The Bönder now prepared at Kringlen to meet Sinclair and his Scots. As already stated, the latter had taken to the mountains in order to avoid Rosten, and had descended into the valley at Horgenlien in Nordre Sel, and taken up their quarters there for the night, after the Bönder had retired from that farm in the morning. Sinclair slept at Romungaard, where are still to be found the remains of the room he occupied, and now used as a barn.[89] The Bönder in Nordre Sel had fastened oxen to the fences, in order that the enemy should not burn down their farms. Some say that the Scots remained a day at Sel before they proceeded further. "Now begins prosperity; it will be better still over in Hedemarken," Sinclair is reported to have said to his people. In the morning, before he marched up from Sel, a few hours previous to the battle at Kringlen, he is said to have burned some powder on the palm of his hand, in order to ascertain whether his march would be successful or not. The smoke having gone up against his breast, he is reported to have exclaimed, "This day I shall suffer loss in my men, however great that loss may be." Sinclair was accompanied by a "Veirlöber,"[90] or hound; some called it a "Værkalv," others a "Vildtyrk" or "Tryntyrk",[91] "able to detect the enemy like a hound." It could, they said, scent "Christian blood." It is likewise related that the thick part of its legs had been removed in order that it might run with greater lightness. The _Veirlöber_ was shot the same morning at the farm of Ödegaard. An elderly farm labourer had remained there in order to see what the enemy would do, and hid himself with his steel-bow in a field of hemp; and another, who had likewise remained behind, got into a chimney to give the signal to the archer. After drinking some sour milk in the dairy, the hound came up to them. It is said that the sour milk, together with the smell of the hemp, prevented the nose of the _Veirlöber_ from discovering the man who was concealed, and whose unerring shot stretched him on the ground, so that the sour milk "spouted out of him." A similar _Vildtyrk_, as already stated, had been shot in Romsdalen. The Saga says it was fortunate for the Bönder that these _Vildtyrker_ had been shot, for they were dangerous spies. It is probable that they were nothing more than Sinclair's sleuth-hounds. This is to be inferred both from the descriptions given and from statements respecting the one that was shot at Ödegaard--namely, that he ran about in the fields and barked. [Illustration: BARN AT ROMUNGAARD. Still shown as that in which the Scots passed the night before the fight at Kringelen. _Page 96._] [Illustration: COTTAGE AT ROMUNGAARD. Still shown as that in which George Sinclair slept the night before the fight at Kringelen. _Page 96._]