On his return to Sweden in 1715 Charles attempted to conquer Norway and penetrated by three different routes into the country. He himself commanded the division which entered Höland (1716). The Norwegian Colonel Kruse met him with 200 men, who fought with such heroism, that Charles, brave as he was himself, was filled with admiration. "Has my brother, King Frederick, many such officers as thou?" he asked the colonel, as he lay wounded at his feet. "Oh, yes," answered Kruse, "he has plenty of them, and I am far from being among the ablest." In his blindness, Frederick had, in order to raise money, hired out a large number of the country's defenders as mercenaries, leaving only a wretched little, half-naked and half-starved force of 6,000 men under General Lützow. Charles with his well-drilled troops expected to make short work of such paltry opponents. But he failed to take account of the Norsemen's temper. Every man, young and old--nay, many a woman, too, was ready to defend hearth and home against the foe. Colonel Löwen, whom he had sent with 600 men to destroy the silver mines of Kongsberg, was captured with 160 Swedes, by the Norsemen at the parsonage in Ringerike, after having been hoodwinked by the parson's wife, the intrepid and quick-witted Anna Kolbjörnsdatter. When, suspecting that he was trapped, Löwen put the pistol to her head, she asked, coolly: "Do you serve your king in order to kill old women?" Charles captured Christiania, but could accomplish nothing against the fortress of Akershus. The citizens of Frederickshald burned their town, so that it might not afford a shelter for the Swedes against the cannon of the fortress Fredericksteen. Here the two brave and patriotic brothers, Peter and Hans Kolbjörnsson, half-brothers of Anna, distinguished themselves, and, with their hardy volunteers, harassed the enemy incessantly. It became evident to Charles that he could not take the Norse fortresses without artillery, and he expected a convoy from home with field-cannon and other munitions of war. But this expectation, too, failed. His fleet was destroyed in Dynekilen by a daring deed of Tordenskjold, the greatest naval hero that Norway has produced. Tordenskjold, having learned from some fishermen that the Swedish admiral was to have a banquet on board, that night, concluded that the officers would scarcely be in condition for fighting, after having risen from the table. He cried to his lieutenant, Peter Grib: "I hear that the Swedish admiral is going to have a carousal on his fleet. Would it not be advisable if we went with our ships and became his guests, though unbidden? The pilot says we have wind."