But Tryggve's widow, Aastrid, anticipating their intention, had fled with her foster-father, Thorolf Luse-skjegg, (Lousy-Beard), and a few attendants. She was then with child, and on a little islet in the Rand's fiord, where she was hiding, she bore her son Olaf Tryggvesson. Wherever she went Gunhild's spies pursued her. Hearing that she had borne a son, the wily queen spared no effort to get her in her power. During the entire summer Aastrid was compelled to remain on the solitary islet, venturing out only in the night, and hiding among the underbrush in the daytime. When toward autumn the nights began to grow darker, she went ashore with her attendants, travelling only when the darkness protected them. After many hardships she reached her father Erik Ofrestad's estate in the Oplands; but even here the wily Gunhild left her no peace. A man named Haakon was despatched with thirty armed attendants to search for her and her child; but Erik of Ofrestad got news of their mission in time to send his daughter and grandson away. Disguised as beggars, Aastrid and Thoralf Lousy-Beard travelled on foot from farm to farm, and came toward evening to the house of a man named Björn. They asked for food and shelter, but were rudely driven away by the inhospitable peasant. At a neighboring farm, however, they were kindly received by a peasant named Thorstein. Gunhild's emissaries, having searched in vain at Ofrestad, got on the track of the fugitives, and learned at the house of Björn that a handsome woman in poor attire, bearing a babe in her arms, had applied for shelter early in the evening. This conversation one of Thorstein's servants happened to overhear, and on arriving home, related it to his master. Thorstein immediately, with loud chiding and pretended wrath, roused the supposed beggars from their sleep, and drove them out into the night. This he did in order to deceive the servants and other listeners. But when Aastrid and Thoralf were well under way, he told them that Gunhild's hired assassins had arrived at the neighboring farm, and that his only desire was to save them. He also gave them a trusted attendant who could show them the best hiding-places in the forest. At the shores of a lake they concealed themselves among the tall bulrushes. [Illustration: SCISSORS AND ARROW-HEADS OF IRON.]