It is told that when King Olaf was on his visit to his mother Asta,
she brought out her children, and showed them to him. The king took his
brother Guthorm on the one knee, and his brother Halfdan on the other.
The king looked at Guthorm, made a wry face, and pretended to be angry
at them: at which the boys were afraid. Then Asta brought her youngest
son, called Harald, who was three years old, to him. The king made a wry
face at him also; but he looked the king in the face without regarding
it. The king took the boy by the hair, and plucked it; but the boy
seized the king's whiskers, and gave them a tug. "Then," said the king,
"thou wilt be revengeful, my friend, some day." The following day the
king was walking with his mother about the farm, and they came to
a playground, where Asta's sons, Guthorm and Halfdan, were amusing
themselves. They were building great houses and barns in their play, and
were supposing them full of cattle and sheep; and close beside them, in
a clay pool, Harald was busy with chips of wood, sailing them, in
his sport along the edge. The king asked him what these were; and he
answered, these were his ships of war. The king laughed, and said, "The
time may come, friend, when thou wilt command ships."
Then the king called to him Halfdan and Guthorm; and first he asked
Guthorm, "What wouldst thou like best to have?"
"Corn land," replied he.
"And how great wouldst thou like thy corn land to be?"
"I would have the whole ness that goes out into the lake sown with corn
every summer." On that ness there are ten farms.
The king replies, "There would be a great deal of corn there." And,
turning to Halfdan, he asked, "And what wouldst thou like best to have?"
"Cows," he replied.
"How many wouldst thou like to have?"
"When they went to the lake to be watered I would have so many, that
they stood as tight round the lake as they could stand."
"That would be a great housekeeping," said the king; "and therein ye
take after your father."