It is said that Thorer Hund went to where King Olaf's body lay, laid it out on the ground, and spread a cloak over it. He told afterward that when he wiped the blood from the face it was very beautiful, and the cheeks were red. Some of the king's blood came on Thorer's wounded hand, and it healed so speedily that he did not need to dress it. This was told by Thorer himself when King Olaf's holiness came to be generally reported among the people; and Thorer Hund was among the first of the king's powerful opponents who endeavored to spread abroad the belief in Olaf's sanctity. Harald Sigurdson, King Olaf's half-brother, was severely wounded at Stiklestad; but one of Olaf's men brought him to a peasant's house the night after the battle, and the peasant cared for Harald, and healed his wound in secret, and afterward gave him his son to attend him. Some time after the battle, two young men were one day riding across the mountain to Jemteland in order to reach Sweden. One of them was a peasant's son from Verdalen, the other a young warrior, the last one of King Olaf's men who fled from the country. As they were passing over the ridge, the young man turned to his companion, and sang: "The wounds were bleeding as I rode; And down below the peasants strode, Killing the wounded with the sword, The followers of their rightful lord. From wood to wood I crept along, Unnoticed by the peasant-throng; Who knows, I thought, a day may come My name will yet be great at home." It was Olaf's brother, Harald, who was setting out to try his luck in foreign countries, whence he was to return one day, rich in honors and goods. CHAPTER XVII _King Svein Alfifuson (1030-1035)_ When King Canute the Great heard that Earl Haakon had been lost in a shipwreck on his way to Norway, he concluded to put his natural son Svein on the throne of Norway. Svein's mother was Ælfgifa, a daughter of an English chieftain in Northampton, but the Norwegians called her Alfifa and her son Svein Alfifuson. Svein had, a couple of years before, been appointed by King Canute to govern Jomsborg in Vendland; but after Earl Haakon's death King Canute sent word to him to proceed to Denmark and from there to Norway, to take that kingdom in charge and assume the title of king of Norway. With a number of men from Denmark, Svein proceeded to Norway together with his mother, Alfifa, and he was hailed as king at every Thing. He had come as far as Viken at the time the battle was fought at Stiklestad, where King Olaf fell. He continued his journey northward until, in the autumn, he came to the Throndhjem country; and there, as elsewhere, he was received as king.