KINGS OF NORWAY. 297 replied to the king's words, " If there was burning saga xv. fire in the way, I and my people would run into it, if I knew the king's advantage required it." Then the king replied, " Call upon your holy King Olaf for help and strength." The Yaeringers, who were 450 men, made a vow with hand and word to build a church in Constantinople, at their own expense and with the aid of other good men, and have the church conse- crated to the honour and glory of the holy King Olaf; and thereupon the Vaeringers rushed into the plain. When the heathens saw them, they told their king that there was another troop of the Greek king's army come out upon the plain ; but they were only a hand- ful of people. The king says, " Who is that venerable man riding on a white horse at the head of the troop?" They replied,' " We do not see him." There was so great a difference of numbers, that there were sixty heathens for every Christian man ; but notwith- standing the Yaeringers went boldly to the attack. As soon as they met terror and alarm seized the army of the heathens, and they instantly began to fly ; but the Vaeringers pursued, and soon killed a great num- ber of them. When the Greeks and Franks who before had fled from the heathens saw this, they hastened to take part, and pursue the enemy with the others. Then the Yaeringers had reached the waggon-fortifi- cation, where the greatest defeat was given to the enemy. The heathen king was taken in the flight of his people, and the Yaeringers brought him along with them ; after which the Christians took the camp of the heathens, and their waggon-fortification, '^I.t happened at the battle of Stiklestad, as before Chapter related, that King Olaf threw from him the sword of oiaf* s miracle.
- This chapter and the preceding one are considered interpolations^
not being in the approved manuscripts of the Heimskringla^ although in Peringskiold's edition.
