It was while anarchy was thus rioting and despondency reigning throughout the land, that a hope suddenly sprang up, like a star out of the depth of night. It was well known that King Haakon Sverresson, during his visit to Sarpsborg in 1203, had become enamoured of the beautiful Inga of Varteig, and it had also been whispered that she had reciprocated his love. Soon after Haakon's death, she had borne a son, and though it was taken for granted that the king was his father, the matter had been hushed up, lest the Baglers, who were masters in Viken, should hear that an heir had been born to the throne. The priest, Thrond, in whose house Inga gave birth to the boy, baptized him and gave him the name Haakon, after his father; but advised the utmost secrecy, and let no one but his immediate family know of the child's existence. Such a secret is, however, hard to keep, and, after a while, the priest took Erlend of Huseby, a man of good repute and a friend of Sverre's house, into his confidence. Erlend rejoiced that King Sverre's race was not extinct; but found the boy's position, in the midst of the enemies' land, perilous. He therefore persuaded Thrond to send him and his mother to King Inge, and himself offered to take them across the mountains. The boy Haakon was then (December, 1205,) about a year and a half old. There must have been some imminent danger at hand which impelled the priest, after having waited so long, to choose the most inclement season of the year for the journey across the trackless, snow-covered wilderness. The two friends started northward with their precious charge and arrived, after infinite hardships, in Nidaros, where they were well received by King Inge. The boy now, for a while, sojourned with his mother at court and was kindly treated. The old Birchlegs came often to see him and playfully took him between them and pulled him by the arms and legs in order to make him grow faster. For they were impatient to serve, once more, a king of the old royal race. Haakon Galen, too, took a great fancy to his young kinsman, though his demonstrations of love were, no doubt, looked upon with fear by those who had the boy's welfare at heart. Nevertheless, it appears that the earl was actually sincere, and felt moved, perhaps, by the very helplessness of the boy to protect him. A kind Providence seemed to be watching over him; for though living in the midst of the intrigues and plottings of rival chiefs, all of whom must have seen in him their most dangerous rival, his life was preserved, and he escaped unharmed from many dangers. Even the Baglers refrained from killing him, when in 1206 he fell into their hands, at the surrender of the block-house in Bergen. It is perhaps not safe to assume that a half-latent consciousness asserted itself, that in this boy Norway's future was bound up; that upon him depended the country's deliverance from the scourge of civil war. More likely it is that his