282 Norway and the Norivegians 



islands or some place close by the sea. What is peculiar 

 in the history of Sverri's battles is that we constantly 

 find him making the most wonderful marches in the 

 interior of the country, crossing over in the middle of 

 winter the most difficult heights, and descending places 

 where, in those days, tliere must have been no road, 

 scarcely even a path. How he induced his men to sus- 

 tain such hardships is a miracle. But those who 

 know the country of Xorway can know how it lends 

 itself to the sort of perpetual guerilla warfare which went 

 on during these hundred years of civil war. It is as 

 easy for an army to lie hidden in one of the valleys as 

 it is for a fleet to lie hidden in any of the fjords or 

 among any of the islands. The country itself seems 

 destined to be split up in factions in the same way that 

 it is split up by nature. 



The Birkibeiuar had been shattered by the defeat 

 and death of Eystein Meyla, and when we first catch 

 sight of Sverri it is as leader of a band of only seventy 

 men, who have been driven over the border into 

 Sweden, but have now made their wav back from 

 Jemteland to the hills which overlook the Thrond- 

 hjem Fjord — by much the same way as that which St. 

 Olaf took when he returned to fight at Stiklestad. 

 Sverri had caused a proclamation to issue over the 

 country, and before long he was joined by another troop 

 of eighty men from Thelemarken. Presently with only 

 two hundred men or a little more he attacked and con- 

 quered an arm}' of 1400 men, and made his way into 

 Nidaros (Throndhjem) and was elected king there, as 

 Eystein Meyla had been eighteen months before. The 

 truth is, the Throndhjem people were, as a body, always 



