travelled. Thus, Olaf's army was probably of a rather rag-tag character, an impression accentuated by tales of how local robber groups would join it as Olaf made his way down Verdal. The recruitment of robber gangs and other scofflaws was likely no surprise to the polytheistic heathens that opposed Olaf's attempts to forcibly convert them by murdering and torturing regional Jarls and Kings to terrorize them into accepting Christianity. reports that Anund Jacob could not raise support of an invasion of Norway among the Swedes and could only provide Olaf with a smaller force made out of his personal soldiers. In fact, why Olaf chose to travel through the politically-hostile Trøndelag, rather than to try to rally his relatives and political allies of Eastern Norway, is to this day an unsolved mystery. Perhaps he was making a last-ditch attempt for Nidaros, hoping to win acceptance for his claim to the throne amongst the peasants of Trøndelag. On the other hand, the oppositionbasically lower nobles and grand farmers under the influence of King Cnutcould not have had much time to assemble a large force. When alerted to Olaf's presence, they must have responded swiftly, considering that they met Olaf relatively far up the valley. Therefore, their action points more toward a small, hastily-arranged rally of men rather than the elaborate logistics that would have been needed to assemble a 10,000-man-strong army. Those who could have mobilized a large-scale army, the local nobles of Trøndelag (of which Einar Thambarskelfir was a prime example) were notable largely by their absence on either side. Also, the battlefield of a hotly-contested battle between nearly 20,000 men should have produced rich archeological findings to that effect; at Stiklestad however, these are sparse, though this is common in Norway. The rocky soil is not as well-suited to battlefield archaeology as continental or English soil. It makes georadar readings all but unusable, and the location of the battle site highly uncertain. On Stiklestad, the soil is deep soil with some clay, and georadar was used in 2008, showing traces of large buildings, but not much to indicate a battlefield. As is the case with most battles mentioned in the sagas, the sizes of the battling armies are probably impossible to determine. Olaf's role in Norwegian history had only just begun at his death. While nobles and rich farmers had expected their position to improve with the removal of