Ketil of Ringanes was at this meeting. Now when he came home in the
evening he took his supper, put on his clothes, and went down with his
house-servants to the lake; took a light vessel which he had, the same
that King Olaf had made him a present of, and launched it on the water.
They found in the boat-house everything ready to their hands; betook
themselves to their oars, and rowed out into the lake. Ketil had forty
well-armed men with him, and came early in the morning to the end of the
lake. He set off immediately with twenty men, leaving the other twenty
to look after the ship. King Olaf was at that time at Eid, in the upper
end of Raumarike. Thither Ketil arrived just as the king was coming from
matins. The king received Ketil kindly. He said he must speak with the
king in all haste; and they had a private conference together. There
Ketil tells the king the resolution which the kings had taken, and their
agreement, which he had come to the certain knowledge of. When the king
learnt this he called his people together, and sent some out to collect
riding-horses in the country; others he sent down to the lake to take
all the rowing-vessels they could lay hold of, and keep them for his
use. Thereafter he went to the church, had mass sung before him, and
then sat down to table. After his meal he got ready, and hastened down
to the lake, where the vessels were coming to meet him. He himself went
on board the light vessel, and as many men with him as it could stow,
and all the rest of his followers took such boats as they could get hold
of; and when it was getting late in the evening they set out from the
land, in still and calm weather. He rowed up the water with 400 men, and
came with them to Ringsaker before day dawned; and the watchmen were not
aware of the army before they were come into the very court. Ketil knew
well in what houses the kings slept, and the king had all these houses
surrounded and guarded, so that nobody could get out; and so they stood
till daylight. The kings had not people enough to make resistance, but
were all taken prisoners, and led before the king. Hrorek was an able
but obstinate man, whose fidelity the king could not trust to if he made
peace with him; therefore he ordered both his eyes to be punched out,
and took him in that condition about with him. He ordered Gudrod's
tongue to be cut out; but Ring and two others he banished from Norway,
under oath never to return. Of the lendermen and bondes who had actually
taken part in the traitorous design, some he drove out of the country,
some he mutilated, and with others he made peace. Ottar Black tells of
this:--
"The giver of rings of gold,
The army leader bold,
In vengeance springs
On the Hedemark kings.
Olaf the bold and great,
Repays their foul deceit--
In full repays
Their treacherous ways.
He drives with steel-clad hand
The small kings from the land,--
Greater by far
In deed of war.
The king who dwelt most north
Tongueless must wander forth:
All fly away
In great dismay.
King Olaf now rules o'er
What five kings ruled before.
To Eid's old bound
Extends his ground.
No kings in days of yore
E'er won so much before:
That this is so
All Norsemen know."
King Olaf took possession of the land these five kings had possessed,
and took hostages from the lendermen and bondes in it. He took money
instead of guest-quarters from the country north of the valley district,
and from Hedemark; and then returned to Raumarike, and so west to
Hadaland. This winter (A.D. 1018) his stepfather Sigurd Syr died; and
King Olaf went to Ringerike, where his mother Asta made a great feast
for him. Olaf alone bore the title of king now in Norway.