"But the right to rule lies in my rudder," thought Bardun to himself.
Then the magistrates summoned him before the tribunal.
Bardun simply whistled contemptuously.
At last matters came to such a pitch that the magistrates sailed forth to seize him in the midst of a howling tempest, and down they went in the Finmark seas.
Then Bardun was made chief magistrate, till such time as the king should send up another.
But the new man who came had not been very long in office there before it seemed to him as if it was not he but Bardun who held sway.
So the same thing happened over again.
Bardun was summoned in vain before the courts, and the magistrates came forth to seize him and perished at sea.
But when the next governor was sent up to Finmark, it was only the keel of the king's ship that came drifting in from the sea. At last nobody would venture thither to certain ruin, and Bardun was left alone, and ruled over all. Then so mighty was he in all Finmark that he reigned there like the king himself.
Now he had but one child, and that a daughter.