Part 24

No common man was Sverre and no common woman was his mother Gunhild, a cook in the kitchen of King Sigurd Mouth. Not handsome was she, but quick of wit and bright of brain. If the king had had his way the boy would have had a very short life, for he bade the mother to kill her child as soon as it should be born. Instead of consenting to this cruel mandate, she fled from the palace to a ship, which took her to the Faroe Islands, and here her son was born. She was then serving as milkmaid to Bishop Mathias.

The little Sverre began his life with an adventure. When he was a few months old a man named Unas came from Norway to the islands, a smith or comb-maker by profession. But Gunhild suspected him of being a spy sent by King Sigurd to kill her son, and she hid the boy in a cavern, which is still called Sverre's Cave. He acted like a spy, for he followed her to the cave, found where she had hidden the child, and threatened to kill it unless she would marry him. Gunhild had no love for this dangerous stranger, but she dearly loved her little son, and with much reluctance she consented to marry Unas to save the babe's life.

Such was the first event in the life of the later King Sverre. The new-married pair went back to Norway, for King Sigurd had died, but when the boy was five years old they returned to the Faroes, for Bishop Mathias was now dead, and Roe, the brother of Unas, had been made bishop in his stead.

The little fellow was made to believe that he was the son of Unas, and as he grew up Bishop Roe took a great fancy to him, for he showed himself to be very bright and intelligent. There was no boy in the island his equal, so the good bishop had him educated for the priesthood and when he was old enough had him ordained in the lowest priestly grade.

This was much against the wish of Gunhild, his mother, who had higher hopes for his future, and when he proudly told her that he was now a priest, and hoped some day to become a bishop, or even a cardinal, she burst into tears.

"Why do you weep, mother?" he asked in surprise. "I do not know why you should hear of my honor with sorrow."

"Oh, my son," she cried, "this is but a small honor compared to that to which you were born. I have not told you of the great station that is yours by right, but must now say that you are not the son of my husband Unas, but of King Sigurd of Norway, and you have as good a claim as any man living to the throne."

This surprising revelation destroyed Sverre's peace of mind. All his ambition to rise in the priesthood was gone, the crown of a kingdom seemed to float in the air before him, and his thoughts by day and his dreams by night were fixed on that shining goal. The great hopes in his mind kept sleep from his eyes and after days of mental unrest he felt that life was worthless to him if his high ambition were not fulfilled.

"Since I am born heir to the crown," he said to his mother, "I have as much right to it as any man, and I will strive at any cost to win it. I stake my life on this cast, for without it life to me has lost all its joy."

Magnus, the king then on the throne, was not of royal birth. He was the son of Erling Skakke, a great and ambitious nobleman, who had killed every descendant of the royal house he could find to make his own son king. Of the boy who was destined to dispute his claim, the cook's son on the Faroes, he knew nothing, and when the bright youth landed in Norway, whether he had gone in spite of the protests of Bishop Roe, not a soul in the kingdom dreamed that a new claimant for the throne was in the realm.

No one was likely to learn from Sverre until his plans were ripe. He was too shrewd and cautious for that. He wanted to feel the sentiment of the people, and was disappointed to find them all well satisfied with their king. Full of humor and a good talker, everybody he met was pleased with him, and when he talked with the men-at-arms of Erling Skakke they told him all they knew about the state of affairs. They were quite won over by this lively priest from the Faroes. He even made the acquaintance of Erling Skakke himself and got a thorough idea of his character.

The cunning adventurer was feeling his way and found things not at all to his liking. To attempt, alone and with an empty pocket, to drive a favorite monarch from the throne, seemed the act of madness. But the ambitious youth had dreamed his dream of royal state and had no fancy for returning to a humble priesthood on the bleak Faroes.

In Sweden, across the border, dwelt Earl Birger, who had married a sister of King Sigurd Mouth. To him Sverre went, told who he was, and begged for aid. The earl looked on him as an imposter and would have nothing to do with him. Then he sought Folkvid the Lawman, with whom lived his half-sister Cecilia, and told him the same story. Folkvid received him more graciously, but he had no power to make him king. But the rumor that a son of the late King Sigurd was in the land got abroad, and soon made its way to the ears of a band of rebels who hated the king.

Here we must go back a step. All the people of Norway were not content with the new king. From time to time pretenders to the throne arose, hornets whom Magnus and his father Erling had some trouble in destroying. They had their following, and the malcontents gathered at last around Eystein Meyla (Little Girl), who professed to be the grandson of a former king. But all this last of the pretenders was able to do was to roam about in the wilderness, keeping himself and his followers from starving by robbing the people. They were in so desperate a state that they had to use birch-bark for shoes, and the peasants in derision called them Birkebeiner, or Birchlegs. Though little better than highwaymen, they were sturdy and daring and had some success, but finally were badly beaten by the king and their leader slain. They might have never been heard of again had not the greatest of the pretenders just then came to Norway.

The rumor that a son of King Sigurd Mouth was in the land reached the ears of the handful of Birchlegs remaining and, learning where Sverre was, they sought him and begged him to be their chief. He looked at them, and seeing what dirty and ragged vagabonds they were, he told them that he had no fancy for being their leader, that there was no link of connection between them and him but poverty, and advised them, if they wanted a chief, to seek one of Earl Birger's sons, who, like himself, were of royal descent.

The beggarly troop took his advice, but the earl's son would have nothing to do with them. By way of a joke he told them to go back to Sverre and threaten to kill him if he would not be their leader. They did so, using persuasions and possibly threats, and Sverre, seeing no hope of success among the great, finally consented to become the leader of this ragged band of brigands. Such was his first definite step on the road to the throne.

In this humble fashion, the ambitious young prince, then about twenty-four years old, with empty hands and pockets and seventy ragged followers, began his desperate strife for the throne of Norway.

From Vermeland, where his enterprise began, he led his forlorn seventy southward toward Viken, his party rolling on like a snowball and growing in size on its way, until it swelled to four hundred and twenty men. In spite of his protest, these vagabonds proclaimed him king and touched his sword to indicate their allegiance. But their devotion to his cause was not great, for when he forbade them to rob and plunder the peasants most of them left him. To test the remainder, he ordered them back to Vermeland and before they reached that region only the original seventy remained.

Desperate was now the position of the youthful adventurer. He had declared himself a claimant for the throne and any one had the right to kill him. The peasants hated his robber band and he could get none to join him. They would rather have killed them all and thus earned the king's favor.

Had young Sverre been a man of common mind his enterprise must now have reached its end. But he was a man of wonderful mental resources, daring, indefatigable, capable of bearing the most extreme reverses and rescuing himself from the most perilous situations. Followed by his faithful seventy, he wandered through the pathless mountain wilderness, hopeful and resourceful. His courage was unfailing. Often they had to live on bark and frozen berries, which were dug up from under the snow. At times some of his men, worn out with hunger and exposure, would drop lifeless on their barren paths; at times he had to sleep under his shield, as his only protection from the falling snow; but his heart kept stout through it all, and he chided those who talked of ending their misfortunes by suicide.

As an example of his courage and endurance and his care of his men, we may tell the following anecdote. Once in his wanderings he came to a large mountain lake which had to be crossed. It could only be done on rafts, and the men were so exhausted that it proved desperate work to fell trees and build the necessary rafts. In time they were all despatched, Sverre boarding the last, which was so heavily laden that the water rose above his ankles.

One man was still on the shore, so utterly worn out that he had to crawl to the water's edge and beg to be taken on, lest he should perish. The others grumbled, but Sverre would not listen to their complaints but bade them to take the man on. With his extra weight the raft sank till the water reached their knees. Though the raft threatened to go to the bottom Sverre kept a resolute face. A great fallen pine on the other side made a bridge up which the men clambered to safety, Sverre being the last to leave the raft. Scarcely had he done so when the watersoaked logs sank. The men looked on this as a miracle and believed more fully than ever that he would win.

Now came the first success in his marvellous career. He had one hundred and twenty men on reaching the goal of his terrible journey, but here eighty men more joined him and with these two hundred followers he successfully faced a force of fourteen hundred which had been sent against him. With a native genius for warfare he baffled his enemies at every point, avoiding their onset, falling upon them at unexpected points, forcing them to scatter into separate detachments in the pursuit, then falling on and beating these detachments in succession. While he kept aware of their plans and movements, they never knew where to look for him, and in a short time the peasant army was beaten and dispersed.

This striking success gave new courage and hope to the Birchlegs and they came in numbers to the place to which Sverre had summoned a body of twelve representatives from the province of Troendelag. These met and proclaimed him king of Norway. It was now the summer of 1177.

The Birchlegs were hasty in supposing the beating of fourteen hundred peasants would bring success to their cause. Erling Skakke was still alive and active, and on hearing of the exploits of this new leader of rebels in the north, he got together a large fleet and sailed northward to deal with him.

The new-proclaimed king was too wary to meet this powerful force and he sought refuge in the mountains again, leaving to Erling the dominion of the coast. And now, for two years, Sverre and his men led a precarious life, wandering hither and thither through the mountain wilderness and suffering the severest privations. He was like a Robin Hood of the Norwegian mountains, loving to play practical jokes on the peasants, such as appearing with his hungry horde at their Yuletide feasts and making way with the good cheer they had provided for themselves. He was obliged to forage in the valleys, but he took pity on the poor and more than once made the great suffer for acts of oppression.

Everywhere he was hated as a desperate brigand; some believed him to be the devil himself. Naughty children were scared with the threat that the terrible Sverre would take them, and laundresses, beating their clothes at the river's brink, devoutly wished that Sverre's head was under the stone. Yet his undaunted resolution, his fights with the king's soldiers, his skirmishes with the peasants, and his boldness and daring in all situations, won him a degree of admiration even among those who feared and hated him.

Thus for two years his adventurous career went on. Then came an event that turned the tide in his favor. Erling was still pursuing him and in June, 1179, was in the coast town of Nidaros, his son, Magnus, with him. In the harbor lay the fleet. The earl and the king were feasting with their followers when word was brought them that the Birchlegs were approaching.