sign of Thor's hammer before drinking!" which quenched the matter for
the time.

Horse-flesh, horse-broth, and the horse ingredient generally, Hakon
all but inexorably declined. By Sigurd's pressing exhortation and
entreaty, he did once take a kettle of horsebroth by the handle, with
a good deal of linen-quilt or towel interposed, and did open his lips
for what of steam could insinuate itself. At another time he
consented to a particle of horse-liver, intending privately, I guess,
to keep it outside the gullet, and smuggle it away without swallowing;
but farther than this not even Sigurd could persuade him to go. At
the Things held in regard to this matter Hakon's success was always
incomplete; now and then it was plain failure, and Hakon had to draw
back till a better time. Here is one specimen of the response he got
on such an occasion; curious specimen, withal, of antique
parliamentary eloquence from an Anti-Christian Thing.

At a Thing of all the Fylkes of Trondhjem, Thing held at Froste in
that region, King Hakon, with all the eloquence he had, signified that
it was imperatively necessary that all Bonders and sub-Bonders should
become Christians, and believe in one God, Christ the Son of Mary;
renouncing entirely blood sacrifices and heathen idols; should keep
every seventh day holy, abstain from labor that day, and even from
food, devoting the day to fasting and sacred meditation. Whereupon,
by way of universal answer, arose a confused universal murmur of
entire dissent. "Take away from us our old belief, and also our time
for labor!" murmured they in angry astonishment; "how can even the
land be got tilled in that way?" "We cannot work if we don't get
food," said the hand laborers and slaves. "It lies in King Hakon's
blood," remarked others; "his father and all his kindred were apt to