mselves that all who had fallen
with the king should not receive the interment which belongs to good
men, but reckoned them all robbers and outlaws. But the men who had
power, and had relations on the field, cared little for this, but
removed their remains to the churches, and took care of their burial.

249. A MIRACLE ON A BLIND MAN.

Thorgils Halmason and his son Grim went to the field of battle towards
evening when it was dusk, took King Olaf's corpse up, and bore it to a
little empty houseman's hut which stood on the other side of their farm.
They had light and water with them. Then they took the clothes off
the body, swathed it in a linen cloth, laid it down in the house, and
concealed it under some firewood so that nobody could see it, even
if people came into the hut. Thereafter they went home again to the
farmhouse. A great many beggars and poor people had followed both
armies, who begged for meat; and the evening after the battle many
remained there, and sought lodging round about in all the houses, great
or small. It is told of a blind man who was poor, that a boy attended
him and led him. They went out around the farm to seek a lodging, and
came to the same empty house, of which the door was so low that they had
almost to creep in. Now when the blind man had come in, he fumbled about
the floor seeking a place where he could lay himself down. He had a hat
on his head, which fell down over his face when he stooped down. He felt
with his hands that there was moisture on the floor, and he put up his
wet hand to raise his hat, and in doing so put his fingers on his eyes.
There came immediately such an itching in his eyelids, that he wiped the
water with his fingers from his eyes, and went out of the hut, saying
nobody could lie there, it was so wet. When he came out of the hut he
could distinguish his hands, and all that was near him, as far as things
can be distinguished by sight in the darkness of light; and he went
immediately to the farm-house into the room, and told all the people he
had got his sight again, and could see everything, although many knew
he had been blind for a long time, for he had been there, before, going
about among the houses of the neighbourhood. He said he first got his
sight when he was coming out of a little ruinous hut which was all wet
inside. "I groped in the water," said he, "and rubbed my eyes with
my wet hands." He told where the hut stood. The people who heard him
wondere