e
had been minded to leave her in loneliness. Asta, the daughter of
Gudbrand, brought forth a son even there in the summer; this boy was
called Olaf at his baptism, & Hrani poured the water over him. At the
outset was the child reared by Gudbrand & Asta his mother.

|| Earl Hakon ruled the whole coast of Norway; sixteen counties had he
under his sway, and forasmuch as Harald Fairhair had prescribed that an
earl should be over every county, and that prescription had endured for
long, there were under him sixteen earls. Thus it is said in the
Vellekla:

'Where else know we the government
(On this the hosts may ponder)
Of one land-ruler over the lands of sixteen earls?
Unto the four corners of heaven rises the rumour
Of the doughty deeds of the belauded chieftain.'

|| During the rule of Earl Hakon the increase was good in the land, &
peace was there within it among the peasantry. Well-beloved, too, was
the Earl among them for the greater part of his life, but as his years
waxed old it happened that his intercourse with women became unseemly,
and to such a pass came this that the Earl would cause the daughters of
powerful men to be brought unto him, when he would lie with them for a
week or twain, and then send them back to their homes. This manner of
acting brought him to great enmity with the kinsmen of these women, and
the peasantry fell to murmuring, as is the wont of the folk of
Throndhjem when things are not to their liking.

|| Now there came to the ears of Earl Hakon the fame of a man overseas
westward who called himself Oli, & whom men held for a King; and he
misdoubted from the talk of certain folk that this man must be of the
lineage of the Norwegian Kings. He was told, indeed, that Oli called
himself Gerdish (i.e., of Garda) by race, but the Earl had heard that
Tryggvi Olafson had had a son who had been taken eastward to Garda
(western Russia), and had been brought up there at the Court of King
Valdamar, and that his name was Olaf.

Often had the Earl sought information about this man, and he misdoubted
that he it was who had now come to the western countries. Now to Hakon
the Earl was a great friend, one Thorir Klakka, who was known far and
wide, for he had sailed long whiles as a viking, and at others as a
merchant.

So west across the sea Earl Hakon now despatched this man, bidding him
fare to Dublin as a merchant, as many were wont to fare in those days.
It was laid on Thorir that h