Having absolute power, he got into the habit of openly plundering men's pretty daughters and wives from them, and, after a few weeks, sending them back; greatly to the rage of the fierce Norse heart, had there been any means of resisting or revenging.

It did, after a little while, prove the ruin and destruction of Hakon the Rich, as he was then called.

It opened the door, namely, for entry of Olaf Tryggveson upon the scene,--a very much grander man; in regard to whom the wiles and traps of Hakon proved to be a recipe, not on Tryggveson, but on the wily Hakon himself, as shall now be seen straightway..