"But the next morning when matins were over, Magnus rode up unto the highway and sent word to Harald to come thither; and when he came he was so dight that he had on a shirt and breeches with footsole bands, a short cloak, an Irish hat on his head, and a spear-shaft in hand. "Now Magnus marked out the run. Harald says: 'Overlong art thou minded to have the run.' Magnus forthwith marked it off much longer and said that even so it was over-short. "There were many folk thereby. Then took they to the running, and Harald ever kept at the withers. "But when they came to the end of the run, said Magnus: 'Thou holdest by the girth, and the horse drew thee.' Magnus had a Gautland horse full swift. They took again another run back, and then Harald ran all the course before the horse. And when they came to the end of the run, Harald asked: 'Held I by the girth now?' Magnus answers: 'Thou didst take off first.' [Illustration: GAMLA UPSALA Details of Runic Stone and Plan of old Cathedral] [_Face page 99_ "Then Magnus let the horse breathe a while; and when he was ready, he smote the horse with his spurs, and he came swiftly to the gallop. Then Harald stood still, and Magnus looked back and called: 'Run now,' says he. Then Harald swiftly overran the horse, and far ahead, and so to the run's end; and came home so much the first, that he laid him down, and sprang up and hailed Magnus when he came."[42] Oslo stood on the Akers Elv, and was chiefly on its eastern bank; Oslo-havn still exists, by the mouth of the stream just eastward of the railway-circled cape on which frowns the castle Akershus. Less than a mile to the north, not far from the river's western shore, stands a small twelfth century Romanesque structure that belonged to a suburb of Oslo and is prosaically known to-day as Gamle Akers Kirke.[43] Oslo was a great city, one of the chief centres of Norwegian trade, and a bishop's stool stood in the church where Hallward's bones were shrined. It also played an important part in history when the great king, Hakon IV., of the Birch legs party (p. 85), overcame his domestic enemies there at a great battle during 1240. He thus restored peace to Norway, torn by the factions of a hundred years, and so widely did his fame extend that St. Louis asked for his help against Saracens and the pope for assistance against the emperor himself. But, feeling more interest in matters nearer home, Hakon preferred to direct his attention to joining Iceland to Norway (p. 54).