Eirik's sons plundered much on the Baltic coasts and sometimes, as
before related, in Norway; but so long as Hakon ruled over Norway there
was in general good peace, and good seasons, and he was the most beloved
of kings. When Hakon had reigned about twenty years in Norway (A.D.
954), Eirik's sons came from Denmark with a powerful army, of which
a great part consisted of the people who had followed them on their
expeditions; but a still greater army of Danes had been placed at their
disposal by King Harald Gormson. They sailed with a fair wind from
Vendil, and came to Agder; and then sailed northwards, night and day,
along the coast. But the beacons were not fired, because it had been
usual to look for them lighted from the east onwards, and nobody had
observed them from the east coast; and besides King Hakon had set
heavy penalties for giving false alarm, by lighting the beacons without
occasion. The reason of this was, that ships of war and vikings cruised
about and plundered among the outlying islands, and the country people
took them for Eirik's sons, and lighted the beacons, and set the whole
country in trouble and dread of war. Sometimes, no doubt, the sons of
Eirik were there; but having only their own troops, and no Danish army
with them, they returned to Denmark; and sometimes these were other
vikings. King Hakon was very angry at this, because it cost both trouble
and money to no purpose. The bondes also suffered by these false alarms
when they were given uselessly; and thus it happened that no news of
this expedition of Eirik's sons circulated through the land until they
had come as far north as Ulfasund, where they lay for seven days. Then
spies set off across Eid and northwards to More. King Hakon was at that
time in the island Frede, in North More, at a place called Birkistrand,
where he had a dwelling-house, and had no troops with him, only his
bodyguard or court, and the neighbouring bondes he had invited to his
house.