After they had supped, the King sent for two chests of silver that he had by him in the tent, and handed them to Egil, saying, “These, O Egil, I give thee to take to thy father in Iceland, in satisfaction for his son Thorolf, slain in my service; and to thee, in satisfaction for thy brother. If thou wilt abide with me I will give thee such honour and dignities as thou mayest thyself name.” Then Egil grew more cheerful, and he thanked the King, and said he would stay with him that winter, but that in the spring he must hie him home to Iceland, to tell the tidings to his father. He must go also to Norway, to see to the family of Thorolf and how they fared. So he stayed that winter with the King, and gat much honour from him, and in the spring he took a large warship, and on board of it a hundred men, and put out to sea. He and King Athelstan parted with great friendship, and the King begged Egil to return as soon as might be. And this Egil promised that he would do. Chapter X Two Great Kings trick each other It was, as we saw, part of Athelstan’s policy of consolidation to ally his family with foreign princes. After marrying one sister to Sitric Gale, King of the Danes of Northumbria, and another sister to Otto, who became Emperor of the West in 962, his next thought was how he could mingle his country to his country’s advantage with the affairs of Norway, which under Harald Fairhair was growing into a powerful kingdom. An opportunity soon occurred, and Athelstan was not slow to make use of it. King Harald Fairhair, who was then an old man of seventy years of age, had a son born in 919. The mother was a woman of good family named Thora, and at the time when the child was born she was on her way to meet King Harald in a ship belonging to the great Earl Sigurd, one of Harald’s wisest counsellors; but before they could reach the place where the King was staying the boy was born at a cove where the ship had put into harbour for the night, up among the rocks, not far from the ship’s gangway. It was the custom in the old Norse religion of Odin or Woden to pour water over a child after birth and give it a name, something after the manner of Christian baptism; when the child was of high birth some person of distinction was chosen to do this, for it was a matter of importance and a solemn ceremony. We hear of Harald himself, and of Olaf Trygveson, Magnus, and other kings, being thus baptized, and now Earl Sigurd “poured water” over the new-born babe, and called him Hakon, after the name of his own father.[20] The boy grew sturdy and strong, handsome, and very like his father, King Harald, and the King kept him close to himself, the mother and child being both in the King’s house as long as he was an infant.