kinsmen and dependents.[213] The well-known token was rapidly conveyed; the gathering commenced; and in a short time a formidable band was assembled, eager to destroy the tyrannical jarl.[214] [Sidenote: 995.] The motives of this rustic force were soon known to Hako. His first object was to conceal himself until he had collected troops enough to crush the insurrection. What follows is exceedingly romantic; and we give it as we find it in the authorities before us, leaving the reader to exercise his own judgment in what he may reject or admit. We may, however, observe that, if some of the incidents have been too strongly coloured by posterity, the substance of the relation is true.—Accompanied by his domestics, Hako fled from his villa into a deep valley, which has ever since borne his name. As it was supposed that he would hasten to his ships, which were at some distance along the coast, and were under the guidance of his son Erleng, the paths which led to the coast were more narrowly watched than those in the neighbourhood of the valley. At nightfall, he despatched some of his men to the station where his vessels lay, commanding his son to meet him off a more southern portion of the coast; the rest he sent to their own homes, keeping one serf only, Thermod Kark, who had been his companion from infancy. Feeling that his present retreat was not secure, he plunged further into the solitudes. On reaching the banks of a lake, which was frozen over, he dismounted, made a hole in the ice, thrust his horse into the aperture, and left his mantle beside it, so as to make his pursuers believe that he had perished in the waters. He then crossed the ice, and, with his slave, found refuge in a solitary cave in the mountains. Both being much fatigued, they soon fell asleep; but the slave started, and awoke his master to acquaint him with an awful dream which he had just experienced. He had seen a man of a dark, dreadful countenance, approach the cave, stand for a moment before it, and, after exclaiming, “One is dead!” ascend the hill. This mysterious denunciation was thought by Hako to allude to Erleng; for, after a moment’s reflection, he said, “Thy dream appears to indicate the death of my son!” The interpretation, say the sagas, was a true one. Olaf had just arrived off the coast; Erleng, with three vessels only, could not make head against the superior fleet which he rightly judged to be that of an enemy; and, to escape captivity, he and a few of his companions, after approaching the shore as near as they could, quietly descended into the water, and began to swim. In this state they were overtaken by the vessel in which Olaf was. According to Snorro, it was Olaf himself who, with an oar, broke the head of the young jarl as he was buffeting the waters; according to Gunlaug, it was one of his mariners. Both agree that Erleng perished within a few yards of the coast; that many of his companions perished with him; that the vessels became the prize of Olaf,