In the summer of 1176 they were numerous enough to surprise the city of Nidaros and have their chieftain, Eystein Meyla, proclaimed king at the Oere-_thing_; but the following year their luck deserted them, and in the battle of Ree, near Tunsberg, they were overwhelmingly defeated by King Magnus, and Eystein Meyla was slain (1177). The band then broke up, and the Birchlegs would perhaps never have been heard of again, if their fortunes had not become identified with those of a great man--Sverre Sigurdsson. Sverre was born in the Faeroe Isles. His mother Gunhild was, according to the legend, cook in the service of King Sigurd Mouth. She was not particularly handsome, but quick-witted and intelligent. The king begged her to kill her child, as soon as it was born; and being unwilling to listen to such a proposition, she fled on a ship to the Faeroe Isles, where she took service as milkmaid with Bishop Mathias. Here she bore a son, whom she named Sverre. A smith or combmaker named Unas came, the following spring, from Norway, and she suspected him of having been sent by the king to kill her child. She therefore hid it in a cave, which is yet called Sverre's Cave. Unas, however, followed her and discovered where the child was hidden, but promised not to harm it, if she would marry him. She consented, though reluctantly, and returned with him to Norway. Sigurd Mouth was then dead, and she had nothing to fear. When the boy was five years old, he returned to the Faeroe Isles with his mother and step-father. The latter's brother, Roe, had been made bishop after the death of Mathias, and Unas was not insensible to the advantage of living in a neighborhood, where he had such an influential relative. Sverre grew up in the belief that he was the son of Unas, and Bishop Roe, who took a fancy to him on account of his extraordinary intelligence, began to educate him for the priesthood. His ambition, as he himself asserts, did not then extend beyond a bishopric, or possibly a cardinal's hat. But when he was ordained as _diaconus_ (which is one of the lower grades of the priesthood), his mother burst into tears, and to his question why she was displeased at the honor conferred upon him, she answered: "This is but a paltry honor, compared to that which by right belongs to thee. Thou art not the son of him whom thou thinkest, but of King Sigurd in Norway. I have kept this from thee, until thou shouldst reach the age of manhood." From that day Sverre's peace of mind was gone. Great thoughts tossed and whirled about in his soul and his life seemed poor and meaningless. His ambition kept him awake in the night and bright vistas of future achievements beckoned him from afar. "If I am born to a crown," he said to his mother, "then I will strive to win it, whatever it may cost me. Life has no more joy for me without it, and therefore I will stake life on it."