262 Norway and the Norwegians 



be) ill very gorgeous apparel. They had a love of 

 bright and shining colours ; and it is interesting to con- 

 trast the picture we get of their appearance with that 

 of the inhabitants in mediaeval Europe, who, we gather, 

 generally dressed in sober-coloured garments. We saw 

 Sigurd Syr just now in his blue kirtle and hose, and 

 afterwards putting on his tanned boots, gold spurs, 

 gold helmet, and scarlet cloak. Scarlet was, of all 

 colours, that which the inhabitants of the northern 

 lands most favoured. In the Sagas people appear con- 

 stantly in scarlet dress. It was a figure in a scarlet 

 dress which flashed out of men's si"ht when Olaf 

 Tryggvason sprang overboard at Svold. 



The merchant voyages of the Norsemen were, for the 

 present, independent affairs. Each landowner had his 

 own ship, his own private harbour or mooring-place. 

 For as yet congregations of men come to set up a trade 

 in common were hardly known ; towns had scarcely 

 begun to rise. Yet in the later days of the history 

 which we have just related, a change had set in. 

 During the greatest part of our history the only 

 approach to a town of which we read is Tunsberg, 

 modern Tonsberg, at the mouth of the Christiania Fjord. 

 But Olaf Tryggvason founded, and St. Olaf rebuilt, 

 after it had fallen into decay, the forerunner of the 

 town of Throndhjem, Xidaros or Kopstat — chapman's 

 town, merchants' town — as it was variously styled. 

 Harald Hardradi, as we saw, built Oslo, which may 

 be called the forerunner of Christiania. The chief 

 events in the following reigns are the building of fresh 

 towns in Norway ; and the next era in the history of 

 the country is the era of two things, the establishment 



