Nidaros."

"Hah, king!" said Thorarin, "there are few things one cannot match if
one seek long and take pains. I would bet, with thy permission, King,
to find an uglier."

"Done!" cried Olaf. Upon which Thorarin stretched out the other
foot.

"A still uglier," cried he; "for it has lost the little toe."

"Ho, ho!" said Olaf; "but it is I who have gained the bet. The _less_
of an ugly thing the less ugly, not the more!"

Loyal Thorarin respectfully submitted.

"What is to be my penalty, then? The king it is that must decide."

"To take me that wicked old Raerik to Leif Ericson in Greenland."

Which the Icelander did; leaving two vacant seats henceforth at Olaf's
table. Leif Ericson, son of Eric discoverer of America, quietly
managed Raerik henceforth; sent him to Iceland,--I think to father
Eric himself; certainly to some safe hand there, in whose house, or in
some still quieter neighboring lodging, at his own choice, old Raerik
spent the last three years of his life in a perfectly quiescent
manner.

Olaf's struggles in the matter of religion had actually settled that
question in Norway. By these rough methods of his, whatever we may