In the rich city of Kungahälla, far away at the border, was the old castle of the kings. It was surrounded by green ramparts. Huge stones stood as sentinels outside the gates, and in the courtyard grew an oak large enough to shelter under its branches all the King's henchmen.
The whole space inside the ramparts was covered with long, low wooden houses. They were so old that grass grew on the ridges of the roofs. The beams in the walls were made from the thickest trees of the forest, silver-white with age.
In the beginning of the summer Olaf Haraldsson came to Kungahälla, and he gathered together in the castle everything necessary for the celebration of his marriage. For several weeks peasants came crowding up the long street, bringing gifts: butter in tubs, cheese in sacks, hops and salt, roots and flour.
After the gifts had been brought to the castle, there was a continual procession of wedding guests through the street. There were great men and women on side-saddles, with a numerous retinue of servants and serfs. Then came hosts of players and singers, and the reciters of the Sagas. Merchants came all the way from Venderland and Gardarike, to tempt the King with bridal gifts.
When these processions for two whole weeks had filled the town with noise and bustle they only awaited the last procession, the bride's.
But the bridal procession was long in coming. Every day they expected that she would come ashore at the King's Landing-Stage, and from there, headed by drum and fife, and followed by merry swains and serious priests, proceed up the street to the King's Castle. But the bride's procession came not.
When the bride was so long in coming, everybody looked at King Olaf to see if he were uneasy. But the King always showed an undisturbed face.
'If it be the will of God,' the King said, 'that I shall possess this fair woman, she will assuredly come.'
And the King waited, whilst the grass fell for the scythe, and the cornflowers blossomed in the rye. The King still waited when the flax was pulled up, and the hops ripened on the poles. He was still waiting, when the bramble blackened on the mountain-side, and the nip reddened on the naked branch of the hawthorn.