Now we must proceed with the relation we began before,--that King Olaf
set out with his men, and raised a levy over the whole country
(A.D. 1027). All lendermen in the North followed him excepting Einar
Tambaskelfer, who sat quietly at home upon his farm since his return
to the country, and did not serve the king. Einar had great estates
and wealth, although he held no fiefs from the king, and he lived
splendidly. King Olaf sailed with his fleet south around Stad, and many
people from the districts around joined him. King Olaf himself had a
ship which he had got built the winter before (A.D. 1027), and which
was called the Visund (1). It was a very large ship, with a bison's head
gilded all over upon the bow. Sigvat the skald speaks thus of it:--
"Trygvason's Long Serpent bore,
Grim gaping o'er the waves before,
A dragon's head with open throat,
When last the hero was afloat:
His cruise was closed,
As God disposed.
Olaf has raised a bison's head,
Which proudly seems the waves to tread.
While o'er its golden forehead dashing
The waves its glittering horns are washing:
May God dispose
A luckier close."
The king went on to Hordaland; there he heard the news that Erling
Skjalgson had left the country with a great force, and four or five
ships. He himself had a large war-ship, and his sons had three of twenty
rowing-banks each; and they had sailed westward to England to Canute
the Great. Then King Olaf sailed eastward along the land with a mighty
war-force, and he inquired everywhere if anything was known of Canute's
proceedings; and all agreed in saying he was in England but added that
he was fitting out a levy, and intended coming to Norway. As Olaf had a
large fleet, and could not discover with certainty where he should go to
meet King Canute, and as his people were dissatisfied with lying quiet
in one place with so large an armament, he resolved to sail with his
fleet south to Denmark, and took with him all the men who were best
appointed and most warlike; and he gave leave to the others to return
home. Now the people whom he thought of little use having gone home,
King Olaf had many excellent and stout men-at-arms besides those who, as
before related, had fled the country, or sat quietly at home; and most
of the chief men and lendermen of Norway were along with him.
ENDNOTES: (1) Visundr is the buffalo; although the modern bison, or
American animal of that name, might have been known through
the Greenland colonists, who in this reign had visited some
parts of America.--L.