Sverre was caught in a trap. Not until he saw the hostile ships bearing down upon him had he a suspicion of danger. Escape was impossible. Great cliffs bounded the watery cañon. He had but fourteen ships and not half his opponent's force of men. The Heklungs were sure that victory was in their hands. But when Sverre and his Birchlegs dashed forward and attacked them with berseker fury their confidence turned to doubt. Soon it began to appear that victory was to be on the other side. Before the furious onset the Heklungs fell in numbers. Many in panic leaped into the sea and were drowned, King Magnus among them. Till mid-night the hot contest continued, by which hour half the king's force were slain and all the ships captured. The drowned corpse of King Magnus was not found until two days after the battle, when it was taken to Bergen and buried with royal ceremony. His death ended the contest and Sverre was unquestioned king of the whole land.

Shall we briefly conclude the story of King Sverre's reign? For twenty years it continued, the most of these years of war, for rebellion broke out in a dozen quarters and only the incessant vigilance and activity of a great king and great soldier enabled him to keep his throne and his life.

After all his wars and perils, he died in his bed, March 9, 1202, worn out by his long life of toil and strain. Never before had Norway so noble and able a king; never since has it seen his equal. A man was he of small frame but indomitable soul, of marvellous presence of mind and fertility in resources; a man firm but kindly and humane; a king with a clear-sighted policy and an admirable power of controlling men and winning their attachment. Never through all its history has Norway known another monarch so admirable in many ways as Sverre, the cook's son.

THE FRIENDS AND FOES
OF A BOY PRINCE.

After the death of the great King Sverre tumult and trouble reigned in Norway. Several kings came to the throne, but none of them lived long, and there was constant fighting between the Birchlegs and the opposing party who called themselves Baglers. Year after year they kept their swords out and their spears in hand, killing one another, but neither party growing strong enough to put an end to the other. All this time the people were suffering and the country growing poorer, and a strong hand was needed at the helm of the ship-of-state.

It was when King Inge, who was not of royal blood, and whose hand was not the strong hand needed, was on the throne, that new hope came to the people, for it was made known that they had among them a boy of kingly descent, a grandson of the noble Sverre. Men thought that King Sverre's line had died out, and there was great joy in their hearts when they learned that his son Haakon had left a son.

This boy was born in 1203, son of the beautiful Inga of Varteig, whom King Haakon had warmly loved though she was not his wife. The little prince was named Haakon, after his father, but he was born in the midst of the Baglers, his father's foes, and the priest who baptized him bade Inga to keep his birth a strict secret, letting none outside her own family know that a new prince had come to the land.

The secret was well kept for a time, but whispers got abroad, and Thrond, the priest, at length told the story to Erland of Huseby, whom he knew to be on the right side. Erland heard the news with joy, but feared peril for the little prince, thus born in the land of his enemies. Rumors were growing, danger might at any moment come, and though it was mid-winter, a season of deep snows and biting winds, he advised the priest to send the boy and his mother to the court of King Inge, offering himself to take them across the pathless mountains.

The difficult journey was made in safety and the boy and his mother were kindly welcomed by the king, and joyfully greeted by the Birchlegs, who were strong in that district. Little Haakon was then less than two years old, and it is said that the old loyalists, who were eager to have a king of the royal blood, used in playfulness to pull him between them by the arms and legs, to make him grow faster.