On this occasion, a whole army was with him; doubtless because he apprehended more opposition than he had yet encountered. But his mode of argument was too convincing to be resisted;—“Receive baptism, or fight me!” and the easier alternative was selected. From this meeting he repaired to Laden, where there was a magnificent temple of the gods: the idols he despoiled, threw them to the ground, and consumed the building by fire.[218] [Sidenote: 997 to 999.] But if this coercive mode of proselyting was, in many places, immediately effectual, it was not so in all. So enraged were the inhabitants of Raumdal at the destruction of the temple at Laden, that they sent forth the arrow, and an armed multitude rose at the summons. But Olaf proceeded to the south, where they could not follow him, and there he passed the winter. This opposition only rendered him the more ferocious against the pagans and all their superstitions. In the next assembly over which he presided, he denounced the magicians, and caused a decree of banishment to be pronounced against them: if they did not voluntarily leave the country, all were to be arrested, brought before him, and put to death. Eyvind Kella, a descendant of Harald Harfager, was at the head of a college of magicians. These the king invited to an entertainment, and set fire to the house in which they were assembled. Eyvind, however, was not there; but he was afterwards taken, with a considerable number of other proficients in the art, and were thrown from a high rock into the sea.—Olaf, like all the men of his time, was a believer in these pretended arts; and he was sure that, unless they were repressed, religion must suffer. His people were not less superstitious than he; and they doubted not that he had personally to contend with Odin himself. One evening, as he was holding a festival in the retired manor of Augvald, an old man, with a high cap like one of the Persian magi, and only one eye, was admitted to the table. So eloquent was his discourse, so varied his knowledge, that Olaf was delighted with his guest. Many were the abstruse questions which he put to him; equally wise and ready were the answers. Thus the night wore away. At length Olaf asked the stranger who was that Augvald to whom the house in which they were had once belonged, but who had long been dead. Augvald, replied the guest, had a cow, to which he paid divine honours, which always accompanied him, and supplied him with milk. At length he fell in battle, and in the neighbourhood of this house was buried, in one tomb, while the cow was buried in another.—Still the night wore away, and the stranger showed no desire to go: at length the king pulled off his clothes, and laid down on the bed, the mysterious guest being seated before him. But the bishop entered, to inform the king that it was time to sleep; and at the sight of him the guest departed. The rest of the monarch, however, was short; he could not sleep; and to pass away the