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Rollo, who did
not know of the death of his father and the disgrace of his family,
landed on the island Vigin and began his old
habit of using Strand-Hug, he was seized by orders of the king, who
caused him to be brought before the Thing, and to be condemned as an
outlaw. Rollo's mother and friends offered large sums of money to appease
his anger. When Hrolf's mother Hild heard that
he was to be banished, she went to the king to ask pardon for Hrolf, but
the king was so angry that her prayers were of no avail. Then she sang:-
Disgrace
not Hefga's namesake
Nor
drive the wolf from the land,
The
wise kinsman of Hold,
Why
dealest thou thus with him King?
It
is bad to worry
Such
a wolf of Ygg's
He
will not be gentle toward
The
King's herds if he runs
Into
the woods.
[Heimskringle, Preliminary Dissertation by Laign, chapt. 3, page 110.]
or as another
translator makes it read:-
Then
Hildo spake these
lines
"Thinkest thou, King Harald,
in thy anger
To
drive away my brave Rolf Ganger,
Like
a mad wolf, from out the land?
Why,
Harald, raise thy mighty hand?
Why
banish Naefias gallant name-son,
Thy
brother of brave udal-men?
Why
is thy cruelty so fell?
Bethink
thee, monarch, it is ill
With
such a wolf at wolf to play,
Who,
driven to the wide woods away,
May
make the king's best deer his prey."
Seeing
that Harald would not pardon him or allow him
to remain in Norway,
Rollo set forth in search of a home elsewhere.
Europe
holds no memorials of ancient historical events which have been attended
by such great results in our times, as some rude excavations in the
shore-banks of the island of Vigr, in
More,-which are pointed out by the finger of tradition as the dry rocks
in which the vessels of Rolf Ganger, from whom the fifth in descent was
William the Conqueror, were drawn up in winter, and from whence he
launched them, and set out from Norway on the expedition in which he
conquered Normandy. Vigroe, the isle of Vigr, is situated in Haram
parish, in the bailiwick of Soud More. Rollo
having collected on this island a band of adventurers, some of them, like
himself, fugitives from their native country,
they started out as vikings, over whom he was
sea-king. Says the Saga, Gongu Hrolf then went
westward across the sea to the Sudrey-jar (Hebrides), and thence west to Valland,
and made war there, and got a large jarl's realm, where he induced many Northmen to settle down. It was afterwards called Normandi. Says the Saga, Gongu
Hrolf's son `William' (Vilhjalm) was father of
Richard
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