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painted down to the sea-line, the sails also carefully striped with blue and red, and all the tackling as
elaborate as the ship. Thorolf had this ship made ready, and put aboard some of his house-carles as
crew; he freighted it with dried fish and hides, and ermine and gray furs too in abundance, and other
peltry such as he had gotten from the fell; it was a most valuable cargo. This ship he bade sail
westwards for England to buy him clothes and other supplies that he needed; and they, first steering
southwards along the coast, then stretching across the main, came to England. There they found a good
market, laded the ship with wheat and honey and wine and clothes, and sailing back in autumn with a
fair wind came to Hordaland.
That same autumn Hildirida s sons carried tribute to the king. But when they paid it the king himself
was present and saw. He said:
Is this tribute now paid all that ye took in Finmark?
It is, they answered.
Less by far, said the king, and much worse paid is the tribute now than when Thorolf gathered it; yet
ye said that he managed the business ill.
It is well, O king, said Harek, that thou hast considered how large a tribute should usually come
from Finmark, because thus thou knowest how much thou losest, if Thorolf waste all the tribute before
thee. Last winter we were in Finmark with thirty men, as has been the wont of thy stewards heretofore.
Soon after came Thorolf with a hundred men, and we learnt this, that he meant to take the lives of us
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two brothers and all our followers, his reason being that thou, O king, hadst handed over to us the
business that he wished to have. It was then our best choice to shun meeting him, and to save
ourselves: therefore we quickly left the settled districts, and went on the fell. But Thorolf went all
round Finmark with his armed warriors; he had all the trade, the Finns paid him tribute, and he
hindered thy stewards from entering Finmark. He means to be made king over the north there, both
over Finmark and Halogaland: and the wonder is that thou wilt listen to him in anything whatever.
Herein may true evidence be found of Thorolf s ill-gotten gains from Finmark; for the largest
merchant ship in Halogaland was made ready for sea at Sandness in the spring, and all the cargo on
board was said to be Thorolf s. It was laden mostly, I think, with gray furs, but there would be found
there also bearskins and sables more than Thorolf brought to thee. And with that ship went Thorgils
Yeller, and I believe he sailed westwards for England. But if thou wilt know the truth of this, set spies
on the track of Thorgils when he comes eastwards; for I fancy that no trading-ship in our days has
carried such store of wealth. And I am telling thee what is true, O king, when I say that to thee belongs
every penny on board.
All that Harek said his companions confirmed, and none there ventured to gainsay.
Chapter 18 - Thorolf s ship is taken.
There were two brothers named Sigtrygg Swiftfarer and Hallvard Hardfarer, kinsmen of king Harold
on the mother s side; from their father, a wealthy man, they had inherited an estate in Hising. Four
brothers there were in all; but Thord and Thorgeir, the two younger, were at home, and managed the
estate. Sigtrygg and Hallvard carried all the king s messages, both within and without the land, and
had gone on many dangerous journeys, both for putting men out of the way and confiscating the goods
of those whose homes the king ordered to be attacked. They kept about them a large following; they
were not generally in favour, but the king prized them highly. None could match them at travelling,
either on foot or on snow-shoes; in voyaging also they were speedier than others, valiant men they
were, and very wary.
These two men were with the king when those things happened that have just been told. In the autumn
the king went to a banquet in Hordaland. And one day he summoned to him the brothers Hallvard and
Sigtrygg, and when they came he bade them go with their following and spy after the ship which
Thorgils had taken westward to England in the summer.
Bring me, said he, the ship and all that is in it, except the men; let them go their way in peace, if
they do not try to defend the ship.
The brothers made them ready for this, and, taking each one his long-ship, went to seek Thorgils, and
learnt that he was come from the west, and had sailed northwards along the coast. Northwards after
him went they, and found him in Fir Sound. They knew the ship at once, and laid one of their ships on
the seaward side of her, while some of them landed, and thence went out on to the ship by the
gangways. Thorgils crew, apprehending no danger, made no defence; they found out nothing till
many armed men were aboard, and so they were all seized, and afterwards put on shore weaponless,
with nothing but the clothes they wore. But Hallvard s men drew out the gangways, loosed the cables,
and towed out the ship; then turned them about, and sailed southwards along the coast till they met the
king, to whom they brought the ship and all that was in it. And when the cargo was unloaded, the king
saw that it was great wealth, and what Harek had said was no lie.
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