Sigurd replied, "That is in your power as soon as you please; but other business is more urgent.Go to the land as quickly as possible to help thy brother; for the Rogaland people are going to hang him."Then said the king, "God give us luck, Sigurd! Call my trumpeter, and let him call the people all to land, and to meet me."The king sprang on the land, and all who knew him followed him to where the gallows was being erected.The king instantly took Harald to him; and all the people gathered to the king in full armour, as they heard the trumpet.Then the king ordered that Svein and all his comrades should depart from the country as outlaws; but by the intercession of good men the king was prevailed on to let them remain and hold their properties, but no mulct should be paid for Svein's wound.
Then Sigurd Sigurdson asked if the king wished that he should go forth out of the country.
"That will I not," said the king; "for I can never be without thee."38.OF KING OLAF'S MIRACLE.
There was a young and poor man called Kolbein; and Thora, King Sigurd the Crusader's mother, had ordered his tongue to be cut out of his mouth, and for no other cause than that this young man had taken a piece of meat out of the king-mother's tub which he said the cook had given him, and which the cook had not ventured to serve up to her.The man had long gone about speechless.So says Einar Skulason in Olaf's ballad: --"The proud rich dame, for little cause, Had the lad's tongue cut from his jaws:
The helpless man, of speech deprived, His dreadful sore wound scarce survived.
A few weeks since at Hild was seen, As well as ever he had been, The same poor lad -- to speech restored By Olaf's power, whom he adored."Afterwards the young man came to Nidaros, and watched in the Christ church; but at the second mass for Olaf before matins he fell asleep, and thought he saw King Olaf the Saint coming to him; and that Olaf talked to him, and took hold with his hands of the stump of his tongue and pulled it.Now when he awoke he found himself restored, and joyfully did he thank our Lord and the holy Saint Olaf, who had pitied and helped him; for he had come there speechless, and had gone to the holy shrine, and went away cured, and with his speech clear and distinct.
39.KING OLAF'S MIRACLE WITH A PRISONER.
The heathens took prisoner a young man of Danish family and carried him to Vindland, where he was in fetters along with other prisoners.In the day-time he was alone in irons, without a guard; but at night a peasant's son was beside him in the chain, that he might not escape from them.This poor man never got sleep or rest from vexation and sorrow, and considered in many ways what could help him; for he had a great dread of slavery, and was pining with hunger and torture.He could not again expect to be ransomed by his friends, as they had already restored him twice from heathen lands with their own money; and he well knew that it would be difficult and expensive for them to submit a third time to this burden.It is well with the man who does not undergo so much in the world as this man knew he had suffered.He saw but one way; and that was to get off and escape if he could.He resolved upon this in the night-time, killed the peasant, and cut his foot off after killing him, and set off to the forest with the chain upon his leg.Now when the people knew this, soon after daylight in the morning, they pursued him with two dogs accustomed to trace any one who escaped, and to find him in the forest however carefully he might be concealed.
