CHAPTER VIII 



HISTORY 

 Olaf Tryggvason (a.d. 995-1000) 



' At the time that Gunhild's sons came to the kingship 

 in Norway there ruled in Gardariki (Russian Sweden) 

 a king called Valdemar,^ whose wife was called AUogia. 

 She was wise and beneficent, though still a heathen. 

 King Valdemar had a mother who was so old and infirm 

 that she lay always a-bed. But she was well skilled in 

 spse-dom. And it was always the custom that at Yule- 

 time, when the guests assembled in the hall of the king, 

 the king's mother was borne in thither and placed in 

 the king's high seat. There she prophesied touching 

 any danger overhanging the country or similar thing, 

 according to the questions which were put to her. 



' Now it happened one winter that when the king's 

 mother had been borne in after this fashion. King 

 Valdemar asked her whether any foreign prince or 

 warrior would turn his arms against, or come to, his 

 kingdom the following year. " I discern no token of 

 any disastrous war, or other misfortune," she answered ; 

 " but one wonderful event I see. In the land of Nor- 

 way there has been lately born a child who will be 

 bred up here in Russia until he grows to be a famous 



1 Vladomir. 



169 



