Stories of the Vikings [Illustrated] by Mary MacGregor

Author:Mary MacGregor [MacGregor, Mary]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Quintessential Classics
Published: 2015-09-02T22:00:00+00:00

Hakon Is Wounded

King Hakon had little peace during his reign, for again and again Eirik's sons came on Viking expeditions to Norway, and harried the country. After Hakon had reigned for twenty years they came against him, not only with their own Viking band, but with a large army of Danes, which had been given to them by the King of Denmark. By some mischance the enemy had left their ships and marched into Norway before the beacon fires were lighted to give warning of their approach. A peasant, however, hastened to the king to tell him that a great force had entered the country.

Then Hakon called together his wisest men and asked them if he should flee northward to gather an army large enough to withstand the enemy.

Among these wise men was an old peasant named Egil Ulserk. In the days of Harald Fairhair, Egil had been a sturdy standard-bearer and a 'hardy man-at-arms withal.' Now, though he was old and frail, he answered the king's words thus: 'I was in several battles with thy father, Harald the king, and he gave battle sometimes with many, sometimes with few people, but he always came off the victor. Never did I hear him ask counsel of his friends whether he should fly, and neither shalt thou get any such counsel from us, king. But as we know we have a brave leader, thou shalt get a trusty following from us.'

Hakon the king was well pleased with this speech, and at once split up a war-arrow which he sent throughout the country as a token that his warriors should hasten to him with all speed.

Egil Ulserk smiled grimly as he said, 'At one time the peace had lasted so long I was afraid I might come to die the death of old age, within-doors, upon a bed of straw, although I would rather fall in battle following my chief. And now it may turn out in the end as I wished it to be.'

The battle was fought in a large, flat field at the foot of a long ridge. Egil begged the king to give him ten men with ten banners, for the old man had a plan in his mind.

The combat was sharp, for Eirik's sons had a much larger force than King Hakon. But when the battle was raging most fiercely, the Danish troops caught sight of banner after banner waving over the summit of the ridge. It seemed to them that a large army must be following the banners, and in a sudden panic lest it should cut them off from their ships, the troops turned and fled.

Gamle, one of Eirik's sons, saw that the banners were but a device to startle his men, and he ordered his war-horn to be blown and his standard waved aloft in order to stay their flight. But while the Vikings, who had long fought under Gamle, answered to the battle-cry, the army of Danes fled to their ships. Egil's ten banners had done the work he meant them to do.

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