Sverri 281 



the Norwegiaus in their heathen days. Snorri gives a 

 horrible description of the tortures which were in- 

 flicted upon Sigurd Stembidjakn, that unfrocked deacon 

 and warlike adventurer, who opposed himself to the 

 claims of Harold Gillechrist. Certain men were told 

 off to do this wretched work, ' but the chiefs and the 

 greater part of the people went away. They broke his 

 shin bones with a hammer, then they stripped him, and 

 wouhl flay him alive ; but when they tried to take oft' 

 the skin, they could not do it for the gush of blood.' I 

 spare the reader any further details. It is to the infinite 

 credit of Sverri that he showed no trace of this inflamed 

 spirit of revenge ; and that, on the whole, his acts were 

 distinguished by a humanity which was remarkable, 

 considerinof the medium in which his work was cast. 



Sverri (whom his partisans called Sverri Sigurdsson) 

 was born in a.d. 1151. His reign is reckoned to begin 

 from the time he became leader of the Birkibeinar in 

 1177, wlien, therefore, the renovator of Norway was only 

 twenty-six. There is something strangely picturesque 

 and striking in this youthful figure, who had come from 

 a remote, an unconsidered colony of Norway to over- 

 throw the united powers of the aristocracy and of the 

 Church. Well might men think he worked by magic, 

 and call him the Devil's Priest. 



As we have already said, one of the chief features of 

 this war is the place which the inland country now 

 occupies in it. Formerly battles in Norway had been 

 almost entirely connected with the sea-coast. The 

 rival fleets pursue each other round the fjords and in 

 and out among the islands. When people fight they 

 land from their fleets and do battle on some of the 



