"When thou, King Haakon, didst call thy first assembly here in Drontheim, and we took thee for our king, we believed that heaven itself had descended upon us; but now we do not know whether it was liberty we gained, or whether thou wishest to make us thralls once more, by thy strange demand that we shall forsake the faith which our fathers and all their forefathers have had before us. * * * They were sturdier men than we are; and yet their faith has done well enough for us. We have learned to love thee well, and we have allowed thee to share with us the administration of law and justice. Now, we peasants have firmly determined and unanimously agreed to keep the laws which thou didst propose here at the _Frosta-thing_, and to which we gave our assent. We all wish to follow thee, and to have thee for our king, as long as a single one of us peasants is alive--if only thou, king, wilt show moderation, and not demand of us things in which we cannot follow thee, and which it would be unseemly for us to do. But if thou hast this matter so deeply at heart that thou wilt try thy might and strength against ours, then we have resolved to part from thee and take another chieftain who will aid us in freely exercising the religion which pleases us. Choose now, O king, between these two conditions, before the assembly has dispersed." [Illustration: OVAL BRONZE BUCKLE.] Loud shouts of approval greeted this speech; and it was, for a while, impossible for any one to make himself heard. At last, when the tempest had subsided, Earl Sigurd of Hlade, probably after consultation with Haakon, rose and said that the king would yield to the wishes of the peasants and would not part with their friendship. Encouraged by this first concession, the peasants now demanded that the king should participate in their sacrifices and preside at the sacrificial feast. Much against his will, Haakon was again induced to yield, but tried to pacify his conscience by making the sign of the cross over the horn consecrated to Odin. During the following year he was also compelled to eat horse-flesh at the Yule-tide sacrifice, and to omit the sign of the cross when drinking the toasts of the heathen gods. Full of wrath he departed, intimating that he would soon come back with an army large enough to punish the Trönders for the humiliation they had put upon him. There is little doubt that he would have carried out this threat, if external enemies had not directed his energies in another direction.