southward toward Viken, his party rolling on like a snowball and growing
in size on its way, until it swelled to four hundred and twenty men. In
spite of his protest, these vagabonds proclaimed him king and touched his
sword to indicate their allegiance. But their devotion to his cause was
not great, for when he forbade them to rob and plunder the peasants most
of them left him. To test the remainder, he ordered them back to
Vermeland and before they reached that region only the original seventy
remained.
Desperate was now the position of the youthful adventurer. He had
declared himself a claimant for the throne and any one had the right to
kill him. The peasants hated his robber band and he could get none to
join him. They would rather have killed them all and thus earned the
king's favor.
Had young Sverre been a man of common mind his enterprise must now have
reached its end. But he was a man of wonderful mental resources, daring,
indefatigable, capable of bearing the most extreme reverses and rescuing
himself from the most perilous situations. Followed by his faithful
seventy, he wandered through the pathless mountain wilderness, hopeful
and resourceful. His courage was unfailing. Often they had to live on
bark and frozen berries, which were dug up from under the snow. At times
some of his men, worn out with hunger and exposure, would drop lifeless
on their barren paths; at times he had to sleep under his shield, as his
only protection from the falling snow; but his heart kept stout through
it all, and he chided those who talked of ending their misfortunes by
suicide.
As an example of his courage and endurance and his care of his men, we
may tell the following anecdote. Once in his wanderings he came to a
large mountain lake which had to be crossed. It could only be done on
rafts, and the men were so exhausted that it proved desperate work to
fell trees and build the necessary rafts. In time they were all
despatched, Sverre boarding the last, which was so heavily laden that the
water rose above his ankles.
One man was still on the shore, so utterly worn out that he had to crawl
to the water's edge and beg to be taken on, lest he should perish. The
others grumbled, but Sverre would not listen to their complaints but
bade them to take the man on. With his extra weight the raft sank till
the water reached their knees. Though the raft threatened to go to the
bottom Sverre kept a resolute face. A great fallen pine on the other side
made a bridge up which the men clambered to safety, Sverre being the last
to leave the raft. Scarcely had he done so when the watersoaked logs
sank. The men looked on this as a miracle and believed more fully than
ever that he would win.
Now came the first success in his marvellous career. He had one hundred
and twenty men on reaching the goal of his terrible journey, but here
eighty men more joined him and with these two hundred followers he
successfully faced a force of fourteen hundred which had been sent
against him. With a native genius for warfare he baffled his enemies at
every point, avoiding their onset, falling upon them at unexpected
points, forcing them to scatter into separate detachments in the pursuit,
then falling on and beating these detachments in succession. While he
kept aware of their plans and movements, they never knew where to look
for him, and in a short time the peasant army was beaten and dispersed.
This striking success gave new courage and hope to the Birchlegs and they
came in numbers to the place to which Sverre had summoned a body of
twelve representatives from the province of Tröndelag. These met and
proclaimed him king of Norway. It was now the summer of 1177.
The Birchlegs were hasty in supposing the beating of fourteen hundred
peasants would bring success to their cause. Erling Skakke was still
alive and active, and on hearing of the exploits of this new leader of
rebels in the north, he got together a large fleet and sailed northward
to deal with him.
The new-proclaimed king was too wary to meet this powerful force and he
sought refuge in the mountains again, leaving to Erling the dominion of
the coast. And now, for two years, Sverre and his men led a precarious
life, wandering hither and thither through the mountain wilderness and
suffering the severest privations. He was like a Robin Hood of the
Norwegian mountains, loving to play practical jokes on the peasants, such
as appearing with his hungry horde at their Yuletide feasts and making
way with the good cheer they had provided for themselves. He was obliged
to forage in the valleys, but he took pity on the poor and more than once
made the great suffer for acts of oppression.
Everywhere he was hated as a desperate brigand; some believed him to be
the devil himself. Naughty children were scared with the threat that the
terrible Sverre would take them, and laundresses, beating their clothes
at the river's brink, devoutly wished that Sverre's head was under the
stone. Yet his undaunted resolution, his fights with the king's soldiers,
his skirmishes with the peasants, and his boldness and daring in all
situations, won him a degree of admiration even among those who feared
and hated him.
Thus for two years his adventurous career went on. Then came an event
that turned the tide in his favor. Erling was still pursuing him and in
June, 1179, was in the coast town of Nidaros, his son, Magnus, with him.
In the harbor lay the fleet. The earl and the king were feasting with
their followers when word was brought them that the Birchlegs were
approaching.
"I wish it was true," said the earl. "I should like nothing better than
to meet that hound Sverre. But there will be no such good luck to-night,
for I am told that the rascals have gone back to the mountains. You can
go to bed in safety, for Sverre will not dare to trouble us when we are
on the watch for him."
To bed they went, sleeping heavily from their potations, and down on them
came Sverre, who, as usual, was well informed about their situation.
"Now is your time to fight bravely, and repay yourselves for your
sufferings," he said to his men. "A fine victory lies before us. I shall
promise you this. Any one of you who can prove that he has slain a
liegeman shall be made a liegeman himself, and each of you shall be given
the title and dignity of the man you have slain."
Thus encouraged, the poorly-armed adventurers rushed down the hills into
the town. One sturdy fellow who carried only a club was asked where his
weapons were.
"They are down in the town," he said. "The earl's men have them now. We
are going there to get them."
This they did. As they came on the warriors, hastily alarmed and heavy
with their drunken sleep, flocked staggering into the streets, to be met
with sword and lance. The confusion was great and the king had much
trouble in rallying his men. Many chieftains advised flight to the ships,
but the stout-hearted Erling was not ready for that.
"It might be best," he said, "but I can't bear the thought of that
brigand priest putting himself in my son's place."
Leading his men outside the city, he awaited the attack. It came in
haste, the Birchlegs falling furiously upon the much greater force before
them. In the onset the earl was killed and his men were put to flight.
The king, as he fled by, saw the bloody face of his father lying under
the stars. He stooped and kissed him, saying:
"We shall meet again, father, in the day of joy." Then he was borne away
in the stream of flight.
This decisive victory turned the tide of the war. The death of Erling
removed Sverre's greatest opponent. King Magnus was no match for the
priest-king, and the rebel force grew until the contest assumed the shape
of civil war. Sverre no longer led a band of wanderers, but was the
leader of an army.
This was not the ordinary army recruited from the settled classes of
society, but an army made up of the lower stratum of the people, now
first demanding their share of the good things of life. Fierce and unruly
as they were, Sverre knew how to control and discipline them. He kept his
promise, as far as was possible, to reward his men with the honors of
those they had slain, but charged them with the maintenance of law and
order, punishing all who disobeyed his commands. This he could safely do,
for they worshipped him. They had shared peril and suffering together,
had lived as comrades, but through it all he had kept his authority
intact and demanded obedience. Birchlegs they still called themselves,
for they had grown proud of the title, and they named their opponents
Heklungs, from the story that some of them had robbed a beggar woman
whose money was wrapped in a cloak (_hekl_).
For six years afterwards the war for dominion in Norway continued, the
star of King Sverre steadily rising. In 1180 Magnus attacked his opponent
with an army much larger than that of Sverre, but was utterly routed; and
an army of peasants that came on afterwards, to kill the "devil's
priest," met with the same ill success.
Magnus now took refuge in Denmark, abandoning Norway to his rival, and
from there he came year after year to continue the contest. In a naval
battle in 1181, in which Sverre had less than half the number of ships of
his opponent, his star seemed likely to set. The Birchlegs were not good
at sea fighting and the Heklungs were pressing them steadily back, when
Sverre sprang into the hottest of the fight, without a shield and with
darts and javelins hurtling around him, and in stirring tones sang the
Latin hymn, "Alma chorus domini."
This hymn seemed to turn the tide of victory. Magnus, storming furiously
forward at that moment, was wounded in the wrist as he was boarding a
hostile ship. The pain caused him to pause and, his feet slipping on the
blood-stained deck, he fell headlong backward, a glad shout of victory
coming from the Birchlegs who saw him fall.
Orm, one of King Magnus's captains, demanded what had happened.
"The king is killed," he was told.
"Then the fate of the realm is decided," he cried.
Cutting the ropes that held the ships together, he took to flight,
followed by others and breaking the line of battle. Leaping to his feet,
Magnus called out that he was not hurt and implored them not to flee from
certain victory. But the terror and confusion were too great, and Sverre
took quick advantage of the opportunity, capturing a number of ships and
putting the others to flight.
The final battle in this contest for a throne came in 1184. It was one in
which Sverre was in imminent danger of a fatal end to his career. Usually
not easily surprised, he was now taken unawares. He had sailed up the
Nore fiord with a few ships and a small force of men, to punish some
parties who had killed his prefect. Magnus, afloat with twenty-six ships
and over three thousand men, learned of this and pursued his enemy into
the fiord.
Sverre was caught in a trap. Not until he saw the hostile ships bearing
down upon him had he a suspicion of danger. Escape was impossible. Great
cliffs bounded the watery cañon. He had but fourteen ships and not half
his opponent's force of men. The Heklungs were sure that victory was in
their hands. But when Sverre and his Birchlegs dashed forward and
attacked them with berseker fury their confidence turned to doubt. Soon
it began to appear that victory was to be on the other side. Before the
furious onset the Heklungs fell in numbers. Many in panic leaped into the
sea and were drowned, King Magnus among them. Till mid-night the hot
contest continued, by which hour half the king's force were slain and all
the ships captured. The drowned corpse of King Magnus was not found until
two days after the battle, when it was taken to Bergen and buried with
royal ceremony. His death ended the contest and Sverre was unquestioned
king of the whole land.
Shall we briefly conclude the story of King Sverre's reign? For twenty
years it continued, the most of these years of war, for rebellion broke
out in a dozen quarters and only the incessant vigilance and activity of
a great king and great soldier enabled him to keep his throne and his
life.
After all his wars and perils, he died in his bed, March 9, 1202, worn
out by his long life of toil and strain. Never before had Norway so noble
and able a king; never since has it seen his equal. A man was he of small
frame but indomitable soul, of marvellous presence of mind and fertility
in resources; a man firm but kindly and humane; a king with a
clear-sighted policy and an admirable power of controlling men and
winning their attachment. Never through all its history has Norway known
another monarch so admirable in many ways as Sverre, the cook's son.
_THE FRIENDS AND FOES OF A BOY PRINCE._
After the death of the great King Sverre tumult and trouble reigned in
Norway. Several kings came to the throne, but none of them lived long,
and there was constant fighting between the Birchlegs and the opposing
party who called themselves Baglers. Year after year they kept their
swords out and their spears in hand, killing one another, but neither
party growing strong enough to put an end to the other. All this time the
people were suffering and the country growing poorer, and a strong hand
was needed at the helm of the ship-of-state.
It was when King Inge, who was not of royal blood, and whose hand was not
the strong hand needed, was on the throne, that new hope came to the
people, for it was made known that they had among them a boy of kingly
descent, a grandson of the noble Sverre. Men thought that King Sverre's
line had died out, and there was great joy in their hearts when they
learned that his son Haakon had left a son.
This boy was born in 1203, son of the beautiful Inga of Varteig, whom
King Haakon had warmly loved though she was not his wife. The little
prince was named Haakon, after his father, but he was born in the midst
of the Baglers, his father's foes, and the priest who baptized him bade
Inga to keep his birth a strict secret, letting none outside her own
family know that a new prince had come to the land.
The secret was well kept for a time, but whispers got abroad, and Thrond,
the priest, at length told the story to Erland of Huseby, whom he knew to
be on the right side. Erland heard the news with joy, but feared peril
for the little prince, thus born in the land of his enemies. Rumors were
growing, danger might at any moment come, and though it was mid-winter, a
season of deep snows and biting winds, he advised the priest to send the
boy and his mother to the court of King Inge, offering himself to take
them across the pathless mountains.
The difficult journey was made in safety and the boy and his mother were
kindly welcomed by the king, and joyfully greeted by the Birchlegs, who
were strong in that district. Little Haakon was then less than two years
old, and it is said that the old loyalists, who were eager to have a king
of the royal blood, used in playfulness to pull him between them by the
arms and legs, to make him grow faster.
The Birchlegs were in fear of Haakon Galen, the king's brother, who was
ambitious to succeed to the throne. Yet Earl Haakon took a great fancy to
the helpless little child and seemed to love him as much as any of them.
Thus the child prince, though in the midst of plotters for the throne,
who would naturally be likely to act as his enemies, seemed protected by
the good angels and brought safely through all his perils.
Even when he was captured by the Baglers, when four years of age, they
did not harm him, being possibly so taken by his infantile beauty and
winning ways that they could not bring themselves to injure their little
captive. In the end, after many fights and flights, in which neither
party made any gains, the Birchlegs and Baglers grew tired of the useless
strife and a treaty of peace was made between them, the king of the
Baglers swearing allegiance to King Inge and becoming one of his earls.
But new trouble was brewing for the youthful prince, for in 1212, when he
was eight years old, a compact was made that none but those of legitimate
birth should succeed to the throne. As his mother had not been a legal
wife, this threatened to rob little Haakon of his royal rights.
In doing this the plotters were like some politicians of the present day,
who lay plans without consulting the people. They did not know how strong
the sentiment was in favor of the old royal line. One of the old
Birchlegs, on hearing of this compact, was bitterly angry. He had made
frequent visits to the young prince, whom he loved and admired, but on
his next visit he pushed away the playful lad, roughly bidding him
begone.
Haakon reproachfully asked, "What have I done to make you so angry?"
"Go away from me," cried Helge, the veteran; "to-day you have been robbed
of your right to the crown and I have ceased to love you."
"Who did that and where was it done?"
"It was done at the _Oere-thing_ [the Assembly at Oere], and those who
did it were King Inge and his brother Earl Haakon."
"Then you should not be angry with me, my kind Helge, nor be troubled
about this. What they did cannot be lawful, for my guardian was not there
to speak on my side."
"Your guardian! Who is he?" asked Helge.
"I have three guardians, God, the Blessed Virgin, and St. Olaf," said the
boy solemnly. "To their keeping I give my cause, and they will guard me
against all wrong."
The old man, at this declaration, caught the boy in his arms and kissed
him.
"Thanks for your wise words, my prince," he said. "Words like those are
better spoken than unspoken."
These words show that the little fellow was coming to think for himself
and had an active and earnest mind. In fact, he was so precocious and
said such droll things as greatly to amuse the king and those around him.
Here is one of his sayings, spoken in a spell of cold weather when the
butter could not be spread on the bread. The prince bent a piece of bread
around the butter, saying:
"Let us tie the butter to the bread, Birchlegs." This was thought so
smart that it became a proverb among the Birchlegs.
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--cold steel--against the king's foes, and let God
judge between them in that way."
But Inga, the king's mother, declared that she was ready to endure the
ordeal and Haakon consented to it. Earl Skule now felt sure of
succeeding, not dreaming that the ordeal could be gone through without
burning, but to make more sure, he bribed a man to approach Inga and
offer her an herb which he said would heal burns.
The plot was discovered by the faithful Birchlegs and Inga warned of it;
for to use such herbs would make the test invalid and subject Inga and
her son to opprobrium. But all that Skule and his fellow-plotters could
do proved of no avail, for Inga passed through the ordeal unhurt and
triumphantly proved, in the legal system of that day, the justice of her
cause. How red-hot iron was prevented from burning is a matter which we
cannot discuss, and can only say that this ordeal was common and many are
said to have gone through it unscathed.
We set out in this story to tell how the child Haakon passed through all
the perils that surrounded him and grew up to become Norway's king. Here
then we should end, but for years new perils surrounded him and of these
it is well to speak. They were due to the ambitious Earl Skule, who made
plot after plot against the king's life, and was forgiven again and again
by the noble-minded monarch.
King Haakon's friends sought to put an end to this secret plotting by
arranging a marriage between the young monarch and Earl Skule's still
younger daughter Margaret. But this did not check him in his plots, and
he finally set sail for Denmark to try and get aid from King Valdemar. He
was ready to agree if the kingdom were won to reign as a vassal of the
Danish king; but when he got there no such king was to be found. He had
been captured in battle five days before, and was now with his son in a
prison at Mecklenburg. The disappointed plotter had to sail home and
pretend to be the king's friend as before.
For years Skule's plots went on. He took the field against a new horde of
rebels called the Ribbungs, but he took care never to press them too
closely, and they long gave the king trouble. For more than twenty years
Skule thus continued to plot and plan, the king discovering his schemes
and pardoning him more than once, but nothing could cure him of his
ambitious dream.
In the end, when he was nearly fifty years old, he succeeded in having
himself proclaimed king and in sending out bands of warriors who killed
many faithful friends of King Haakon. He tried to conceal his purpose
until he had gathered a large force, but one man escaped the vigilance of
his guards and brought word of the treachery to Haakon. The latter,
seeing that he must check this rebellion if he wished to sit safely on
his throne, at once took to his fleet, sailed southward with the utmost
speed, and rowed, under cover of a fog, up the Folden fiord to Oslo,
where the rebel was. He had been carousing with his followers the night
before and the wassailers were roused from their drunken sleep by the
war-horns and ran out to see the king's ships driving in towards the
piers.
The rebels were quickly scattered, but Skule escaped, and at length was
traced to the woods, where he was wandering with a few friends. The
friars of a monastery took pity on them and hid them in a tower,
disguised with monkish cowls. Despite their disguise they were traced to
their hiding place, and when the friars refused to give them up the
pursuers set fire to the tower. Driven out by the smoke and heat, Skule
stepped from the gate, holding his shield above his head and saying:
"Strike me not in the face; for it is not right to treat warriors thus."
In a minute more he lay dead, slain by Birchleg swords.
The next act in King Haakon's reign was to have himself crowned king, and
thus to rid himself of the blot on his claim to the throne. After some
negotiations with the Pope, a cardinal was sent from Rome, the ceremony
being performed with much pomp and ceremony, and followed with the most
magnificent feasts and festivities Norway had ever seen.