigurd Sigurdson, Thorer Ingeridson, and all the men of most understanding, advised that they should keep their forces together in Viken, and remain there, in case Harald should return from the south; but King Magnus would take his own way, and went north to Bergen.There he sat all winter (A.D.
1135), and allowed his men to leave him; on which the lendermen returned home to their own houses.
ENDNOTES:
(1) These brotherhoods, by which one man was bound by oath to aid or avenge another, were common in the Middle Ages among all ranks."Sworn brothers" is still a common expression with us.-- L.
4.DEATH OF ASBJORN AND OF NEREID.
King Harald came to Konungahella with the men who had followed him from Denmark.The lendermen and town's burgesses collected a force against him, which they drew up in a thick array above the town.King Harald landed from his ships, and sent a message to the bondes, desiring that they would not deny him his land, as he wanted no more than what of right belonged to him.Then mediators went between them; and it came to this, that the bondes dismissed their troops, and submitted to him.Thereupon he bestowed fiefs and property on the lendermen, that they might stand by him, and paid the bondes who joined him the lawful mulcts for what they had lost.A great body of men attached themselves, therefore, to King Harald; and he proceeded westwards to Viken, where he gave peace to all men, except to King Magnus's people, whom he plundered and killed wherever he found them.And when he came west to Sarpsborg he took prisoners two of King Magnus s lendermen, Asbjorn and his brother Nereid; and gave them the choice that one should be hanged, and the other thrown into the Sarpsborg waterfall, and they might choose as they pleased.
Asbjorn chose to be thrown into the cataract, for he was the elder of the two, and this death appeared the most dreadful; and so it was done.Halder Skvaldre tells of this: --"Asbjorn, who opposed the king, O'er the wild cataract they fling:
Nereid, who opposed the king, Must on Hagbard's high tree swing.
The king given food in many a way To foul-mouthed beasts and birds of prey:
The generous men who dare oppose Are treated as the worst of foes."Thereafter King Harald proceeded north to Tunsberg, where he was well received, and a large force gathered to him.
5.OF THE COUNSELS PROPOSED.
When King Magnus, who was in Bergen, heard these tidings, he called together all the chiefs who were in the town, and asked them their counsel, and what they should now do.Then Sigurd Sigurdson said, "Here I can give a good advice.Let a ship be manned with good men, and put me, or any other lenderman, to command it; send it to thy relation, King Harald, and offer him peace according to the conditions upright men may determine upon, and offer him the half of the kingdom.It appears to me probable that King Harald, by the words and counsel of good men, may accept this offer, and thus there may be a peace established between you."Then King Magnus replied, "This proposal I will not accept of;for of what advantage would it be, after we have gained the whole kingdom in summer to give away the half of it now? Give us some other counsel."Then Sigurd Sigurdson answered, "It appears to me, sire, that your lendermen who in autumn asked your leave to return home will now sit at home and will not come to you.At that time it was much against my advice that you dispersed so entirely the people we had collected; for I could well suppose that Harald would come back to Viken as soon as he heard that it was without a chief.
