with the Queen, who proved very good and carefully helpful in wise
ways to him:--in Russia Olaf had now nothing more to do but give his
grateful adieus, and get ready.

His march towards Sweden, and from that towards Norway and the passes
of the mountains, down Vaerdal, towards Stickelstad, and the crisis
that awaited, is beautifully depicted by Snorro. It has, all of it,
the description (and we see clearly, the fact itself had), a kind of
pathetic grandeur, simplicity, and rude nobleness; something Epic or
Homeric, without the metre or the singing of Homer, but with all the
sincerity, rugged truth to nature, and much more of piety, devoutness,
reverence for what is forever High in this Universe, than meets us in
those old Greek Ballad-mongers. Singularly visual all of it, too,
brought home in every particular to one's imagination, so that it
stands out almost as a thing one actually saw.

Olaf had about three thousand men with him; gathered mostly as he
fared along through Norway. Four hundred, raised by one Dag, a
kinsman whom he had found in Sweden and persuaded to come with him,
marched usually in a separate body; and were, or might have been,
rather an important element. Learning that the Bonders were all
arming, especially in Trondhjem country, Olaf streamed down towards
them in the closest order he could. By no means very close,
subsistence even for three thousand being difficult in such a country.
His speech was almost always free and cheerful, though his thoughts
always naturally were of a high and earnest, almost sacred tone;
devout above all. Stickelstad, a small poor hamlet still standing
where the valley ends, was seen by Olaf, and tacitly by the Bonders as
well, to be the natural place for offering battle. There Olaf issued
out from the hills one morning: drew himself up according to the best