With this ragged little band of outlaws, numbering less than a hundred, Sverre set out to gain the throne of Norway, and in the end he succeeded. For long he roamed about, like Robin Hood with his merry men. He would “drop in” on a country festival and scare the people so that they fled, whereupon he and his merry men would sit down to a comfortable banquet.
However, this was more by way of a practical joke, enforced by hunger, than by any real cruelty, for Sverre was by nature extremely merciful. On one occasion, when he and his Birchlegs were crossing a mountain lake on rafts, he himself started out on the last one, but when he was some distance from shore a poor comrade, who was nearly dead and was being left behind, called piteously to be taken along. Although every raft was crowded to its utmost capacity, Sverre went back and got the dying man. The raft was so overloaded that he now had to stand up to his knees in icy water, but he did finally reach the other shore. It is reported that when Sverre’s foot left the raft (he was the last man to disembark), it sank out of sight. His followers regarded this as a miracle, and it filled them with hope.
Amid incredible hardships he fought his way to the throne, and he became so formidable that nurses throughout all Norway used to scare bad boys by saying that Sverre would catch them if they didn’t watch out.
In 1195 the Byzantine Emperor Alexius had a quarrel on his hands and sent an ambassador, Reidar, to collect from Norway two hundred mercenaries. Reidar collected his force and was prepared to return, when Bishop Nicholas, who hated Sverre with almost insane malignity, persuaded him to turn his attention to the task of wiping out the powerful Birchlegs. Accordingly these two hundred mercenaries were formed into the famous band called “Baglers” (crookmen, from _bagall_, a bishop’s crook or staff). The historic war between the Baglers and the Birchlegs centered around Bergen.
I climbed Flöifjeldet the other day, one of Bergen’s four real hills, and as I looked down on the city I could seem to see the whole struggle between Birchlegs and Baglers. But that was not the only famous struggle which took place in Bergen, and Sverre’s is not the only great name closely associated with it. Here, in Christ Church, Haakon Haakonsson was crowned on St. Olaf’s Day, July 29, 1247. On this occasion a continuous banquet was held for three days, for which function a huge boathouse was “commandeered,” as the palace was not large enough for the guests. It was the most splendid feast that had ever been held in Norway, and after the banquet a five-day fête was held in honor of the cardinal. At this fête Ordeals were forever abolished, on the very excellent ground that “it was not seemly for Christian men to challenge God to give his verdict in human affairs.”