For three years the two rivals kept the peace; but the fourth winter after their accession, Magnus began to collect troops, and attacked Harold at Fyrileiv (1134) in Viken, winning a great victory. He was so elated at his success that, contrary to the advice of the liegemen, he dismissed his army and betook himself to Bergen, where he lived riotously, paying no heed to Harold's movements. The latter, in the meanwhile, had found a refuge in Denmark, and had received the province of Halland in fief. He soon gathered a sufficient force to invade Norway, and as he sailed northward to Bergen, he gained many adherents in the coast-shires. Magnus, when he heard of his approach, lost his head completely, rejected the counsel of his friend, Sigurd Sigurdsson, and contented himself with scattering about the city a kind of sharp, iron "foot-hooks," which in the end only injured his own men, and locking the harbor with iron chains, whereby he prevented his own escape, when shortly afterward the town fell into his enemy's hands. Most of his men then abandoned him, while he himself, with his faithful friend, Ivar Assersson, remained on his ship, until it was boarded by Harold's men. It is scarcely an excuse for Harold Gille to say, that his friends induced him to commit the atrocity, of which he was now guilty. He did not content himself with putting Magnus' eyes out, but he cut off one of his legs and subjected him to another still more revolting mutilation. Ivar Assersson, who strikingly resembled King Magnus, was asked whether he would now care to resemble him; and the brave man answered unflinchingly that he would, whereupon he too was blinded. The miserable Magnus was now dressed in a monk's garb and shut up in the monastery of Nidarholm. Bishop Reinald, who was suspected of having the royal treasures in his keeping, was hanged because he would not reveal their hiding-place. These misdeeds did not long remain unavenged. In the summer of 1136 came a man, named Sigurd, to Norway, who also claimed to be a son of Magnus Barefoot. Sigurd was a man of great intelligence, courage, and ambition; and in those respects, at least, a much worthier pretender than the weak, vicious Harold Gille. He had led a very adventurous life, played an important role in the feuds between the Earls of the Orkneys, visited Rome and the Holy Land, and bathed in the Jordan. The ability of Harold Hard-Ruler and the restless and enterprising spirit of Magnus Barefoot seemed to be united in him. His mother, Thora Saxe's-Daughter, is said to have kept the secret of his paternity from him until he was grown, because Magnus Barefoot had had a child by her sister, and a sense of shame had therefore kept her silent. As a boy, Sigurd had an ungovernable disposition, and in order to tame his wildness, his foster-father had him educated and consecrated to the church. When he finally kicked through the traces, he was therefore called Sigurd Slembedegn, _i.e._, the Bad Priest.