be stingy about food, though liberal enough with money." At length,
one Osbjorn (or Bear of the Asen or Gods, what we now call Osborne),
one Osbjorn of Medalhusin Gulathal, stept forward, and said, in a
distinct manner, "We Bonders (peasant proprietors)thought, King Hakon,
when thou heldest thy first Thing-day here in Trondhjem, and we took
thee for our king, and received our hereditary lands from thee again
that we had got heaven itself. But now we know not how it is, whether
we have won freedom, or whether thou intendest anew to make us slaves,
with this wonderful proposal that we should renounce our faith, which
our fathers before us have held, and all our ancestors as well, first
in the age of burial by burning, and now in that of earth burial; and
yet these departed ones were much our superiors, and their faith, too,
has brought prosperity to us. Thee, at the same time, we have loved
so much that we raised thee to manage all the laws of the land, and
speak as their voice to us all. And even now it is our will and the
vote of all Bonders to keep that paction which thou gavest us here on
the Thing at Froste, and to maintain thee as king so long as any of us
Bonders who are here upon the Thing has life left, provided thou,
king, wilt go fairly to work, and demand of us only such things as are
not impossible. But if thou wilt fix upon this thing with so great
obstinacy, and employ force and power, in that case, we Bonders have
taken the resolution, all of us, to fall away from thee, and to take
for ourselves another head, who will so behave that we may enjoy in
freedom the belief which is agreeable to us. Now shalt thou, king,
choose one of these two courses before the Thing disperse."
"Whereupon," adds the Chronicle, "all the Bonders raised a mighty
shout, 'Yes, we will have it so, as has been said.'" So that Jarl
Sigurd had to intervene, and King Hakon to choose for the moment the
milder branch of the alternative.[4] At other Things Hakon was more
or less successful. All his days, by such methods as there were, he