d steel--against the king's foes, and let God
judge between them in that way."

But Inga, the king's mother, declared that she was ready to endure the
ordeal and Haakon consented to it. Earl Skule now felt sure of
succeeding, not dreaming that the ordeal could be gone through without
burning, but to make more sure, he bribed a man to approach Inga and
offer her an herb which he said would heal burns.

The plot was discovered by the faithful Birchlegs and Inga warned of it;
for to use such herbs would make the test invalid and subject Inga and
her son to opprobrium. But all that Skule and his fellow-plotters could
do proved of no avail, for Inga passed through the ordeal unhurt and
triumphantly proved, in the legal system of that day, the justice of her
cause. How red-hot iron was prevented from burning is a matter which we
cannot discuss, and can only say that this ordeal was common and many are
said to have gone through it unscathed.

We set out in this story to tell how the child Haakon passed through all
the perils that surrounded him and grew up to become Norway's king. Here
then we should end, but for years new perils surrounded him and of these
it is well to speak. They were due to the ambitious Earl Skule, who made
plot after plot against the king's life, and was forgiven again and again
by the noble-minded monarch.

King Haakon's friends sought to put an end to this secret plotting by
arranging a marriage between the young monarch and Earl Skule's still
younger daughter Margaret. But this did not check him in his plots, and
he finally set sail for Denmark to try and get aid from King Valdemar. He
was ready to agree if the kingdom were won to reign as a vassal of the
Danish king; but when he got there no such king was to be found. He had
been captured in battle five days before, and was now with his son in a
prison at Mecklenburg. The disappointed plotter had to sail home and
pretend to be the king's friend as before.

For years Skule's plots went on. He took the field against a new horde of
rebels called the Ribbungs, but he took care never to press them too
closely, and they long gave the king trouble. For more than twenty years
Skule thus continued to plot and plan, the king discovering his schemes
and pardoning him more than once, but nothing could cure him of his
ambitious dream.

In the end, when he was nearly fifty years old, he succeeded in having
himself proclaimed king and in sending out bands of