prevent the frost from settling; for as
long as the ears could be kept in motion, they could not freeze. But
what did thrive at Kvaerk in spite of both snow and night-frost was
legends, and they throve perhaps the better for the very sterility of
its material soil. Aasa of course had heard them all and knew them
by heart; they had been her friends from childhood, and her only
companions. All the servants, however, also knew them and many others
besides, and if they were asked how the mansion of Kvaerk happened to be
built like an eagle's nest on the brink of a precipice, they would tell
you the following:

Saint Olaf, Norway's holy king, in the time of his youth had sailed as
a Viking over the wide ocean, and in foreign lands had learned the
doctrine of Christ the White. When he came home to claim the throne of
his hereditary kingdom, he brought with him tapers and black priests,
and commanded the people to overthrow the altars of Odin and Thor and
to believe alone in Christ the White. If any still dared to slaughter
a horse to the old gods, he cut off their ears, burned their farms,
and drove them houseless from the smoking ruins. Here in the valley old
Thor, or, as they called him, Asathor, had always helped us to vengeance
and victory, and gentle Frey for many years had given us fair and
fertile summers. Therefore the peasants paid little heed to King Olaf's
god, and continued to bring their offerings to Odin and Asathor. This
reached the king's ear, and he summoned his bishop and five black
priests, and set out to visit our valley. Having arrived here, he called
the peasants together, stood up on the Ting-stone, told them of the
great things that the White Christ had done, and bade them choose
between him and the old gods. Some were scared, and received baptism
from the king's priests; others bit their lips and were silent; others
again stood forth and told Saint Olaf that Odin and Asathor had always
served them well, and that they were not going to give them up for
Christ the White, whom they had never seen and of whom they knew
nothing. The next night the red cock crew [9] over ten farms in the
valley, and it happened to be theirs who had spoken against King Olaf's
god. Then the peasants flocked to the Ting-stone and received the
baptism of Christ the White. Some few, who had mighty kinsmen in the
North, fled and spread the evil tidings. Only one neither fled nor
was baptized, and that one was Lage Ulfson Kvaerk,