154 Norway and the Norwegians 



made no attempt to regain the crown of Norway. On 

 the death of Athelstan he fell into disfavour with 

 Edmund, the succeeding English King, and had to 

 leave Northumbria. He first steered to Ireland ; after- 

 wards, as would appear, he made an effort to regain his 

 kingdom of Northumbria, and died in the attempt. 



On first leaving Norway Erik had sailed to the 

 Orkneys, which was a fief of the Norwegian crown, and 

 it would seem that he left his wife and some of his 

 children in that country. This wife, Gunhild, was in 

 the Orkneys at the time that she heard of Erik's death. 

 She is a strange figure, who had a great influence on 

 Norwegian history, and the story of her first acquaint- 

 ance with Erik is worth telling. 



The position which the Lapps occupy in the pages 

 of the early Norse Sagas reminds us precisely of the 

 position which the Jotuns and Trolls occupy in the 

 Edda mythology. They are the masters of the art 

 of magic, and they play upon Norwegians, high and 

 low, the same sort of tricks which the Jotuns and 

 Trolls were for ever playing on the Scandinavian gods. 

 A king is sitting at table at the Yule feast ; suddenly 

 the table and all that it contains disappear, like the 

 table set before King Alonso in the TemiKst. The 

 guests return home amazed. The king finds a Lapp 

 lingering about the place, has him seized and tortured, 

 but can gain nothing from him ; and Harald, this king's 

 son (for it is of Halfdan the Black that this story is 

 told, and his son is Harald Eairhair) helps the im- 

 prisoned Laplander to escape, and escapes with him to 

 the north. They travel till they reach the house of a 

 Lapland chief, and there they stay all the winter. One 



