Through Harald also was Susanna made acquainted with the legends of the kings of Norway; with the deeds of Olaf Haraldsen, the blood-baptizer; with those of the noble Olof Tryggveson; and with admiration heard she of king Sverre, with the little body and the large truly-royal soul. It flattered also somewhat her womanly vanity to hear of women as extraordinary in the old history of Norway; as for example, the proud peasant's daughter, Gyda, who gave occasion to the hero-deeds of Harald Haarfager, who first made Norway into a kingdom; and although the action of Gunild, the king's mother, awakened her abhorrence, yet it gave her pleasure to see how a woman, by the supremacy of her mind, governed seven kings and directed their actions.
Darker pictures were presented by the citizen-wars, which hurried "blood-storm upon blood-storm" through the land, and in which it at length "bled liberty to death."
Now the wild strawberry blooms in the ruins of former strongholds, and upon blood-drenched fields grow golden forests,
As the scar groweth o'er the healed wound.—Tegner.
A milder generation lived in the place of the "Bloody Axe,"[2] and looked serenely and hopefully towards the future, whilst in their peaceful, beautiful valleys, they listened willingly to the memories of the old times.
Upon the hill-tops stands the ancient stone,
Where legend hovers like a singing lark,
With morning brightness on its downy breast.
Velhaven.
One subject of conversation and of dispute also between Harald and Susanna, was their pale lady. As soon as the discourse turned to her, Harald assumed a very grave demeanour, and replied only to Susanna's earnest inquiries of what he knew about her, "she must have been very unfortunate!" If, however, Susanna began to assail him with questions about this misfortune, in what it consisted, whether one could not help her in some way or other—Susanna would have gone up and down the world for this purpose—then began Harald to tell a story.
Tales of women, powerful and distinguished in their valleys, are not rare in Norway. The story of the lady in Hallingdal, called the Shrieking Lady, is well known, who was so magnificent that she was drawn by elks; one hears of the rich Lady Belju, also of Hallingdal, who built Naes church, and by means of fire and butter split the Beja rock, so that a road was carried over it, which road is called to this day the Butter Rock. One hears tell of the Ladies of Solberg and Sköndal, of their great quarrel about a pig, and of the false oath which one of them swore in the lawsuit which thence ensued; and to every one of these ladies belongs the story, that the preacher did not dare to have the church-bells rung until the great lady had arrived there.
They tell further the history of the wife of the knight Knut Eldhjerna, who, from grief for the criminal lives of her seven sons, retired from the world, and lived as a hermit in a lonesome dale, where, by fasting and alms, she endeavoured to atone for the misdeeds of her children. Yes, indeed, there are many histories of this kind. But as concerns the history which Harald related to Susanna, of Mrs. Astrid, its like had not yet been heard in the valleys of Norway. There occurred in it so many strange and horrible things, that the credulous Susanna, who during it had become ever paler and paler, might have been petrified with horror if, precisely at the most terrible part of the catastrophe, the suspicion had not suddenly occurred to her, that she was horrifying herself—at a mere fiction! And Harald's countenance, when she expressed her conjectures, made this certainty; and the hearty laughter with which he received her exclamations and reproaches excited her highest indignation, and she rose up and left him, with the assurance that she never again would ask him anything, never believe a word that he said.