Under a rattling fire from the shore batteries Tordenskjold ran into Dynekilen and attacked the hostile fleet. He was right in his supposition that the enemy had imbibed heavily. But the danger sobered them. After three hours of heavy cannonading, the Swedish admiral capitulated with 44 ships and 60 cannon. When this intelligence reached the king, he began his retreat from Norway. But he could not give up the thought of conquering a country which was so poorly equipped for defence. In 1718 he sent General Armfelt with 14,000 men against Drontheim and moved, himself, against Fredericksteen with 22,000. The outer redoubt was stormed and taken and trenches were dug toward the main fortress. In one of these trenches Charles was standing, when he was hit in the head by a bullet from the fortress and fell dead. Armfelt, on receiving this intelligence, immediately retreated toward the frontier, but lost a great number of men, who froze and starved to death upon the mountains. Thus the war was at an end, and peace was concluded in Fredensborg (1720). [Illustration: THE CAPERCAILZIE IN NORWAY.] The fortitude of the Norsemen had saved Denmark from a great danger. Frederick IV. rewarded their staunchness and intrepidity by subjecting them to further pillaging. In order to raise money for Danish needs, he sold all the churches of Norway to private parties, contending that, if the people owned them, they must have deeds and papers proving their right of property. By this miserable quibble, he pretended to give a show of legality to his spoliations. The trade with Finmark he sold to three citizens of Copenhagen, who interpreted their monopoly as a license for unlimited extortion. The population sank into misery and degradation. During the reign of Frederick IV. lived the Norseman Ludvig Holberg, who was born in Bergen, 1684. He spent his life, however, in Denmark, writing a great number of excellent comedies, in Molière's style, mock-heroic poems, satires and historical works. The life of the first half of the eighteenth century is vividly portrayed and satirized in his writings. Christian VI. (1730-1746) was an extreme pietist, and surrounded himself with Germans who sympathized with his morbid and lugubrious religion. He was lavish in his expenditures, built costly palaces, and introduced a rigid ceremonial at his court. The one meritorious act of his reign was the issue of a decree ordering confirmation in the Lutheran faith, and thus indirectly compelling all classes of the people to learn to read. Well-meant, but misdirected, were his efforts to encourage trade and manufactures, and positively disastrous was his decree forbidding the inhabitants of southern Norway to import grain from any other country than Denmark. [Illustration: CARVED LINTEL, STABBUR, OR STORE-HOUSE; CARVED BEER-MUGS.]