Tradition has preserved with minute fidelity a number of incidents of King Olaf's progress through Sweden to the fatal field of Vaerdalen. There is a melancholy radiance, as of the setting sun, about his figure as he returns with the gospel of Christ to his people who had rejected him. First, Bishop Sigurd came to meet him and strongly dissuaded him from entering his kingdom. But he would listen to no remonstrance. Through forests and wildernesses he broke his way; cheerful amid the greatest hardships, encouraging his people and never showing, except on a single occasion, the foreboding that cast its shadow over his soul. When he crossed the mountains between Norway and Sweden, and he caught the first glimpse of the land of his birth with its rivers, mountains, and sunny valleys, he reined his horse and sat gazing, lost in thought, on the beautiful sight. A profound sadness was expressed in his features. At last the bishop roused him from his reverie, asking him what he was thinking. "Strange things," answered the king, "have for a while been borne past me. It seemed to me, as if I looked not only out over Drontheim, but over all Norway; and the longer the vision lasted, the wider it grew, until I surveyed the whole world, both land and ocean. Then it seemed to me that I recognized all the places where I had ever been before; even as plainly I saw places where I had never been before;--nay even some of which I had never even heard--both inhabited and uninhabited, as far as the world goes." It is then told that the bishop, dismounting from his horse and embracing the king's foot, said: "It is a holy man whom we are following."