Gamal said: 'Money will I give thee, an thou wilt ride furiously by hidden ways such as thou wottest to be shortest to Earl Hakon: tell him that the King will slay him, for the King wotteth that the Earl helped King Svein to land outside the Niz.'
And the matter being covenanted between them rode the peasant hard, and came even to the Earl who was sitting drinking and had not gone to his rest. But when the peasant made known his errand, rose the Earl forthwith and all his folk; and the Earl caused his chattels to be removed from the house during the night. When the King arrived thither tarried he there the night, but Hakon the Earl had ridden his way. And in time came he east to the realm of Sweden, to King Steinkel, and abode with him the summer. King Harald then turned him back to town. In the summer the King fared north to Throndhjem and abode there, but in the autumn fared eastward again to Vik.
¶ Earl Hakon went back in the summer to the Uplands, so soon as he learned that the King had fared northward, and there dwelt he until such time as the King came south again. Thereafter fared the Earl eastward to Vermaland and tarried there long in the winter; and King Steinkel gave the Earl rule and dominion over that part of the land.
When winter was wearing to an end, fared he westward to Kaumariki, and took with him many men whom the Gauts and Vermalanders had given him. And he took thence his land-dues and the taxes which he had a right to demand, & thereafter fared he back east to Gautland and dwelt there the spring.
King Harald abode the winter in Oslo, and sent his men to the Uplands to gather taxes and land-dues and the King's fines; but the Uplanders said that they would not pay to him all dues which it behoved them to pay into the hands of Earl Hakon even so long as he was alive and had not forfeited life or dominions; & no land-dues did the King therefrom obtain that winter.
¶ Now betwixt Norway and Denmark there were sent that winter messengers and messages, for both Norwegians and Danes alike desired to make peace and agreement either with other, and they prayed their Kings to do the same. The sending of these messages appeared prone to bring about concord, for in the end a peace-meeting was agreed upon in the River betwixt King Harald and King Svein. When spring-tide was come both Kings called out many men and ships for this journey. Saith a skald in a poem: