e highly thought of in Norway. Bolli kept a suite
about him during the winter at Thrandheim, and it was easily seen,
when he went to the guild meeting-places, that his men were both
better arrayed as to raiment and weapons than other townspeople. He
alone also paid for all his suite when they sat drinking in guild
halls, and on a par with this were his openhandedness and lordly ways
in other matters. Now the brothers stay in the town through the
winter. That winter the king sat east in Sarpsborg, and news spread
from the east that the king was not likely to come north. Early in the
spring the brothers got their ship ready and went east along the land.
[Sidenote: They stay with King Olaf] The journey sped well for them,
and they got east to Sarpsborg, and went forthwith to meet King Olaf.
The king gave a good welcome to Thorleik, his henchman, and his
followers. Then the king asked who was that man of stately gait in the
train of Thorleik; and Thorleik answered, "He is my brother, and is
named Bolli." "He looks, indeed, a man of high mettle," said the
king. Thereupon the king asks the brothers to come and stay with him,
and that offer they took with thanks, and spend the spring with the
king. The king was as kind to Thorleik as he had been before, yet he
held Bolli by much in greater esteem, for he deemed him even peerless
among men. And as the spring went on, the brothers took counsel
together about their journeys. And Thorleik asked Bolli if he was
minded to go back to Iceland during the summer, "or will you stay on
longer here in Norway?" Bolli answered, "I do not mean to do either.
And sooth to say, when I left Iceland, my thought was settled on this,
that people should not be asking for news of me from the house next
door; and now I wish, brother, that you take over our ship." Thorleik
took it much to heart that they should have to part. "But you, Bolli,
will have your way in this as in other things." Their matter thus
bespoken they laid before the king, and he answered thus: "Will you
not tarry with us any longer, Bolli?" said the king. "I should have
liked it best for you to stay with me for a while, for I shall grant
you the same title that I granted to Thorleik, your brother." Then
Bolli answered: "I should be only too glad to bind myself to be your
henchman, but I must go first whither I am already bent, and have long
been eager to go, but this choice I will gladly take if it be fated to
me to come back." "You w