In those days it was a common thing that anyone accused of a great crime should prove his innocence in three ways, and he might choose which of them pleased him best. Either he might walk over red-hot ploughshares, or hold in his hand a piece of red-hot iron, and if his hands or feet were marked with no scar he was held to be accused falsely. Or he could, if so he willed, be tried by the ordeal of water and, having his hands and feet bound, be cast into a river. If, after being in the water a certain time or floating a certain distance, he remained alive and unhurt, he also was let go free. In Norway the ordeal of iron alone was used, and gladly did the king's mother offer to submit to it. Straight from the meeting she went to the church of St. Peter, and fasted three days and three nights and spoke to no one. On the third day she came forth, her face shining, but the iron bar, which should have been lying in a chest in the church, was nowhere to be found. For in truth the canons and priests, who were Skuli's men, had misdoubted their cause, and had hidden it away, lest the ordeal should prove their own undoing. But the captain of the Birchlegs understood well what had befallen, and sent messengers over the land to summon a Thing, to be held in a month's time. And daily they set Hacon in the high seat beside the earl, and Skuli dared not gainsay them. --------------------- So the Thing was held in the meadow, and trumpets were blown, but the canons forbade the holy shrine to be brought out from the church of St. Olaf, as was the custom at the choosing of a king. In this they acted unwisely, for the hearts of many of their own men grew hot at this base device, and turned against them, and Hacon was proclaimed king, and oaths were sworn to him. After that Hacon the king and Skuli the earl sailed together to Bergen, in a ship of twenty benches. At the mouth of the fiord a messenger brought him word that the canons and priests of Bergen, moved by their fellows at Drontheim, did not mean to pay him kingly honours. To this Hacon made answer that, as their king, he expected the homage they had paid his fathers, or they would have to bear the penalty, and his words bore fruit, for he rowed up the fiord with all the church bells ringing and the people shouting. Then a Thing was held, and he was chosen king by the people of Bergen also. But, better than ruling over assemblies, Hacon loved to watch the strange games of boys and men. King though he was, many troubled years were in store for Hacon. Skuli was not minded to sit down quietly as Hacon's liegeman, and at once began to lay plots with the Croziermen and with John Earl of Orkney. He had taken for himself all the money which Sverrir, Hacon his son, and Ingi had stored up, and all the gold that Hacon possessed was a brooch and a ring. Thus it became plain even to the Birchlegs that Hacon could not fight both the earl and the