Things being thus comfortably and happily settled by the Icelanders, it was not to be expected that the sledge-hammer methods of the mainland would find much favour among them. St. Olaf (p. 79) sent a priest, one Thangbrand, to hasten the triumph of the faith in Iceland, but he soon made that cool country a great deal too hot to hold him. And, as the _Cristne Saga_ puts it: "At that very time Thangbrand the priest came to the king from Iceland, and told him what enmity men had shown him there, and said there was no hope of Christendom being received there. Then the king was so angry that he had many of the Icelanders taken prisoners and set in irons. Some he ordered to be slain, and some maimed, and some were plundered, for he said that he would pay them for the unworthy way their fathers had received his message in Iceland. But Sholto and Gizor spoke for them, saying that the king had promised that no man should have done such ill, but that he would give them his peace if they would be baptized.... Moreover Gizor said that he thought there was hope that Christendom would succeed in Iceland if it were wisely forwarded. 'But Thangbrand hath carried himself there, as he did here, rather lawlessly in slaying certain men there, and men thought it hard to brook such behaviour in a stranger.'" Longfellow (_The Saga of King Olaf_) sums up this troublesome missionary in the following verse:-- He was quarrelsome and loud, And impatient of control, Boisterous in the market crowd, Boisterous at the wassail-bowl, Everywhere Would drink and swear, Swaggering Thangbrand, Olaf's Priest. So firm a hold did Christianity take on the land that the sagas of early Christian days are largely concerned with bishops' lives. The Church was as powerful as in Italy, and the two prelates were much honoured in the land. Thus we read in the book called _Hungrvaca_, or _Hunger-Waker_, because many uninformed men, wise though they be, that have gone through it have wished to know much more concerning those notable persons of whom it speaks. "Bishop Cetil was now well seventy years of age; he went to the Allthing and commended himself to the prayers of all the clerks in the synod of priests. And then Bishop Magnus asked him to come home with him to Skalholt to keep the dedication feast of the church and a bridal that was to be there. The feast was so very splendid that it was a pattern after in Iceland; there was much mead mixed, and all other stores of the best that might be. But the Friday evening both bishops went to bathe at Bathridge after supper. And then it came to pass that Bishop Cetil died there, and men thought this great news (July 6, 1145). There was great grief at this feast among many of the guests till the bishop was buried and service done for him. But by the comforting speeches of Bishop Magnus and the noble drink that was provided, men got their sorrow the sooner out of mind than they would otherwise have done."