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 And made your best interpreter a sigh?
 
 THE 
 
 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY 
 
 THOMAS CAELYLE 
 
 AUTHOR OF "THE HISTORY OF FRIEDRTCH n., CALLED FREDERICK THE 
 
 GREAT," "HISTORY OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION," 
 
 U PAST AND PRESENT," ETC. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 JOHN \V. LOVELL COMPANY 
 14 AND 16 VESEY STREET
 
 TROW'9 
 
 PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY, 
 NEW YORK.
 
 OOl^TE^TS. 
 
 CHAPTER. PAGE 
 
 I. HARALD HAARFAGR '. 7 
 
 II. EKIC BLOOD-AXE AND BROTHERS 11 
 
 III. HAKON THE GOOD 14 
 
 IV. HARALD GREY-FELL AND BROTHERS 20 
 
 V. HAKON JARL 24 
 
 VI. OLAF TRYGGVESON 29 
 
 VII. REIGN OF OLAF TRYGGVESON 33 
 
 VIII. JARLS ERIC AND SVEIN 48 
 
 IX. KING OLAF THE THICK-SET'S VIKING DAYS 53 
 
 X. REIGN OF KING OLAF THE SAINT 61 
 
 XI. MAGNUS THE GOOD AND OTHERS 83 
 
 XII. OLAF THE TRANQUIL, MAGNUS BAREFOOT, AND SIGURD 
 
 THE CRUSADER 94 
 
 XIII. MAGNUS THE BLIND, HARALD GYLLE, AND MUTUAL EX- 
 
 TINCTION OF THE HAARFAGRS 99 
 
 XIV. SVERRIR AND DESCENDANTS, TO HAKON THE OLD 100 
 
 XV. HAKON THE OLD AT LARGS 103 
 
 XVI. EPILOGUE.. . 104 
 
 20648G7
 
 THE Icelanders, in their long winter, had a great habit of writing, 
 and were, and still are, excellent in penmanship, says Dahlmann. It 
 is to this fact that any little history there is of the Norse Kings and 
 their old tragedies, crimes, and heroisms, is almost all due. The Ice- 
 landers, it seems, not only made beautiful letters on their paper or 
 parchment, but were laudably observant and desirous of accuracy ; and 
 have left us such a collection of narratives (Sagas, literally ' Says ') as, 
 for quantity and quality, is unexampled among rude nations. Suorro 
 Sturleson's History of the Norse Kings is built out of these old Sagas, 
 and has in it a great deal of poetic fire, not a little faithful sagacity ap- 
 plied in shifting and adjusting these old Sagas, and, in a word, deserves, 
 were it once well edited, furnished with accurate maps, chronological 
 summaries, &c., to be reckoned among the great history -books of the 
 world. It is from these sources, greatly aided by accurate, learned, and 
 unwearied Dahlmann, 1 the German Professor, that the following rough 
 notes of the early Norway Kings are hastily thrown together. In His- 
 tories of England (Rapin's excepted) next to nothing has been shown of 
 the many and strong threads of connection between English affairs and 
 Norse. 
 
 iGeschichte von Diinemark, J. G. Dahlmanii, 3 vols. 8vo. Hamb. 1840-3.
 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 
 HARALD HAAEFAGB. 
 
 Till about the Year of Grace 860 there were no kings in 
 Norway, nothing but numerous jai'ls, essentially kinglets, 
 each presiding over a kind of republican or parliamentary 
 little territory ; generally striving each to be on some terms 
 of human neighbourhood with those about him, but, in spite 
 of 'Fylke Things ' (Folk Things) little parish parliaments 
 and small combinations of these, which had gradually formed 
 themselves, often reduced to the unhappy state of quarrel 
 with them. Harald Haarfagr was the first to put an end to 
 this state of things, and become memorable and profitable to 
 his country by uniting it under one head and making a king- 
 dom of it ; which it has continued to be ever since. His 
 father, Halfdan the Black, had already begun this rough but 
 salutary process, inspired by the cupidities and instincts, 
 by the faculties and opportunities, which the good genius of 
 this world, beneficent often enough under savage forms, and 
 diligent at ah 1 times to diminish anarchy as the world's ivorst 
 savagery, usually appoints in such cases, conquest, hard fight- 
 ing, followed by wise guidance of the conquered ; but it was 
 Harald the Fairhaired, his son, who conspicuously carried it 
 on and completed it. Harald's birth-year, death-year, and 
 chronology in general are known only by inference and com- 
 putation ; but, by the latest reckoning, he died about the 
 year 933 of our era, a man of eighty-three. 
 
 The business of conquest lasted Harald about twelve years 
 (A.D. 860-872 ?), in which he subdued also the vikings of the
 
 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY. 
 
 out-islands, Orkneys, Shetlands, Hebrides, and Man. Sixty 
 more years were given him to consolidate and regulate what 
 he had conquered, which he did with great judgment, indus- 
 try, and success. His reign altogether is counted to have 
 been of over seventy years. 
 
 The beginning of his great adventure was of a romantic 
 character youthful love for the beautiful Gyda, a then glori- 
 ous and famous young lady of those regions, whom the young 
 Harald aspired to marry. Gyda answered his embassy and 
 prayer in a distant, lofty manner : ' Her it would not be- 
 seem to wed any Jarl or poor creature of that kind ; let 
 him do as Gorm of Denmark, Eric of Sweden, Egbert of Eng- 
 land, and others had done, subdue into peace and regula- 
 tion the confused, contentious bits of jarls around him, and 
 become a king ; then, perhaps, she might think of his pro- 
 posal ; till then, not.' Harald was struck with this proud 
 answer, which rendered Gyda tenfold more desirable to him. 
 He vowed to let his hair grow, never to cut or even to comb it 
 till this feat were done, and the peerless Gyda his own. He 
 proceeded accordingly to conquer, in fierce battle, a Jarl or 
 two every year, and at the end of twelve years had his un- 
 kempt (and almost unimaginable) head of hair clipt off, Jarl 
 Eijguwald (Reginald) of More, the most valued and valuable 
 of all his subject-jarls, being promoted to this sublime bar- 
 ber function ; after which King Harald, with head thoroughly 
 cleaned, and hair grown, or growing again to the luxuriant 
 beauty that had no equal in his day, brought home his Gyda, 
 and made her the brightest queen in all the North. He had 
 after her, in succession, or perhaps even simultaneously in 
 some cases, at least six other wives ; and by Gyda herself one 
 daughter and four sons. 
 
 Harald was not to be considered a strict-living man, and he 
 had a great deal of trouble, as we shall see, with the tumultu- 
 ous ambition of his sons ; but he managed his Government, 
 aided by Jarl Rognwald and others, in a large, quietly potent, 
 and successful manner ; and it lasted in this royal form till 
 his death, after sixty years of it. 
 
 These were the times of Norse colonization ; proud Norse-
 
 HARALD HAARFAGR. 9 
 
 men flying into other lands, to freer scenes, to Iceland, to 
 the Faroe Islands, which were hitherto quite vacant (tenanted 
 only by some mournful hermit, Irish Christian fakir, or so) ; 
 still more copiously to the Orkney and Shetland Isles, the 
 Hebrides and other countries where Norse squatters and set- 
 tlers already were. Settlement of Iceland, we say, settlement 
 of the Faroe Islands, and, by far the notablest of all, settle- 
 ment of Normandy by Kolf the Ganger (A.D. 876 ?). 1 
 
 Rolf, son of Eognwald, 2 was lord of three little islets far 
 north, near the Fjord of Folden, called the Three Yigten 
 Islands ; but his chief means of living was that of sea-rob- 
 bery, which, or at least Eolf's conduct in which, Harald did 
 not approve of. In the Court of Harald, sea-robbery was 
 strictly forbidden as between Harald's own countries, but as 
 against foreign countries it continued to be the one profes- 
 sion for a gentleman ; thus, I read, Harald's own chief son, 
 King Eric that afterwards Avas, had been at sea in such em- 
 ployments ever since his twelfth year. Eolf's crime, however, 
 was that in coming home from one of these expeditions, his 
 crew having fallen short of victual, Eolf landed with them on 
 the shore of Norway, and, in his strait, drove in some cattle 
 there (a crime by law), and proceeded to kill and eat ; which, 
 in a little while, he heard that King Harald was on foot to 
 enquire into and punish ; whereupon Eolf the Ganger speed- 
 ily got into his ships again, got to the coast of France with 
 his sea-robbers, got infeftment by the poor King of France 
 in the fruitful, shaggy desert which is still called Normandy, 
 land of the Northmen ; and there, gradually felling the for- 
 ests, banking the rivers, tilling the fields, became, during the 
 next two centuries, Wihelmus Conquestor, the man famous 
 to England, and momentous at this day, not to England 
 alone, but to all speakers of the English tongue, now spread 
 from side to side of the world in a wonderful degree. Tan- 
 cred of Hauteville and his Italian Normans, though impor- 
 
 1 ' Settlement,' dated 912, by Mnnch, Hennlt, &c. The Saxon chron- 
 icle says (anno 876) : ' In this year Rolf overran Normandy with hia 
 army, and he reigned fifty winters.' 
 . 87.
 
 10 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY. 
 
 taut, too, in Italy, are not worth naming in comparison. This 
 is a feracious earth, and the grain of mustard-seed will grow 
 to miraculous extent in some cases. 
 
 Harald's chief helper, counsellor, and lieutenant was the 
 above-mentioned Jarl Rugnwald of More, who had the honour 
 to cut Harald's dreadful head of hair. This Rognwald was 
 father of Turf-Einar, who first invented peat in the Orkneys, 
 finding the wood ah 1 gone there ; and is remembered to this 
 day. Einar, being come to these islands by King Harald's 
 permission, to see what he could do in them islands inhab- 
 ited by what miscellany of Picts, Scots, Norse squatters we 
 do not know found the indispensable fuel all wasted. Turf- 
 Einar, too, may be regarded as a benefactor to his kind. He 
 was, it appears, a bastard ; and got no coddling from his 
 father, who disliked him, partly, perhaps, because ' he was 
 ugly and blind of an eye,' got no flattering even on his con- 
 quest of the Orkneys and invention of peat. Here is the 
 parting speech his father made to him on fitting him out 
 with a 'long-ship' (ship of war, 'dragon-ship,' ancient seven- 
 ty-four), and sending him forth to make a living for himself 
 in the world : " It were best if thou never earnest back, for I 
 have small hope that thy people will have honour by thee ; 
 thy mother's kin throughout is slavish." 
 
 Harald Haarf agr had a good many sons and daughters ; the 
 daughters he married mostly to jarls of due merit who were 
 loyal to him ; with the sons, as remarked above, he had a 
 great deal of trouble. They were ambitious, stirring fellows, 
 and grudged at their finding so little promotion from a father 
 so kind to his jarls ; sea-robbery by no means an adequate 
 career for the sons of a great king. Two of them, Halfdan 
 Haaleg (Long-leg) and Gudrod Ljome (Gleam), jealous of the 
 favours won by the great Jarl Rognwald, surrounded him in his 
 house one night, and burnt him and sixty men to death there. 
 That was the end of Rognwald, the invaluable jarl, always 
 true to Haafagr ; and distinguished in world history by pro- 
 ducing liolf the Ganger, author of the Norman Conquest of 
 England, and Turf-Einar, who invented peat in the Orkneys. 
 Whether Rolf had left Norway at this time there is no chro-
 
 ERIC BLOOD- AXE AND BROTHERS. 11 
 
 nology to tell me. As to Rolf's surname, 'Ganger,' there are 
 various hypotheses ; the likeliest, perhaps, that Rolf was so 
 weighty a man no horse (small Norwegian horses, big ponies 
 rather) could carry him, and that he usually walked, having a 
 mighty stride withal, and great velocity on foot. 
 
 One of these murderers of Jarl Rognwald quietly set him- 
 self in Rognwald's place, the other making for Orkney to 
 serve Turf-Einar in like fashion. Turf-Einar, taken by sur- 
 prise, fled to the mainland ; but returned, days or perhaps 
 weeks after, ready for battle, fought with Halfdan, put his 
 party to flight, and at next morning's light searched the isl- 
 and and slew all the men he found. As to Halfdan Long-leg 
 himself, in fierce memory of his own murdered father, Turf- 
 Einar ' cut an eagle on his back,' that is to say, hewed the 
 ribs from each side of the spine and turned them out like the 
 wings of a spread-eagle : a mode of Norse vengeance fashion- 
 able at that time in extremely aggravated cases ! 
 
 Harald Haarfagr, in the mean time, had descended upon the 
 Rognwald scene, not in mild mood towards the new jaii 
 there ; indignantly dismissed said jarl, and appointed a broth- 
 er of Rognwald (brother, notes Dahlmann), though Rogn- 
 wald had left other sons. Which done, Haarfagr sailed with 
 all speed to the Orkneys, there to avenge that cutting of an 
 eagle on the human back on Turf-Einar's part. Turf- 
 Einar did not resist ; submissively met the angry Haarfagr, 
 said he left it all, what had been done, what provocation 
 there had been, to Haarfagr' s own equity and greatness of 
 mind. Magnanimous Haarfagr inflicted a fine of sixty marks 
 in gold, which was paid in ready money by Turf-Einar, and 
 so the matter ended. 
 
 CHAPTER H. 
 
 EKIC BLOOD-AXE AND BROTHERS. 
 
 In such violent courses Haarfagr's sons, I know not how 
 many of them, had come to an untimely end ; only Eric, the 
 accomplished sea-rover, and three others remained to him. 
 Among these four sons, rather impatient for property and
 
 12 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY. 
 
 authority of tlieir own, King Harald, in his old days, tried 
 to part his kingdom in some eligible and equitable way, and 
 retire from the constant press of business, now becoming 
 burdensome to him. To each of them he gave a kind of 
 kingdom : Eric, his eldest son, to be head king, and the 
 others to be feudatory under him, and pay a certain yearly 
 contribution, an arrangement which did not answer well at 
 all. Head-King Eric insisted on his tribute ; quarrels arose 
 as to the payment, considerable fighting and disturbance, 
 bringing fierce destruction from King Eric upon many valiant 
 but too stubborn Norse spirits and among the rest upon all 
 his three brothers, which got him from the Norse populations 
 the surname of Blood-axe, 'Eric Blood-axe,' his title in his- 
 tory. One of his brothers he had killed in battle before his 
 old father's life ended ; this brother was Bjorn, a peaceable, 
 improving, trading, economic, Under-king, whom the .oikers 
 mockingly called 'Bjorn the Chapman.' The great-grandson 
 of this Bjorn became extremely distinguished by-and-by as 
 Saint Olaf. Head-King Eric seems to have had a violent wife, 
 too. She was thought to have poisoned one of her other 
 brothers-in-law. Eric Blood-axe had by no means a gentle 
 life of it in this world, trained to sea-robbery on the coasts 
 of England, Scotland, Ireland, and France, since his twelfth 
 year. 
 
 Old King Fairhair, at the age of seventy, had another son, 
 to whom was given the name of Hakon. His mother was a 
 slave in Fairhair 's house ; slave by ill-luck of war, though 
 nobly enough born. A strange adventure connects this 
 Hakon with England and King Athelstan, who was then en- 
 tering upon his great career there. Short while after this 
 Hakon came into the world, there entered Fairhair's palace, 
 one evening as Fairhair sat feasting, an English ambassador 
 or messenger, bearing in his hand, as gift from King Athel- 
 stan, a magnificent sword, with gold hilt and other fine trim- 
 mings, to the great Harald, King of Norway. Harald took 
 the sword, drew it, or was half-drawing it, admiringly from the 
 scabbard, when the English excellency broke into a scornful 
 laugh, " Ha, ha ; thou art now the feudatory of my English
 
 ERIC BLOOD-AXE AND BROTHERS 13 
 
 king ; thou bast accepted the sword from him, and art now 
 his man ! " (acceptance of a sword in that manner being the 
 symbol of investiture in those days). Harald looked a trifle 
 flurried, it is probable ; but held in his wrath, and did no 
 damage to the tricksy Englishman. He held the matter in his 
 mind, however, and next summer little Hakon, having got his 
 weaning done one of the prettiest, healthiest little creatures 
 Harald sent him off, under charge of ' Hauk ' (Hawk so called), 
 one of his principal warriors, with order, " Take him to Eng- 
 land," and instructions what to do with him there. And ac- 
 cordingly, one evening, Hauk, with thirty men escorting, 
 strode into Athelstan's high dwelling (where situated, how 
 built, whether with logs like Harald's, I cannot specifically 
 say), into Athelstan's high presence, and silently set the wild 
 little cherub upon Athelstan's knee. " What is this ? " asked 
 Athelstan, looking at the little cherub. " This is King Har- 
 ald's son, whom a serving-maid bore to him, and whom he 
 now gives thee as foster-child ! " Indignant Athelstan drew 
 his sword, as if to do the gift a mischief ; but Hauk said, 
 "Thou hast taken him on thy knee" (common symbol of 
 adoption) ; " thou canst kill him if thou wilt ; but thou dost 
 not thereby kill all the sons of Harald." Athelstan straight- 
 way took milder thoughts ; brought up and carefully edu- 
 cated Hakon ; from whom, and this singular adventure, came, 
 before very long, the first tidings of Christianity into Nor- 
 way. 
 
 Harald Haarfagr, latterly withdrawn from all kinds of busi- 
 ness, died at the age of eighty-three about A.D. 933, as is com- 
 puted ; nearly contemporary in death with the first Danish 
 king, Gorm the Old, who had done a corresponding feat in 
 reducing Denmark under one head. Remarkable old men, 
 these two first kings ; and possessed of gifts for bringing 
 Chaos a little nearer to the form of Cosmos ; possessed, in 
 fact, of loyalties to Cosmos, that is to say, of authentic virtues 
 in the savage state, such as have been needed in all societies 
 at their incipience in this world ; a kind of ' virtues ' hugely 
 in discredit at present, but not unlikely to be needed again, 
 to the astonishment of careless persons, before all is done !
 
 1-i EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY. 
 
 \ 
 
 CHAPTEE III. 
 
 HAKON THE GOOD. 
 
 Eric Blood-axe, whose practical reign is counted to have be- 
 gun about A.D. 930, had by this time, or within a year or so 
 of this time, pretty much extinguished all his brother kings, 
 and crushed down recalcitrant spirits, in his violent way ; but 
 had naturally become entirely unpopular in Norway, and filled 
 it with silent discontent and even rage against him. Hakon, 
 Fairhair's last son, the little foster-child of Athelstan in Eng- 
 land, who had been baptized and carefully educated, was come 
 to his f ourteenth or fifteenth year at his father's death ; a very 
 shining youth, as Athelstan saw with just pleasure. So soon 
 as the few preliminary preparations had been settled, Hakon, 
 furnished with a ship or two by Athelstan, suddenly appeared 
 in Norway ; got acknowledged by the Peasant Thing in Trond- 
 hjem ; ' the news of which ilew over Norway, like fire through 
 dried grass,' says an old chronicler. So that Eric, with his 
 Queen Gunhild, and seven small children, had to run ; no 
 other shift for Eric. They went to the Orkneys first of all, 
 then to England, and he ' got Northumberland as earldom,' I 
 vaguely hear, from Athelstan. But Eric soon died, and his 
 queen, with her children, went back to the Orkneys in search 
 of refuge or help ; to little purpose there or elsewhere. From 
 Orkney she went to Denmark, where Harald Blue-tooth took 
 her poor eldest boy as foster-child ; but I fear did not very 
 faithfully keep that promise. The Danes had been robbing 
 extensively during the late tumults in Norway ; this the 
 Christian Hakon, now established there, paid in kind, and 
 the two countries were at war ; so that Gunhild's little boy 
 was a welcome card in the hand of Blue-tooth. 
 
 Hakon proved a brilliant and successful king ; regulated 
 many things, public law among others (Gule-Thing Law, 
 Froste-Thing Law : these are little codes of his accepted by 
 their respective Things, and had a salutary effect in their 
 time) ; with prompt dexterity he drove back the Blue-Tooth
 
 HAKON THE GOOD. 15 
 
 foster-son invasions every time they came ; and on the whole 
 gained for himself the name of Hakon the Good. These Dan- 
 ish invasions were a frequent source of trouble to him, but his 
 greatest and continual trouble was that of extirpating heathen 
 idolatry from Norway, and introducing the Christian Evangel 
 in its stead. His transcendent anxiety to achieve this salutary 
 enterprise was all along his grand difficulty and stumbling- 
 block ; the heathen opposition to it being also rooted and 
 great. Bishops and priests from England Hakon had, preach- 
 ing and baptizing what they could, but making only slow prog- 
 ress ; much too slow for Hakon's zeal. On the other hand, 
 every Yule-tide, when the chief heathen were assembled in his 
 own palace on their grand sacrificial festival, there was great 
 pressure put upon Hakon, as to sprinkling with horse-blood, 
 drinking Yule-beer, eating horse-flesh, and the other distress- 
 ing rites ; the whole of which Hakon abhorred, and with all 
 his steadfastness strove to reject utterly. Sigurd, Jarl of 
 Lade (Trondhjem), a liberal heathen, not openly a Christian, 
 was ever a wise counseUor and conciliator in such affairs ; and 
 proved of great help to Hakon. Once, for example, there 
 having risen, at a Yule-feast, loud, almost stormful demand 
 that Hakon, like a true man and brother, should drink Yule- 
 beer with them in their sacred hightide, Sigurd persuaded 
 him to comply, for peace sake, at least in form. Hakon took 
 the cup in his left hand (excellent hot beer}, and with his right 
 cut the sign of the. cross above it, then drank a draught. 
 "Yes ; but what is this with the king's right hand?" cried 
 the company. " Don't you see ? " answered shifty Sigurd ; 
 "he makes the sign of Thor's hammer before drinking!" 
 which quenched the matter for the time. 
 
 Horse-flesh, horse-broth, and the horse-ingredient gener- 
 ally, Hakon all but inexorably declined. By Sigurd's press- 
 ing exhortation and entreaty, he did once take a kettle of 
 horse-broth by the handle, with a good deal of linen-quilt or 
 towei interposed, and did open his lips for what of steam 
 could insinuate itself. At another time he consented to a 
 particle of horse-liver, intending piivately, I guess, to keep it 
 outside the gullet, and smuggle it away without swallowing ;
 
 16 EARLY KINGS OF NOHWAY. 
 
 but farther than this not even Sigurd could persuade him to 
 go. At the Things held in regard to this matter Hakon's 
 success was always incomplete ; now and then it was plain 
 failure, and Hakon had to draw back till a better time. Here 
 is one specimen of the response he got on such an occasion ; 
 curious specimen, withal, of antique parliamentary eloquence 
 from an Anti-Christian Thing. 
 
 At a Thing of all the Fylkes of Trondhjem, Thing held at 
 Froste in that region, King Hakon, with all the eloquence he 
 had, signified that it was imperatively necessary that all 
 Bonders and sub-Bonders should become Christians, and be- 
 lieve in one God, Christ the Son of Mary ; renouncing en- 
 tirely blood sacrifices and heathen idols ; should keep every 
 seventh day holy, abstain from labour that day, and even from 
 food, devoting the day to fasting and sacred meditation. 
 Whereupon, by way of universal answer, arose a confused 
 universal murmur of entire dissent. "Take away from us 
 our old belief, and also our time for labour ! " murmured they 
 in angry astonishment ; " how can even the land be got tilled 
 in that way ? " " We cannot work if we don't get food," said 
 the hand labourers and slaves. "It lies in King Hakon's 
 blood," remarked others ; "his father and ah 1 his kindred were 
 apt to be stingy about food, though liberal enough with 
 money." At length, one Osbjorn (or Bear of the Asen or 
 Gods, what we now call Osborne), one Osbjorn of Medalhusin 
 Gulathal, stept forward, and said, in a distinct manner: "We 
 Bonders (= peasant-proprietors) thought, King Hakon, when 
 thou heldest thy first Thing-day here in Trondhjem, and we 
 took thee for our king, and received our hereditary lands 
 from thee again, that we had got heaven itself. But now 
 we know not how it is, whether we have won freedom, or 
 whether thou intendest anew to make us slaves, with this 
 wonderful proposal that we should renounce our faith, which 
 our fathers before us have held, and all our ancestors as well, 
 first in the age of burial by burning, and now in that of earth 
 burial ; and yet these departed ones were much our superiors, 
 and their faith, too, has brought prosperity to us ! Thee, at 
 the same time, we have loved so much that we raised thee to
 
 UAKON THE GOOD. IT 
 
 manage all the laws of the land, and speak as their voice to 
 us all. And even now it is our will and the vote of all Bond- 
 ers to keep that paction which thou gavest us here on the 
 Thing at Froste, and to maintain thee as king so long as any 
 of us Bonders who are here upon the Thing has life left, pro- 
 vided thou, king, wilt go fairly to work, and demand of us 
 only such things as are not impossible. But if thou wilt fix 
 upon this thing with so great obstinacy, and employ force 
 and power, in that case we Bonders have taken the resolution, 
 all of us, to fall away from thee, and to take for ourselves 
 another head, who will so behave that we may enjoy in free- 
 dom the belief which is agreeable to us. Now shalt thou, 
 king, choose one of these two courses before the Thing dis- 
 perse." 'Whereupon,' adds the Chronicle, 'all the Bonders 
 raised a mighty shout, " Yes, we will have it so, as has been 
 said." ' So that Jarl Sigurd had to intervene, and King Hakon 
 to choose for the moment the milder branch of the alterna- 
 tive. 1 At other Things Hakon was more or less successful. 
 All his days, by such methods as there were, he kept pressing 
 forward with this great enterprise, and on the whole did 
 thoroughly shake asunder the old edifice of heathendom, and 
 fairly introduce some foundation for the new and better rule 
 of faith and life among his people. Sigurd, Jarl of Lade, his 
 wise counsellor in all these matters, is also a man worthy of 
 notice. 
 
 Hakon's arrangements against the continual invasions of 
 Eric's sons, with Danish Blue-tooth backing them, were mani- 
 fold, and for a long time successful. He appointed, after 
 consultation and consent in the various Things, so many war- 
 ships, fully manned and ready, to be furnished instantly on 
 the King's demand by each province or fjord ; watchfires, on 
 fit places, from hill to hill all along the coast, were to be care- 
 fully set up, carefully maintained in readiness, and kindled on 
 any alarm of war. By such methods Blue- tooth & Co.'s inva- 
 sions were for a long while triumphantly, and even rapidly, 
 one and all of them, beaten back, till at length they seemed 
 as if intending to cease altogether, and leave Hakon alone of 
 1 Daldintuiit. ii. 93. 
 
 9
 
 13 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY. 
 
 them. But such was not their issue after all. The sons of 
 Eric had only abated under constant discouragement, had not 
 finally left off from what seemed their one great feasibility in 
 life. Gunhild, their mother, was still with them : a most 
 contriving, fierce-minded, irreconcilable woman, diligent and 
 urgent on them, in season and out of season ; and as for King 
 Blue-tooth, he was at all times ready to help, with his good- 
 will at least. 
 
 That of the alarm-fires on Hakon's part was found trouble- 
 some by his people ; sometimes it was even hurtful and pro- 
 voking (lighting your alarm-fires and rousing the whole coast 
 and population, when it was nothing but some paltry viking 
 with a couple of ships) ; in short, the alarm-signal system fell 
 into disuse, and good King Hakon himself, in the first place, 
 paid the penalty. It is counted, by the latest commentators, 
 to have been about A.D. 961, sixteenth or seventeenth year of 
 Hakon's pious, valiant, and worthy reign. Being at a feast 
 one day, with many guests, on the Island of Stord, sudden 
 announcement came to him that ships from the south were 
 approaching in quantity, and evidently ships of war. This 
 was the biggest of all the Blue-tooth foster-son invasions ; 
 and it was fatal to Hakon the Good that night. Eyvind the 
 Skaldaspillir (annihilator of ah 1 other Skalds), in his famous 
 Hakon's Song, gives account, and, still more pertinently, the 
 always practical Snorro. Danes in great multitude, six to 
 one, as people afterwards computed, springing swiftly to land, 
 and ranking themselves ; Hakon, nevertheless, at once decid- 
 ing not to take to his ships and run, but to fight there, one to 
 six ; fighting, accordingly, in his most splendid manner, and 
 at last gloriously prevailing ; routing and scattering back to 
 their ships and flight homeward these six-to-one Danes. ' Dur- 
 ing the struggle of the fight,' says Snorro, 'he was very con- 
 spicuous among other men ; and while the sun shone, his 
 bright gilded helmet glanced, and thereby many weapons were 
 directed at him. One of his henchmen, Eyvincl Finnsou (i. e. 
 Skaldaspillir, the poet), took a hat, and put it over the King's 
 helmet. Now, among the hostile first leaders were two uncles 
 of the Ericsons, brothers of Guuhild, great champions both ;
 
 EAKON THE GOOD, 19 
 
 Skreya, the elder of them, on the disappearance of the glitter- 
 ing helmet, shouted boastfully, " Does the king of the Norse- 
 men hide himself, then, or has he fled ? Where now is the 
 golden helmet ? " And so saying, Skreya, and his brother Alf 
 with him, pushed on like fools or madmen. The king said, 
 " Come on in that way, and you shah 1 find the king of the 
 Norsemen ! " And in a short space of time braggart Skreya 
 did come up, swinging his sword, and made a cut at the 
 king ; but Thoralf the Strong, an Icelander, who fought at 
 the king's side, dashed his shield so hard against Skreya that 
 he tottered with the shock. On the same instant the king 
 takes his sword ' quernbiter ' (able to cut querns or millstones) 
 with both hands, and hews Skreya through helm and head, 
 cleaving him down to the shoulders. Thoralf also slew Alf. 
 That was what they got by such over-hasty search for the 
 king of the Norsemen.' ' 
 
 Snorro considers the fall of these two champion uncles as 
 the crisis of the fight ; the Danish force being much disheart- 
 ened by such a sight, and King Hakon now pressing on so 
 hard that all men gave way before him, the battle on the 
 Ericson part became a whirl of recoil ; and in a few minutes 
 more a torrent of mere flight and haste to get on board their 
 ships, put to sea again ; in which operation many of them 
 were drowned, says Snorro ; survivors making instant sail 
 for Denmark in that sad condition. 
 
 This seems to have been King Hakon's finest battle, and the 
 most conspicuous of his victories, due not a little to his own 
 grand qualities shown on the occasion. But, alas ! it was his 
 last also. He was still zealously directing the chase of that 
 mad Danish flight, or whirl of recoil towards their ships, when 
 an arrow, shot most likely at a venture, hit him under the left 
 armpit ; and this proved his death. 
 
 He was helped into his ship, and made sail for Alrekstad, 
 where his chief residence in those parts was ; but had to stop 
 at a smaller place of his (which had been his mother's, and 
 where he himself was born) a place called Hella (the Flat 
 Rock), still known as ' Hakon's Hella ' faint from loss of 
 
 Snorro, i. 344.
 
 20 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY. 
 
 blood and crushed down as he had never before felt. Having 
 no son and only one daughter, he appointed these invasive 
 sons of Eric to be sent for, and if he died to become kings ; 
 but to " spare his friends and kindred." " If a longer life be 
 granted me," he said, " I will go out of this land to Christian 
 men, and do penance for what I have committed against God. 
 But if I die in the country of the heathen, let me have such burial 
 as you yourselves think fittest." These are his last recorded 
 words. And in heathen fashion he was buried, and besung 
 by Eyvind and the Skalds, though himself a zealously Christian 
 king, Hakon the Good ; so one still finds him worthy of being 
 called. The sorrow on Hakon's death, Snorro tells us, was so 
 great and universal, ' that he was lamented both by friends 
 and enemies ; and they said that never again would Norway 
 see such a king.' 
 
 CHAPTEE IV. 
 
 HARALD GREY-FELL AND BROTHERS. 
 
 Eric's sons; four or five of them, with a Harald at the top, 
 now at once got Norway in hand, all of it but Trondhjem, 
 as king and under-kings, and made a severe time of it for 
 those who had been, or seemed to be their enemies. Excel- 
 lent Jarl Sigurd, always so useful to Hakon and his country, 
 was killed by them ; and they came to repent that before very 
 long. The slain Sigurd left a son, Hakon, as Jarl, who be- 
 came famous in the northern world by and by. This Hakon, 
 and him only, would the Trondhjemers accept as sovereign. 
 " Death to him, then," said the sons of Eric, but only in 
 secret, till they had got their hands free and were ready ; 
 which was not yet for some years. Nay, Hakon, when act- 
 ually attacked, made good resistance, and threatened to cause 
 trouble. Nor did he by any means get his death from these 
 sons of Eric at this time, or till long afterwards at all, from 
 one of their kin, as it chanced. On the contrary, he fled to 
 Denmark now, and by and by managed to come back, to 
 their cost.
 
 HARALD GREY-FELL AND BROTHERS. . 21 
 
 Among their other chief victims were two cousins of their 
 own, Tryggve and Gudrod, who had been honest under-kings 
 to the late head-king, Hakon the Good ; but were now be- 
 come suspect, and had to tight for their lives, and lose them 
 in a tragic manner. Tryggve had a son, whom we shall hear 
 of. Gudrod, son of worthy Bjorn the Chapman, was grand- 
 father of Saint Olaf, whom all men have heard of, who has a 
 church in Southwark even, and another in Old Jewry, to this 
 hour. In all these violences, Gunhild, widow of the late 
 King Eric, was understood to have a principal hand. She 
 had come back to Norway with her sons ; and naturally 
 passed for the secret adviser and Maternal President in what- 
 ever of violence went on ; always reckoned a fell, vehement, 
 relentless personage where her own interests were concerned. 
 Probably as things settled, her influence on affairs grew less. 
 At least one hopes so ; and, in the Sagas, hears less and less 
 of her, and before long nothing. 
 
 Haralcl, the head-king in this Eric fraternity, does not 
 seem to have been a bad man, the contrary indeed ; but his 
 position was untowardly, full of difficulty and contradiction?. 
 Whatever Harald could accomplish for behoof of Christianity, 
 or real benefit to Norway, in these cross circumstances, he 
 seems to have done in a modest and honest manner. He got 
 the name of Grey fell from his people on a very trivial account, 
 but seemingly with perfect good-humour on their part. Some 
 Iceland trader had brought a cargo of furs to Trondhjem 
 (Lade) for sale ; sale being slacker than the Icelander wished, 
 he presented a chosen specimen, cloak, doublet, or whatever 
 it was, to Harald, who wore it with acceptance in public, and 
 rapidly brought disposal of the Icelander's stock, and the 
 surname of Grey fell to himself. His under-kings and he 
 were certainly not popular, though I almost think Greyfell 
 himself, in absence of his mother and the under-kings, might 
 have been so. But here they all were, and had wrought great 
 trouble in Norway. " Too many of them," said everybody ; 
 " too many of these courts and court people, eating up any 
 substance that there is ! " For the seasons withal, two or 
 three of them in succession, were bad for grass, much more
 
 22 EARLY KINO 8 OF NORWAY. 
 
 for grain ; no herring came either ; very cleanness of teeth 
 was like to come in Eyvind Skaldaspillir's opinion. This 
 scarcity became at last their share of the great Famine of 
 A.D. 975, which desolated Western Europe (see the poem in 
 the Saxon Chronicle). And all this by Eyvind Skaldaspillar, 
 and the heathen Norse in general, was ascribed to anger of 
 the heathen gods. Discontent in Norway, and especially in 
 Eyvind Skaldaspillir, seems to have been very great. 
 
 Whereupon exile Hakon, Jarl Sigurd's son, bestirs himself 
 in Denmark, backed by old King Blue-tooth, and begins in- 
 vading and encroaching in a miscellaneous way ; especially 
 intriguing and contriving plots all round him. An unfathom- 
 ably cunning kind of fellow, as weh 1 as an audacious and 
 strong-handed ! Intriguing in Trondhjem, where he gets the 
 under-king, Greyfell's brother, fallen upon and murdered ; 
 intriguing with Gold Harald, a distinguished cousin or nephew 
 of King Blue-tooth, who had done fine viking work, and 
 ^aiii^' 1 such wealth that he got the epithet of 'Gold, 'and 
 who now AVS infinitely desirous of a share in Blue-tooth's 
 kingdom as the proper finish to these sea-rovings. He even 
 ventured one day to make publicly a distinct proposal that 
 way to King Harald Blue-tooth himself ; who flew into thun- 
 der and lightning at the mere mention of it ; so that none 
 durst speak to him for several days afterwards. Of both these 
 Haralds Hakon was confidential friend ; and needed all his 
 skill to walk without immediate annihilation between such a 
 pair of dragons, and work out Norway for himself withal. In 
 the end he found he must take solidly to Blue-tooth's side of 
 the question ; and that they two must provide a recipe for 
 Gold Harald and Norway both at once. 
 
 " It is as much as your life is worth to speak again of shar- 
 ing this Danish kingdom," said Hakon very privately to Gold 
 Harald ; " but could not you, my golden friend, be content 
 with Norway for a kingdom, if one helped you to it ? " 
 
 " That could I well," answered Harald. 
 
 " Then keep me those nine war-ships you have just been 
 rigging for a new viking cruise ; have these in readiness when 
 I lift my finger ! "
 
 HARALD GREY-FELL AND BROTHERS. 23 
 
 That was the recipe contrived for Gold Harald ; recipe for 
 King Greyfell goes into the same phial, and is also ready. 
 
 Hitherto the Hakon-Blue-tooth disturbances in Norway had 
 amounted to but little. King Greyfell, a very active and val- 
 iant man, has constantly, without much difficulty, repelled 
 these sporadic bits of troubles ; but Greyfell, all the same, 
 would willingly have peace with dangerous old Blue-tooth 
 (ever anxious to get his clutches over Norway on any terms), 
 if peace with him could be had. Blue-tooth, too, professes 
 every willingness ; inveigles Greyfell, he and Hakon do, to 
 have a friendly meeting on the Danish borders, and not only 
 settle all these quarrels, but generously settle Greyfell in cer- 
 tain fiefs which he claimed in Denmark itself ; and so swear 
 everlasting friendship. Greyfell joyfully complies, punctually 
 appears at the appointed day in Lymfjord Sound, the ap- 
 pointed place. Whereupon Hakon gives signal to Gold Har- 
 ald, ' To Lymfjord with these nine ships of yours, swift ! ' 
 Gold Harald flies to Lymfjord with his ships, challenges King 
 Harald Greyfell to land and fight ; which the undaunted 
 Greyfell, though so far outnumbered, does ; and, fighting his 
 very best, perishes there, he and almost all his people. Which 
 done, Jarl Hakou, who is in readiness, attacks Gold Harald, 
 .the victorious but the wearied ; easily beats Gold Harald, 
 takes him prisoner, and instantly hangs and ends him, to the 
 huge joy of King Blue-tooth and Hakon, who now make in- 
 stant voyage to Norway ; drive all the brother undcr-kings 
 into rapid flight to the Orkneys, to any readiest shelter ; and 
 so, under the patronage of Blue-tooth, Hakon, with the title 
 of Jarl, becomes ruler of Norway. This foul treachery done 
 on the brave and honest Harald Greyfell is by some dated 
 about A.D. 969, by Munch, 965, by others, computing out of 
 Snorro only, A.D. 975. For there is always an uncertainty in 
 these Icelandic dates (say rather, rare and rude attempts at 
 dating, without even an 'A.D.' or other fixed 'year one' to go 
 upon in Iceland), though seldom, I think, so large a discrep- 
 ancy as here.
 
 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY. 
 
 CHAPTEE V. 
 
 HAKON JARL. 
 
 Hakon Jarl, such the style he took, had engaged to pay 
 some kind of tribute to King Blue-tooth, ' if he could ; ' but 
 he never did pay any, pleading always the necessity of his 
 own affairs ; with which excuse, joined to Hakon's readiness 
 in things less important, King Blue-tooth managed to content 
 himself, Hakon being always his good neighbour, at least, and 
 the two mutually dependent. In Norway, Hakon, with the 
 title of king, did in a strong-handed, steadfast, and at length 
 successful way, the office of one ; governed Norway (some 
 count) for above twenty years ; and, both at home and abroad, 
 had much consideration through most of that time ; specially 
 among the heathen orthodox, for Hakon Jarl himself was a 
 zealous heathen, fixed in his mind against these chimerical 
 Christian innovations and unsalutary changes of creed, and 
 would have gladly trampled out all traces of what the last two 
 kings (for Greyfell, also, was an English Christian after his 
 sort) had done in this respect. But he wisely discerned that 
 it was not possible, and that, for peace sake, he must not 
 even attempt it, but must strike preferably into ' perfect tol- 
 eration,' and that of ' every one getting to heaven ' (or even to 
 the other goal) ' in his own way.' He himself, it is well known, 
 repaired many heathen temples (a great ' church builder in 
 his way !), manufactured many splendid idols, with much gild- 
 ing and such artistic ornament as there was, in particular, 
 one huge image of Thor, not forgetting the hammer and ap- 
 pendages, and such a collar (supposed of solid gold, which it 
 was not quite, as we shall hear in time) round the neck of 
 him as was never seen in all the North. How he did his own 
 Yule festivals, with what magnificent solemnity, the horse-eat- 
 ings, blood-sprinklings, and other sacred rites, need not be 
 told. Something of a ' Ritualist,' one may perceive ; perhaps 
 had Scandinavian Puseyisms in him, and other desperate 
 heathen notions. He was universally believed to have gone
 
 IIAKON JARL. 25 
 
 into magic for one thing, and to have dangerous potencies 
 derived from the Devil himself. The dark heathen mind of 
 him struggling vehemently in that strange element, not al- 
 together so unlike our own in some points. 
 
 For the rest, he was evidently, in practical matters, a man 
 of sharp, clear insight, of steadfast resolution, diligence, 
 promptitude ; and managed his secular matters uncommonly 
 well. Had sixteen Jarls under him, though himself only 
 Hakon Jarl by title ; and got obedience from them stricter 
 than any king since Haarfagr had done. Acid to which that 
 the country had years excellent for grass and crop, and that 
 the herrings came in exuberance ; tokens, to the thinking 
 mind, that Hakon Jarl was a favourite of Heaven. 
 
 His fight with the far-famed Join's vikings was his grandest 
 exploit in public rumour. Jomsburg, a locality not now 
 known, except that it was near the mouth of the River Oder, 
 denoted in those ages the impregnable castle of a certain body 
 corporate, or ' Sea-Robbery Association (limited),' which, for 
 some generations, held the Baltic in terror, and plundered far 
 beyond the Belt, in the ocean itself, in Flanders and the op- 
 ulent trading havens there, above all, in opulent anarchic 
 England, which, for forty years from about this time, was the 
 pirates' Goshen ; and yielded, regularly every summer, slaves, 
 danegelt, and miscellaneous plunder, like no other country 
 Jomsburg or the viking- world had ever known. Palnatoke, 
 Bue, and the other quasi-heroic heads of this establishment 
 are still remembered in the northern parts. Palnatoke is the 
 title of a tragedy by Oehlenschliiger, which had its run of 
 immortality in Copenhagen some sixty or seventy years ago. 
 
 I judge the institution to have been in its floweriest state 
 probably now in Hakon Jarl's time. Hakon Jarl and these 
 pirates, robbing Hakon's subjects and merchants that fre- 
 quented him, were naturally in quarrel ; and frequent fight- 
 ings had fallen out, not generally to the profit of the Joms- 
 burgers, who at last determined on revenge, and the rooting 
 out of this obstructive Hakon Jarl. They assembled in force 
 at the Cape of Stad, in the Firda Fylke ; and the fight was 
 dreadful in the extreme, noise of it filling all the North for
 
 26 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY. 
 
 long afterwards. Hakon, fighting like a lion, could scarcely 
 hold his own, Death or Victory, the word on both sides ; 
 when suddenly, the heavens grew black, and there broke out 
 a terrific storm of thunder and hail, appalling to the human 
 mind, universe swallowed wholly in black night ; only the 
 momentary forked-blazes, the thunder-pealing as of Ragnarok, 
 and the battering hail-torrents, hailstones about the size of an 
 egg. Thor with his hammer evidently acting ; but in behalf 
 of whom ? The Jomsburgers in the hideous darkness, broken 
 only by flashing thunderbolts, had a dismal apprehension that 
 it was probably not on their behalf (Thor having a sense of 
 justice in him) ; and before the storm ended, thirty-five of 
 their seventy ships sheered away, leaving gallant Bue, with 
 thirty-five ships, to follow as they liked, who reproachfully 
 hailed these fugitives, and continued the now hopeless battle. 
 Bue's nose and lips were smashed or cut away ; Bue managed, 
 half-articulately, to exclaim, "Ha ! the maids (' mays') of Den- 
 mark will never kiss me more. Overboard, all ye Bue's men ! " 
 And taking his two sea-chests, with all the gold he had gained 
 in such life-struggle from of old, sprang overboard accord- 
 ingly, and finished the affair. Hakon Jarl's renown rose nat- 
 urally to the transcendent pitch after this exploit. His people, 
 I suppose chiefly the Christian part of them, whispered one to 
 another, with a shudder, ' That in the blackest of the thunder- 
 storm he had taken his youngest little boy and made away 
 with him ; sacrificed him to Thor or some devil, and gained 
 his victory by art-magic, or something worse.' Jarl Eric, 
 Hakon's eldest son, without suspicion of art- magic, but already 
 a distinguished viking, became thrice distinguished by his 
 style of sea-fighting in this battle ; and awakened great ex- 
 pectations in the viking public ; of him we shall hear again. 
 
 The Jomsburgers, one might fancy, after this sad clap went 
 visibly down in the world ; but the fact is not altogether so. 
 Old King Blue-tooth was now dead, died of a wound got in 
 battle with his ?m-natural (so-called 'natural') son and suc- 
 cessor, Otto Svein of the Forked Beard, afterwards king and 
 conqueror of England for a little while : and seldom, perhaps 
 never, had vikiugisin been in such flower as now. This
 
 EAKON JARL. 27 
 
 man's name is Sven in Swedish, Svend in German, and means 
 bo y or lad the English ' swain.' It was at old ' Father Blue- 
 tooth's funeral-ale ' (drunken burial-feast), that Svein, carous- 
 ing with his Jomsburg chiefs and other choice spirits, gener- 
 ally of the robber class, all risen into height of highest robber 
 enthusiasm, pledged the vow to one another : Svein that he 
 would conquer England (which, in a sense, he, after long 
 struggling, did) ; and the Jomsburgers that they would ruin 
 and root out Hakon Jarl (which they could by no means do), 
 and other guests other foolish things which proved equally 
 unfeasible. Sea-robber volunteers so especially abounding 
 in that time, one perceives how easily the Jomsburgers could 
 recruit themselves, build or refit new robber fleets, man 
 them with the pick of crews, and steer for opulent, fruitful 
 England ; where, under Ethelred the Unready, was such a 
 field for profitable enterprise as the viking public never had 
 before or since. 
 
 An idle question sometimes rises on me idle enough, for 
 it never can be answered in the affirmative or the negative, 
 Whether it were not these same refitted Jomsburgers who ap- 
 peared some while after this at Red Head Point, on the shore 
 of Angus, and sustained a new severe beating, in what the 
 Scotch still faintly remember as their ' Battle of Loncarty ? ' 
 Beyond doubt a powerful Norse-pirate armament dropt anchor 
 at the Red Head, to the alarm of peaceable mortals, about 
 that time. It was thought and hoped to be on its way for 
 England, but it visibly hung on for several days, deliberating 
 (as was thought) whether they would do this poorer coast the 
 honour to land on it before going farther. Did land, and 
 vigorously plunder and burn south-westward as far as Perth ; 
 laid siege to Perth ; but brought out King Kenneth on them, 
 and produced that ' Battle of Loncarty ' which still dwells in 
 vague memory among the Scots. Perhaps it might be the 
 Jomsburgers ; perhaps also not ; for there were many pirate 
 associations, lasting not from century to century like the 
 Jomsburgers. but only for very limited periods, or from year 
 to year ; indeed, it was mainly by such that the splendid 
 thief-harvest of England was reaped in this disastrous time.
 
 28 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY. 
 
 No Scottish chronicler gives the least of exact date to their 
 famed victory of Loncarty, only that it was achieved by Ken- 
 neth HL, which will mean sometime between A.D. 975 and 
 994 ; and, by the order they put it in, probably soon after 
 A.D. 975, or the beginning of this Kenneth's reign. Buchan- 
 an's narrative, carefully distilled from all the ancient Scot- 
 tish sources, is of admirable quality for style and otherwise ; 
 quiet, brief, with perfect clearness, perfect credibility even, 
 except that semi-miraculous appendage of the Ploughmen, 
 Hay and Sons, always hanging to the tail of it ; the grain of 
 possible truth in which can now never be extracted by man's 
 art ! 1 In brief, what we know is, fragments of ancient human 
 bones and armour have occasionally been ploughed up in this 
 locality, proof-positive of ancient fighting here ; and the fight 
 fell out not long after Hakon's beating of the Jomsburgers at 
 the Cape of Stad. And in such dim glimmer of wavering 
 twilight, the question whether these of Loncarty were refitted 
 Jomsburgers or not must be left hanging. Loncarty is now 
 the biggest bleachfield in Queen Victoria's dominions ; no 
 village or hamlet there, only the huge bleaching-house and a 
 beautiful field, some six or seven miles north-west of Perth, 
 bordered by the beautiful Tay river on the one side, and by 
 its beautiful tributary Almond on the other ; a Loncarty 
 fitted either for bleaching linen, or for a bit of fair duel be- 
 tween nations, in those simple times. Whether our refitted 
 Jomsburgers had the least thing to do with it is only matter 
 of fancy, but if it were they who here again got a good beat- 
 ing, fancy would be glad to find herself fact. The old pirati- 
 cal kings of Denmark had been at the founding of Jomsburg, 
 and to Svein of the Forked Beard it was still vitally important, 
 but not so to the great Knut, or any king that followed ; all 
 of whom had better business than mere thieving ; and it was 
 Magnus the Good, of Norway, a man of still higher anti-anar- 
 chic qualities, that annihilated it, about a century later. 
 
 Hakon Jarl, his chief labours in the world being over, is 
 said to have become very dissolute in his elder days, espe- 
 
 1 G. Buchanan! Opera Omnia, i. 103-4 (Curante Ruddimano, Edin- 
 Imrgi 1715).
 
 OLAF TRYGGVESON. 29 
 
 cially in the matter of women ; the wretched old fool, led away 
 by idleness and fulness of bread, which to all of us are well 
 said to be the parents of mischief. Having absolute power, 
 he got into the habit of openly plundering men's pretty 
 daughters and wives from them, and, after a few weeks, send- 
 ing 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 Kich, 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. 
 
 CHAPTEK VI. 
 
 OLAF TRYGGVESON. 
 
 Hakon, in late times, had heard of a famous stirring person' 
 victorious in various lands and seas, latterly united in sea- 
 robbery with Svein, Prince Royal of Denmark, afterwards 
 King Svein of the Double-beard (' Zme Skiaeg,' Twa Shag), or 
 fork-beard, both of whom had already done transcendent feats 
 in the viking way during this copartnery. The fame of Svein, 
 and this stirring personage, whose name was l Ole,' and, re- 
 cently, their stupendous feats in plunder of England, siege of 
 London, and other wonders and splendours of viking glory 
 and success, had gone over all the North, awakening the at- 
 tention of Hakon and everybody there. The name of ' Ole ' 
 was enigmatic, mysterious, and even dangerous-looking to 
 Hakon Jarl, who at length sent out a confidential spy to in- 
 vestigate this ' Ole/ a feat which the confidential spy did 
 completely accomplish by no means to Hakon's profit ! The 
 mysterious ' Ole ' proved to be no other than Olaf, son of 
 Tryggve, destined to blow Hakon Jarl suddenly into destruc- 
 tion, and become famous among the heroes of the Norse 
 world. 
 
 Of Olaf Tryggveson one always hopes there might, one day,
 
 ''" EARLY KINGS OF X OR WAT. 
 
 some real outline of a biography be written ; fished from the 
 abysses where (as usual) it welters deep in foul neighbour- 
 hood for the present. Farther on we intend a few words 
 more upon the matter. But in this place all that concerns 
 us in it limits itself to the two following facts : first, that 
 Hakon's confidential spy ' found Ole in Dublin ; ' picked ac- 
 quaintance with him, got him to confess that he was actually 
 Olaf, son of Tryggve (the Tryggve whom Blood-axe's fierce 
 widow and her sons had murdered) ; got him gradually to 
 o\\n that perhaps an expedition into Norway might have its 
 chances ; and finally that, under such a wise and loyal guid- 
 ance as his (the confidential spy's, whose friendship for 
 Tryggveson was so indubitable) he (Tryggveson) would actu- 
 ally try it upon Hakon Jarl, the dissolute old scoundrel. Fact 
 second is, that about the time they two set sail from Dublin 
 on their Norway expedition, Hakon Jarl removed to Trond- 
 hjem, then called Lade ; intending to pass some months there. 
 
 Now just about the time when Tryggveson, spy, and party 
 had landed in Norway, and were advancing upon Lade, with 
 what support from the public could be got, dissolute old 
 Hakou Jarl had heard of one Gudrun, a Bonder's wife, un- 
 paralleled in beauty, who was called in those parts ' Sunshine 
 of the Grove ' (so inexpressibly lovely) ; and sent off a couple 
 of thralls to bring her to him. " Never," answered Gudrun ; 
 "never, "her indignant husband; in a tone dangerous and 
 displeasing to these Court thralls ; who had to leave rapidly, 
 but threatened to return in better strength before long. 
 Whereupon, instantly, the indignant Bonder and his Sun- 
 shine of the Grove sent out their war-arrow, rousing all the 
 country into angry promptitude, and more than one perhaps 
 into greedy hope of revenge for their own injuries. The rest 
 of Hakon's history now rushes on with extreme rapidity, 
 
 Sunshine of the Grove, when next demanded of her Bonder, 
 has the whole neighbourhood assembled in arms round her ; 
 rumour of Tryggveson is fast making it the whole country. 
 Hakon's insolent messengers are cut in pieces ; Hakon finds 
 he cannot fly under cover too soon. AYith a single slave he 
 flies that same night ; but whitherward ? Can think of no
 
 OLAF TRYGGVESON. 31 
 
 safe place, except to some old mistress of his, who lives re- 
 tired in that neighbourhood, and has some pity or regard for 
 the wicked old Hakon. Old mistress does receive him, pities 
 him, will do all she can to protect and hide him. But how, 
 by what uttermost stretch of female artifice hide him here ; 
 every one will search here first of all ! Old mistress, b}' the 
 slave's help, extemporizes a cellar under the floor of her pig- 
 house ; sticks Hakon and slave into that, as the one safe se- 
 clusion she can contrive. Hakon and slave, begrunted by the 
 pigs above them, tortured by the devils within and about them, 
 passed two days in circumstances more and more horrible. 
 For they heard, through their light-slit and breathing-slit, 
 the triumphs of Tryggveson proclaiming itself by Tryggveson's 
 own lips, who had mounted a big boulder near by and was 
 victoriously speaking to the people, winding up with a prom- 
 ise of honours and rewards to whoever should bring him 
 wicked old Hakon 's head. Wretched Hakon, justly suspect- 
 ing his slave, tried to at least keep himself awake. Slave did 
 keep himself awake till Hakon dozed or slept, then swiftly cut 
 off Hakon's head, and plunged out with it to the presence of 
 Tryggveson. Tryggveson, detesting the traitor, useful as the 
 treachery was, cut off the slave's head too, had it hung up 
 along with Hakon's on the pinnacle of the Lade Gallows, 
 where the populace pelted both heads with stones and many 
 curses, especially the more important of the two. ' Hakon 
 the Bad ' ever henceforth, instead of Hakon the Rich. 
 
 This was the end of Hakon Jarl, the last support of 
 heathenry in Norway, among other characteristics he had: 
 a strong-handed, hard-headed, very relentless, greedy, and 
 wicked being. He is reckoned to have ruled in Norway, or 
 mainly ruled, either in the struggling or triumphant state, for 
 about thirty years (965-95?). He and his seem to have 
 formed, by chance rather than design, the chief opposition 
 which the Haarfagr posterity throughout its whole course ex- 
 perienced in Norway. Such the cost to them of killing good 
 Jarl Sigurd, in GreyfeH's time ! For ' curses, like chickens,' 
 do sometimes visibly ' come home to feed,' as they always, 
 either visibly or else invisibly, are punctually sure to do.
 
 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY. 
 
 Hakon Jarl is considerably connected with the Farder Saga ; 
 often mentioned there, and comes out perfectly in character ; 
 an altogether worldly-wise man of the roughest type, not 
 without a turn for practicality of kindness to those who would 
 really be of use to him. His tendencies to magic also are 
 not forgotten. 
 
 Hakon left two sons, Eric and Svein, often also mentioned 
 in this Saga. On their father's death they fled to Sweden, to 
 Denmark, and were busy stirring up troubles in those coun- 
 tries against Olaf Tryggveson ; till at length, by a favourable 
 combination, under their auspices chiefly, they got his brief 
 and noble reign put an end to. Nay, furthermore, Jarl Eric, 
 left sons, especially an elder son, named also Eric, who proved 
 a sore affliction and a continual stone of stumbling to a new 
 generation of Haarfagrs, and so continued the curse of Si- 
 gurd's murder upon them. 
 
 Towards the end of this Hakon's reign it was that the dis- 
 covery of America took place (985). Actual discovery, it ap- 
 pears, by Eric the Red, an Icelander ; concerning which there 
 has been abundant investigation and discussion in our time. 
 Ginnungagap (Roaring Abyss) is thought to be the mouth of 
 Behring's Strait in Baffin's Bay ; Big Helloland, the coast from 
 Cape Walsingham to near Newfoundland ; Little Helloland, 
 Newfoundland itself. Markland was Lower Canada, New 
 Brunswick, and Nova Scotia. Southward thence to Chesa- 
 peake Bay was called Wine Land (wild grapes still grow in 
 Rhode Island, and more luxurianaly further south). Witile 
 Jfanx Land, called also Great Ireland, is supposed to mean the 
 two Carolinas, down to the Southern Cape of Florida. In 
 Dahlmann's opinion, the Irish themselves might even pretend 
 to have probably been the first discoverers of America ; they 
 had evidently got to Iceland itself before the Norse exiles 
 found it out It appears to be certain that, from the end of 
 the tenth century to the early part of the fourteenth, there 
 was a dim knowledge of those distant shores extant in the 
 Norse mind, and even some straggling series of visits thither 
 by roving Norsemen ; though, as only danger, difficulty, and 
 no profit resulted, the visits ceased, and the whole matter sank
 
 REIGN OF OLAF TRYGGVESON. 33 
 
 into oblivion, and, but for the Icelandic talent of writing in 
 the long winter nights, would never have been heard of by 
 posterity at all. 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 REIGN OE OLAF TRYGGVESON. 
 
 Olaf Tryggveson (A.D. 995-1000) also makes a great figure 
 in the Farcer Saga, and recounts there his early troubles, 
 which were strange and many. He is still reckoned a grand 
 hero of the North, though his fates now is only Snorro Sturr- 
 leson of Iceland. Tryggveson had indeed many adventures 
 in the world. His poor mother, Astrid, was obliged to fly 
 with him, on murder of her husband by Gunhild to fly for 
 life, three months before her little Olaf was bom. She lay 
 concealed in reedy island, fled through trackless forests, 
 reached her father's with the little baby in her arms, and lay 
 deep-hidden there, tended only by her father himself ; Gun- 
 hild's pursuit being so incessant, and keen as with sleuth- 
 hounds. Poor Astrid had to fly again deviously to Sweden, 
 to Esthland (Esthonia), to Russia. In Esthland she was sold 
 as a slave, quite parted from her boy, who also was sold, and 
 again sold ; but did at last fall in with a kinsman high in the 
 Russian service ; did from him find redemption and help, and 
 so rose, in a distinguished manner, to manhood, victorious 
 self-help, and recovery of his kingdom at last. He even met 
 his mother again, he as king of Norway, she as one wonder- 
 fully lifted out of darkness into new life, and happiness still 
 in store. 
 
 Grown to manhood, Tryggveson, now become acquainted 
 with his birth, and with his, alas ! hopeless claims, left Russia 
 for the one profession open to him, that of sea-robbery ; and 
 did feats without number in that questionable line in many 
 seas and scenes, in England latterly, and most conspicuously 
 of all. In one of his courses thither, after long labours in the 
 Hebrides, Man, Wales, and down the western shores to the 
 very Land's End and farther, he paused at the Scilly Islands 
 3
 
 34 EARLY AT-VCtf OF NORWAY. 
 
 for a little while. He was told of a wonderful Christian her- 
 mit living strangely in these sea-solitudes ; had the cufftesity 
 to seek him out, examine, question, and discourse with him ; 
 and, after some reflection, accepted Christian baptism from 
 the venerable man. In Snorro the story is involved in mira- 
 cle, rumour, and fable ; but the fact itself seems certain, and 
 i > very interesting ; the great, wild, noble soul of fierce Olaf 
 opening to this wonderful gospel of tidings from beyond the 
 world, tidings which infinitely transcended all else he had 
 ever heard or dreamt of ! It seems certain he was baptized 
 here ; date not fixable ; shortly before poor heart-broken Dun- 
 stan's death, or shortly after ; most English churches, monas- 
 teries especially, lying burnt, under continual visitation of the 
 Danes. Olaf, such baptism notwithstanding, did not quit his 
 viking profession ; indeed, what other was there for him in 
 the world as yet ? 
 
 "We mentioned his occasional copartneries with Svein 6f the 
 Double-beard, now become King of Denmark, but the great- 
 est of these, and the alone interesting at this time, is their 
 joint invasion of England, and Tryggveson's exploits and for- 
 tunes there some years after that adventure of baptism in the 
 Scilly Isles. Svein and he ' were above a year in England to- 
 gether,' this time : they steered up the Thames with three 
 hundred ships and many fighters ; siege, or at least furious 
 assault, of London was their first or main enterprise, but it 
 did not succeed. The Sa.ron Chronicle gives date to it, A.D. 
 994, and names expressly, as Svein's copartner, ' Olaus, king 
 of Norway,' which he was as yet far from being ; but in re- 
 gard to the Year of Grace the Saxon Chronicle is to be held 
 indisputable, and, indeed, has the field to itself in this matter. 
 Famed Olaf Tryggveson, seen visibly at the siege of London, 
 year 994, it throws a kind of .momentary light to us over 
 that disastrous whirlpool of miseries and confusions, all dark 
 and painful to the fancy otherwise ! This big voyage and 
 furious siege of London is Svein Double-beard's first real at- 
 tempt to fulfil that vow of his at Father Blue-tooth's ' funeral- 
 ale,' and conquer England, which it is a pity he could not 
 yet do. Had London now fallen to him, it is pretty evident
 
 OF OLAF TRYGGVESON. ^ 
 
 all England must have followed, and poor England, with Svein 
 as king over it, been delivered from immeasurable woes, which 
 had to last some two and twenty years farther, before this re- 
 sult could be arrived at. But finding London impregnable 
 for the moment (no ship able to get athwart the bridge, and 
 many Danes perishing hi the attempt to do it by swimming), 
 Svein and Olaf turned to other enterprises ; all England in a 
 manner lying open to them, turn which way they liked. They 
 burnt and plundered over Kent, over Hampshire, Sussex ; 
 they stormed far and wide ; world lying all before them where 
 to choose. Wretched Ethelred, as the one invention he could 
 frill upon, offered them Danegelt (16,OOOZ. of silver this year, 
 but it rose in other years as high as 48.000/.) ; the desperate 
 Ethelred, a clear method of quenching fire by pouring oil on 
 it ! Svein and Olaf accepted ; withdrew to Southampton 
 Olaf at least did till the money was got ready. Strange to 
 think of, fierce Sveiu of the Double-beard, and conquest of 
 England by him ; this had at last become the one salutary re- 
 sult which remained for that distracted, down-trodden, now 
 utterly chaotic and anarchic country. A conquering Svein, 
 followed by an ably and earnestly administrative, as well as 
 conquering, Knut (whom Dahlmann compares to Charle- 
 magne), were.thus by the mysterious destinies appointed the 
 elective saviours of England. 
 
 Tryggveson, on this occasion, was a good while at South- 
 ampton ; and roamed extensively about, easily victorious over 
 everything, if resistance were attempted, but finding little or 
 none ; and acting now r in a peaceable or even friendly capac- 
 ity. In the Southampton country he came in contact with the 
 then Bishop of Winchester, afterwards Archbishop of Canter- 
 bury, excellent Elphegus, still dimly decipherable to us as a 
 man of great natural discernment, piety, and inborn veracity ; 
 a hero-soul, probably of real brotherhood with Olaf's own. 
 He even made court visits to King Ethelred ; one visit to him 
 at Andover of a very serious nature. By Elphegus, as we can 
 discover, he was introduced into the real depths of the Chris- 
 tian faith. Elphegus, with due solemnity of apparatus, in 
 presence of the king, at Andover baptized Olaf anew, and to
 
 SO EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY. 
 
 him Olaf engaged that he would never plunder in England 
 any more ; which promise, too, he kept. In fact, not long 
 after, Svein's conquest of England being in an evidently for- 
 ward state, Tryggveson (having made, withal, a great English 
 or Irish marriage, a dowager princess, who had voluntarily 
 fallen in love with him, see Snorro for this fine romantic 
 fact ! ) mainly resided in our island for two or three years, or 
 else in Dublin, in the precincts of the Danish Court there in 
 the Sister Isle. Accordingly it was in Dublin, as above noted, 
 that Hakon's spy found him ; and from the Liffey that his 
 squadron sailed, through the Hebrides, through the Orkneys, 
 plundering and baptizing in their strange way, towards such 
 success as we have seen. 
 
 Tryggveson made a stout, and, in effect, yictoiious and 
 glorious struggle for himself as king. Daily and hourly vigi- 
 lant to do so, often enough by soft and even merry methods, 
 for he was a witty, jocund man, and had a fine ringing laugh 
 in him, and clear pregnant words ever ready, or if soft 
 methods would not serve, then by hard and even hardest he 
 put down a great deal of miscellaneous anarchy in Norway ; 
 was especially busy against heathenism (devil-worship and its 
 rites) : this, indeed, may be called the focus and heart of all 
 his royal endeavour in Norway, and of ah 1 the troubles he now 
 had with his people there. For this was a serious, vital, all- 
 comprehending matter : devil-worship, a thing not to be tol- 
 erated one moment longer than you could by any method help ! 
 Olaf's success was intermittent, of varying complexion ; but 
 his effort, swift or slow, was strong and continual ; and on the 
 whole he did succeed. Take a sample or two of that wonder- 
 ful conversion process : 
 
 At one of his first Things he found the Bonders all assembled 
 in arms ; resolute to the death seemingly, against his proposal 
 and him. Tryggveson said little ; waited impassive, "What 
 your reasons are, good men ? " One zealous Bonder started 
 up in passionate parliamentary eloquence ; but after a sentence 
 or two broke down ; one, and then another, and still another, 
 and remained all three staring in open-mouthed silence there ! 
 The peasant-proprietors accepted the phenomenon as ludicrous,
 
 REIGN OF OLAF TRTGGVESON. 37 
 
 perhaps partly as miraculous withal, and consented to baptism 
 this time. 
 
 On another occasion of a Thing, which had assembled near 
 some heathen temple to meet him, temple where Hakon Jarl 
 had done much repairing, and set up many idol figures and 
 sumptuous ornaments, regardless of expense, especially a very 
 big and splendid Thor, with massive gold collar round the 
 neck of him, not the like of it in Norway, King Tryggveson 
 was clamorously invited by the Bonders to step in there, en- 
 lighten his eyes, and partake of the sacred rites. Instead of 
 which he rushed into the temple with his armed men ; smashed 
 down, with his own battle-axe, the god Thor prostrate on the 
 floor at one stroke, to set an example ; and in a few minutes 
 had the whole Hakon Pantheon wrecked ; packing up mean- 
 while all the gold and preciosities accumulated there (not for- 
 getting Thor's illustrious gold collar, of which we shall hear 
 again), and victoriously took the plunder home with him for 
 his own royal uses and behoof of the state. 
 
 In other cases, though a friend to strong measures, he had 
 to hold in, and await the favourable moment. Thus once, in 
 beginning a parliamentary address, so soon as he came to touch 
 upon Christianity, the Bonders rose in murmurs, in vocifera- 
 tions and jingling of arms, which quite drowned the royal 
 voice ; declared, They had taken arms against King Hakon the 
 Good to compel him to desist from his Christian proposals ; 
 and they did not think King Olaf a higher man than him 
 (Hakon the Good). The King then said, ' He purposed com- 
 ing to them next Yule to their great sacrificial feast, to see for 
 himself what their customs were,' which pacified the Bonders 
 for this time. The appointed place of meeting was again a 
 Hakou-Jaii Temple, not yet done to ruin ; chief shrine in those 
 Trondhjem parts I believe : there should Tryggveson appear 
 at Yule. Well, but before Yule came, Tryggveson made a 
 great banquet in his palace at Trondhjem, and invited far and 
 wide, all manner of important persons out of the district as 
 guests there. Banquet hardly done, Tryggveson gave some 
 slight signal, upon which armed men strode in, seized eleven 
 of these principal persons, and the King said : ' Since he him-
 
 3S EARLY A'AVG'* OF NORWAY. 
 
 self was to become a heathen again, and do sacrifice, it was 
 Ids purpose to do it in the highest form, namely, that of Human 
 Sacrifice ; and this time not of slaves and malefactors, but of 
 the best men in the country ! ' In which stringent circum- 
 stances the eleven seized persons, and company at large, gave 
 unanimous consent to baptism ; straightway received the same, 
 and abjured their idols ; but were not permitted to go home 
 till they had left, in sons, brothers, and other precious rela- 
 tives, sufficient hostages in the King's hands. 
 
 I3y unwearied industry of this and better kinds, Tryggveson 
 had trampled down idolatry, so far as form went, how far in 
 substance may be greatly doubted. But it is to be remem- 
 bered withal, that always on the back of these compulsory 
 adventures there followed English bishops, priests, and preach- 
 ers ; whereby to the open-minded, conviction, to all degrees 
 of it, was attainable, while silence and passivity became the 
 duty or necessity of the unconvinced party. 
 
 In about two years Norway was all gone over with a rough 
 harrow of conversion. Heathenism at least constrained to be 
 silent and outwardly conformable. Tryggveson nest turned 
 his attention to Iceland, sent one Thangbrand, priest from Sax- 
 ony, of wonderful qualities, military as well as theological, to 
 try and convert Iceland. Thangbrand made a few converts ; 
 for Olaf had already many estimable Iceland friends, whom he 
 liked much, and was much liked by ; and conversion was the 
 ready road to his favour. Thangbrand, I find, lodged with 
 Hall of Sida (familiar acquaintance of ' Burnt Xjal,' whose 
 Saga has its admirers among us even now). Thangbrand con- 
 verted Hall and one or two other leading men ; but in general 
 he was reckoned quarrelsome and blusterous rather than elo- 
 quent and piously convincing. Two skalds of repute made 
 biting lampoons upon Thangbrand, whom Thangbrand, by 
 two opportunities that offered, cut down and did to death be- 
 cause of their skaldic quality. Another he killed with his own 
 hand, I know not for what reason. In brief, after about a 
 year, Thangbrand returned to Norway and king Olaf, declar- 
 ing the Icelanders to be a perverse, satirical, and inconvertible 
 people, having himself, the record says, been ' the death of
 
 REIGN OF GLAF TRYGGVESON. 39 
 
 three men there.' King Olaf was in high rage at this result ; 
 but was persuaded by the Icelanders about him to try farther, 
 and by a milder instrument. He accordingly chose one 
 Thormod, a pious, patient, and kindly man, who, within the 
 next year or so, did actually accomplish the matter ; namely, 
 get Christianity, by open vote, declared at Thingvalla by the 
 general Thing of Iceland there ; the roar of a volcanic eruption 
 at the right moment rather helping the conclusion, if I rec- 
 ollect. Whereupon Olaf's joy was no doubt great. 
 
 One general result of these successful operations was the 
 discontent, to all manner of degrees, on the part of many 
 Norse individuals, against this glorious and victorious, but 
 peremptory and terrible king of theirs. Tryggveson, I fancy, 
 did not much regard all that ; a man of joyful, cheery tem- 
 per, habitually contemptuous of danger. Another trivial mis- 
 fortune that befel in these conversion operations, and. became 
 important to him, he did not even know of, and would have 
 much despised if he had. It was this : Sigrid, queen-dowager 
 of Sweden, thought to be among the most shining women of 
 the world, was also known for one of the most imperious, re- 
 vengeful, and relentless, and had got for herself the name of 
 Sigrid the Proud. In her high widowhood she had naturally 
 man}' wooers ; but treated them in a manner unexampled. 
 Two of her suitors, a simultaneous Two, were, King Harald 
 Gryenske (a cousin of King Tryggveson's, and kind of king in 
 some district, by sufferance of the late Hakon's), this luck- 
 less Gruenske and the then Russian Sovereign as weU, name 
 not worth mentioning, were zealous suitors of Queen-Dowager 
 Sigrid, and were perversely slow to accept the negative, which 
 in her heart was inexorable for both, though the expression 
 of it could not be quite so emphatic. By ill-luck for them 
 they came once, from the far West, Grtenske ; from the far 
 East, the Russian, and arrived both together at Sigrid's 
 court, to prosecute their importunate, and to her odious and 
 tiresome suit ; much, how very much, to her impatience and 
 disdain. She lodged them both in some old mansion, which 
 she had contiguous, and got compendiously furnished for 
 them ; and there, I know not whether on the first or on the
 
 40 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY. 
 
 second, or on wliat following night, this unparalleled Queen 
 Sigrid had the house surrounded, set ,on tire, and the two 
 suitors and their people burnt to ashes ! No more of bother 
 from these t\vo at least ! This appears to be a fact ; and it 
 could not be unknown to Tryggveson. 
 
 In spite of which, however, there went from Tryggveson, 
 who was now a widower, some incipient marriage proposals 
 to this proud widow ; by whom they were favourably re- 
 ceived ; as from the brightest man in all the world, they 
 might seem worth being. Now, in one of these anti-heathen 
 onslaughts of King Olaf's on the idol temples of Hakon (I 
 think it was that case where Olaf's own battle-axe struck 
 down the monstrous refulgent Thor, and conquered an im- 
 mense gold ring from the neck of him, or from the door of 
 his temple) a huge gold ring, at any rate, had come into 
 Olaf's hands ; and this he bethought him might be a pretty 
 present to Queen Sigrid, the now favourable, though the 
 proud. Sigrid received the ring with joy ; fancied what a 
 collar it would make for her own fair neck ; but noticed that 
 her two goldsmiths, weighing it on their fingers, exchanged a 
 glance. " AVhat is that ?" exclaimed Queen Sigrid. "Noth- 
 ing," answered they, or endeavoured to answer, dreading 
 mischief. But Sigrid compelled them to break open the 
 ring ; and there was found, all along the inside of it, an oc- 
 cult ring of coppei 1 , not a heart of gold at all ! " Ha," said 
 the proud Queen, flinging it away, "he that could deceive in 
 this matter can deceive in many others ! " And was in hot 
 wrath with Olaf ; though, by degrees, again she took milder 
 thoughts. 
 
 Milder thoughts, we say ; and consented to a meeting next 
 autumn at some half-way station, where their great business 
 might be brought to a happy settlement and betrothment. 
 Both Olaf Tryggveson and the high dowager appear to have 
 been tolerably of willing mind at this meeting ; but Olaf in- 
 terposed, what was always one condition with him, " Thou 
 must consent to baptism, and give up thy idol-gods." "They 
 are the gods of all my forefathers," answered the lady ; 
 " choose thou what gods thou pleasest, but leave me mine."
 
 REIGN OF OLAF THYGGVESON. 41 
 
 Whereupon au altercation ; and Tryggvesou, as was his wont, 
 towered up into shining Avrath, and exclaimed at last, " Why 
 should I care about thee then, old faded heathen creature ? '' 
 And impatiently wagging his glove, hit her, or slightly 
 switched her, on the face with it, and contemptuously turn- 
 ing away, walked out of the adventure. " This is a feat that 
 may cost thee dear one day," said Sigrid. And in the end it 
 came to do so, little as the magnificent Olaf -deigned to think 
 of it at the moment. 
 
 One of the last scuffles I remember of Olaf's having with 
 his refractory heathens was at a Thing in Hordalaud or Koga- 
 land, far in the North, where the chief opposition hero was 
 one Jaernskaegg (' ironbeard,' Scotiice 'Airn-shag', as it 
 were !). Here again was a grand heathen temple, Hakoii 
 Jarl's building, with a splendid Thor in it and much idol fur- 
 niture. The King stated what was his constant wish here as 
 elsewhere, but had no sooner entered upon the subject of 
 Christianity than universal murmur, rising into clangour and 
 violent dissent, interrupted him, and Ironbeavd took up the 
 discourse in reply. Iroubeard did not break down ; on the 
 contrary, he, with great brevity, emphasis, and clearness, sig- 
 nified " that the proposal to reject their old gods was in the 
 highest degree unacceptable to this Thing ; that it was con- 
 trary to bargain, withal ; so that if it were insisted on they 
 would have to fight with the King about it ; and in fact were 
 now ready to do so." In reply to this, Olaf, without word ut- 
 tered, but merely with some signal to the trusty armed men 
 he had with him, rushed off to the temple close at hand ; 
 burst into it, shutting the door behind him ; smashed Thor 
 & Co. to destruction ; then reappearing victorious, found 
 much confusion outside, and, in particular, what was a most 
 important item, the rugged Ironbeard done to death by Olaf's 
 men in the interim. Which entirely disheartened the Thing 
 from fighting at that moment ; having now no leader who 
 dared to head them in so dangerous an enterprise. So that 
 every one departed to digest his rage in silence as he could. 
 
 Matters having cooled for a week or two, there was another 
 Thing held ; in which King Olaf testified regret for the quar-
 
 2 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY. 
 
 rel that had fallen out, readiness to pay what mulct was due 
 by law for that unlucky homicide of Ironbeard by his people ; 
 and, withal, to take the fair daughter of Ironbeard to wife, if 
 all would comply and be friends with him in other matters ; 
 which was the course resolved on as most convenient : accept 
 baptism, we ; marry Jaernskaegg's daughter, you. This bar- 
 gain held on both sides. The wedding, too, was celebrated, 
 but that took rather a strange turn. On the morning of the 
 bride-night, Olaf, who had not been sleeping, though his fail- 
 partner thought he had, opened his eyes, and saw, with as- 
 tonishment, his fair partner aiming a long knife ready to 
 strike home upon him ! Which at once ended their wedded 
 life ; poor Demoiselle Ii-onbeard immediately bundling off 
 with her attendants home again ; King Olaf into the apart- 
 ment of his servants, mentioning there what had happened, 
 and forbidding any of them to follow her. 
 
 Olaf Tryggveson, though his kingdom was the smallest of 
 the Norse Three, had risen to a renown over all the Norse 
 world which neither he of Denmark nor he of Sweden could 
 pretend to rival. A magnificent, far-shining man ; more ex- 
 pert in all 'bodily exercises,' as the Norse called them, than 
 any man had ever been before him, or after was. Could keep 
 five daggers in the air, always catching the proper fifth by its 
 handle, and sending it aloft again ; could shoot supremely, 
 throw a javelin with either hand ; and, in fact, in battle 
 usually threw two together. These, with swimming, climb- 
 ing, leaping, were the then admirable Fine Arts of the North ; 
 in all which Tryggveson appears to have been the Eaphael 
 and the Michael Angelo at once. Essentially definable, too, 
 if we look well into him, as a wild bit of real heroism, in such 
 rude guise and environment ; a high, true, and great human 
 soul. A jovial burst of laughter in him, too ; a bright, airy, 
 wise way of speech ; dressed beautifully and with care ; a 
 man admired and loved exceedingly by those he liked ; 
 dreaded as death by those he did not like. 'Hardly any 
 king,' says Snorro, ' was ever so well obeyed, by one class out 
 of zeal and love, by the rest out of dread.' His glorious 
 course?, however, was not to last long.
 
 REIGN OF OLAF TRTGGVESON. 43 
 
 King Sveiu of the Double-beard bad not yet completed his 
 conquest of England, by no means yet, some thirteen horrid 
 years of that still before him ! when, over in Denmark, he 
 found that complaints against him and intricacies had arisen, 
 on the part principally of one Burislav, King of the Wei ids 
 (far up the Baltic), and in a less degree with the King of Swe- 
 den and other minor individuals. Svein earnestly applied 
 himself to settle these, and have his hands free. Burislav, an 
 aged heathen gentleman, proved reasonable and conciliatory ; 
 so, too, the King of Sweden, and Dowager Queen Sigrid, his 
 managing mother. Bargain in both these cases got sealed 
 and crowned by marriage. Svein, who had become a widower 
 lately, now we Ided Sigrid ; and mig4it think, possibly enough, 
 he had got a proud bargain, though a heathen one. Burislav 
 also insisted on marriage with Princess Thyri, the Double- 
 beard's sister. Thyri, inexpressibly disinclined to wed an 
 aged heathen of that stamp, pleaded hard with her brother ; 
 but the Double-bearded was inexorable ; Thyri's wailings and 
 entreaties went for nothing. With some guardian foster- 
 brother, and a serving-maid or two, she had to go on this 
 hated journey. Old Burislav, at sight of her, blazed out into 
 marriage feast of supreme magnificence, and was charmed to 
 see her ; but Thyri would not join the marriage party, re- 
 fused to eat with it or sit with it at all. Day after day, for 
 six days, flatly refused ; and after nightfall of the sixth, glided 
 out with her foster-brother into the woods, into by-paths and 
 inconceivable wanderings ; and, in effect, got home to Den- 
 mark. Brother Sveiu was not for the moment there-; prob- 
 ably enough gone to England again. But Thyri knew too 
 well he would not allow her to stay here, or anywhere that he 
 could help, except with the old heathen she had just fled 
 from. 
 
 Thyri, looking round the world, saw no likely road for her, 
 but to Olaf Tryggveson in Norway ; to beg protection from 
 the most heroic man she knew of in the world. Olaf, except 
 by renown, was not known to her ; but by renown he well 
 was. Olaf, at sight of her, promised protection and asylum 
 against all mortals. Nay. in discoursing with Thyri Olaf per-
 
 4 1 EA LiL Y A7-A' OS OF XOR \YA Y. 
 
 ceived more and more clearly what a fine handsome being 1 , 
 soul and body, Thyri was ; and in a short space of time 
 winded up by proposing to Thyri, who, humbly, and we may 
 fancy with what secret joy, consented to say yes, and become 
 Queen of Norway. In the due months they had a little son, 
 Harald ; who, it is credibly recorded, was the joy of both his 
 parents ; but who, to their inexpressible sorrow, in about a year 
 died, and vanished from them. This, and one other fact now 
 to be mentioned, is all the wedded history we have of Thyri. 
 
 The other fact is, that Thyri had, by inheritance or cove- 
 nant, not depending on her marriage with old Burislav, con- 
 siderable properties in Wendland, which she often reflected 
 might be not a little behoveful to her here in Norway, where 
 her civil-list was probably but straitened. She spoke of this 
 to her husband ; but her husband would take no hold, merely 
 made her gifts, and said, "Pooh, pooh, can't we live without 
 old Burislav and his Wendland properties ? " So that the 
 lady sank into ever deeper anxiety and eagerness about this 
 Wendland object ; took to weeping ; sat weeping whole days ; 
 and when Olaf asked, " What ails thee, then ? " would an- 
 swer, or did answer once, " What a different man my father 
 Harald Gormson was '' (vulgarly called Blue-tooth), " com- 
 pared with some that are now kings ! For no King Sveiu in 
 the world would Harald Gormson have given up his own or 
 his wife's just rights ! " Whereupon Tryggveson started up, 
 exclaiming in some heat, " Of thy brother Svein I never was 
 afraid ; if Svein and I meet in contest, it will not be Svein, I 
 believe, that conquers ; " and went off in a towering fume. 
 Consented, however, at last, had to consent, to get his fine 
 fleet equipped and armed, and decide to sail with it to W T end- 
 land to have speech and settlement with King Burislav. 
 
 Tryggveson had already ships and navies that were the 
 wonder of the North. Especially in building war-ships the 
 Crane, the Serpent, last of all the Long Serpent ' he had, for 
 size, for outward beauty, and inward perfection of equip- 
 ment, transcended all example. 
 
 1 His Long Serpent, judged by some to be of the size of a frigate of 
 
 forty-live guns. L
 
 REIGN OF OLAF TRYGGVESON. 45 
 
 Tliis new sea expedition became an object of attention to 
 all neighbours ; especially Queen Sigricl the Proud and Svein 
 Forkbeard, her now king, were attentive to it. 
 
 "This insolent Tryggveson," Queen Sigrid would often 
 say, and had long been saying, to her Svein, " to many thy 
 sister without leave had or asked of thee ; and now flauntin^ 
 
 ' O 
 
 forth his war navies, as if he, king only of paltry Norway, 
 were the big hero of the North ! Why do you suffer it, you 
 kings really great ? " 
 
 By such persuasions, and reiterations, King Svein of Den- 
 mark, King Olaf of Sweden, and Jarl Eric, now a great man 
 there, grown rich by prosperous sea-robbery and other good 
 management, were brought to take the matter up, and coin- 
 bine strenuously for destruction of King Olaf Tryggveson on 
 this grand Wendland expedition of his. Fleets and forces 
 were with best diligence got ready ; and, withal, a certain 
 Jarl Sigwald, of Jomsburg, chieftain of the Jomsvikings, a 
 powerful, plausible, and cunning man, was appointed to find 
 means of joining himself to Tryggveson's grand voyage ; 
 of getting into Tryggveson's confidence, and keeping Svein 
 Forkbeard, Eric, and the Swedish king aware of all his 
 movements. 
 
 King Olaf Tryggveson, unacquainted with all this, sailed 
 away in summer, with his splendid fleet ; went through the 
 Belts with prosperous winds, under bright skies, to the ad- 
 miration of both shores. Such a fleet, with its shining Ser- 
 pents, long and short, and perfection of equipment and ap- 
 pearance, the Baltic never saw before. Jarl Sigwald joined 
 with new ships by the way : "Had." he too, " a visit to King 
 Burislav to pay ; how could he ever do it in better company ?" 
 and studiously and skilfully ingratiated himself with King 
 Olaf. Old Burislav, when they arrived, pi-oved altogether 
 courteous, handsome, and amenable ; agreed at once to Olaf's 
 claims for his now queen, did the rites of hospitality with a 
 generous plenitude to Olaf ; who cheerily renewed acquaint- 
 ance with that country, known to him in early days (the 
 cradle of his fortunes in the viking line), and found old 
 friends there still surviving, joyful to meet him again. Jarl
 
 40 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY. 
 
 Sigwald encouraged these delays, King Svein & Co. not being 
 yet quite ready. " Get ready ! " Sigwald directed them, and 
 they diligently did. Olaf's men, their business now done, 
 were impatient to be home, and grudged every day of loiter- 
 ing there ; but, till Sigwald pleased, such his power of flatter- 
 ing and cajoling Tryggveson, they could not get away. 
 
 At length, Sigwald's secret messengers reporting all ready 
 on the part of Svein & Co., Olaf took farewell of Burislav and 
 Wenclland, and all gladly sailed away. Svein, Eric, and the 
 Swedish king, with their combined fleets, lay in wait behind 
 some cape in a safe little bay of some island, then called 
 Svolde, but not in our time to be found : the Baltic tumults 
 in the fourteenth century having swallowed it, as some think, 
 and leaving us uncertain whether it was in the neighbour- 
 hood of Riigen Island or in the Sound of Elsinore. There 
 lay Svein, Eric, & Co. waiting till Tryggveson and his fleet 
 came up, Sigwald's spy messengers daily reporting what 
 progress he and it had made. At length, one bright summer 
 morning, the fleet made appearance, sailing in loose order, 
 Sigwald, as one acquainted with the shoal places, steering 
 ahead, and showing them the way. 
 
 Snorro rises into one of his pictorial fits, seized with en- 
 thusiasm at the thought of such a fleet, and reports to us 
 largely in what order Tryggvesou's winged Coursers of the 
 Deep, in long series, for perhaps an hour or more, came on, 
 and what the three potentates, from their knoll of vantage, 
 said of each as it hove in sight. Svein thrice over guessed 
 this and the other noble vessel to be the Long Serpent ; Eric 
 always correcting him : " No, that is not the Long Serpent 
 yet " (and aside always), " Nor shall you be lord of it, King, 
 when it does come." The Long Serpent itself did make ap- 
 pearance. Eric, Svein, and the Swedish king hurried on 
 board, and pushed out of their hiding-place into the open sea. 
 Treacherous Sigwald, at the beginning of all this, had sud- 
 denly doubled that cape of theirs, and struck into the bay out 
 of sight, leaving the foremost Tryggveson ships astonished, 
 and uncertain what to do, if it were not simply to strike sail 
 and wait till Olaf himself with the Long Serpent arrived.
 
 OF OLAF T&7QQTB8<W. 47 
 
 Olaf's chief captains, seeing tbe enemy's huge fleet come 
 out, and how the matter lay, strongly advised King Olaf to 
 elude this stroke of treachery, and, with all sail, hold on his 
 course, fight being now on so unequal terms. Snorro says, the 
 King, high on the quarter-deck -where he stood, replied, 
 "Strike the sails! never shall in en of mine think of night 
 I never fled from battle. Let God dispose of my life ; but 
 flight I will never take." And so the battle arrangements 
 immediately began, and the battle with all fury went loose ; 
 and lasted hour after hour, till almost sunset, if I well recol- 
 lect. " Olaf stood on the Serpent's quarter-deck," says 
 Snorro, " high over the others. He had a gilt shield and a 
 helmet inlaid with gold ; over his armour he had a short red 
 coat, and was easily distinguished from other men." Siiorro's 
 account of the battle is altogether animated, graphic, and so 
 minute that antiquaries gather from it, if so disposed (which 
 \ve but little are), what the methods of Norse sea-fighting 
 were ; their shooting of arrows, casting of javelins, pitching 
 of big stones, ultimately boarding, and mutual clashing and 
 smashing, which it would not avail us to speak of here. Olaf 
 stood conspicuous ah 1 day, throwing javelins, of deadly aim, 
 with both hands at once ; encouraging, fighting, and com- 
 manding like a highest sea-king. 
 
 The Danish fleet, the Swedish fleet, were, both of them, 
 quickly dealt with, and successively withdrew out of shot- 
 range. And then Jarl Eric came up. and fiercely grappled 
 with the Long Serpent, or, rather, with her surrounding com- 
 rades ; and gradually, as they were beaten empty of men, 
 with the Long Serpent herself. The fight grew ever fiercer, 
 more furious. Eric was supplied with new men from the 
 Swedes and Danes ; Olaf had no such resource, except from 
 the crews of his own beaten ships ; and at length this also 
 failed him ; all his ships, except the Long Serpent, being 
 beaten and emptied. Olaf fought on unyielding. Eric twice 
 boarded him, was twice repulsed. Olaf kept his quarter-deck ; 
 unconquerable, though left now more and more hopeless, fa- 
 tally short of help. A tall young man, called Einar Tamber- 
 skelver. very celebrated and important afterwards in Norway,
 
 4'-> EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY. 
 
 and already the best archer known, kept busy with his bow. 
 Twice he nearly shot Jarl Eric in his ship. " Shoot me that 
 man," said Jarl Eric to a bowman near him ; and, just as 
 Tamberskelver was drawing his bow the third time, an arrow 
 hit it in the middle and broke it in two. " What is this that 
 has broken ? " asked King Olaf. " Norway from thy hand, 
 King," answered Tamberskelver. Tryggveson's men, he ob- 
 served with surprise, were striking violently on Eric's ; but to 
 no purpose ; nobody fell. " How is this ? " asked Tryggve- 
 son. " Our swords are notched and blunted, King ; they do 
 not cut." Olaf stept down to his arm-chest ; delivered out 
 new swords ; and it was observed as he did it, blood ran 
 trickling from his wrist ; but none knew where the wound 
 was. Eric boarded a third time. Olaf, left with hardly more 
 than one man, sprang overboard (one sees that red coat of 
 his still glancing in the evening sun), and sank in the deep 
 waters to his long rest. 
 
 Rumour ran among his people that he still was not dead ; 
 grounding on some movement by the ships of that traitorous 
 Sigwald, they fancied Olaf had dived beneath the keels of his 
 enemies, and got away with Sigwald, as Sigwald himself evi- 
 dently did. ' Much was hoped, supposed, spoken,' says one 
 old moui'ning Skald ; ' but the truth was, Olaf Tryggveson 
 was never seen in Norseland more.' Strangely he remains 
 still a shining figure to us ; the wildly beautifullest man, in 
 body and in soul, that one has ever heard of in the North. 
 
 CHAPTER VHI. 
 
 JAELS ERIC AND SVEIN. 
 
 Jarl Eric, splendent with this victory, not to speak of that 
 over the Jomsburgers with his father long ago, was now made 
 Governor of Norway : Governor or quasi-sovereign, with his 
 brother, Jarl Svein, as partner, who, however, took but little 
 hand in governing ; and, under the patronage of Svein 
 Double-beard and the then Swedish King (Olaf his name, 
 Sigiid the Proud, his mother's), administered it, they say,
 
 JARLS ERIC AND SVEIN. 49 
 
 with skill and prudence for above fourteen years. Tiygg- 
 veson's death is undei'stood and laboriously computed to have 
 happened in the year 1000 ; but there is no exact chronology 
 in these things, but a continual uncertain guessing after such ; 
 so that one eye in History as regards them is as if put out ; 
 neither indeed have I yet had the luck to find any decipher- 
 able and intelligible map of Norway : so that the other eye of 
 History is much blinded withal, and her path through those 
 wild regions and epochs is an extremely dim and chaotic one. 
 An evil that much demands remedying, and especially wants 
 some first attempt at remedying, by enquirers into English 
 History ; the whole period from Egbert, the first Saxon king 
 of England, on to Edward the Confessor, the last, being 
 everywhere completely interwoven with that of their mysteri- 
 ous, continually invasive ' Danes,' as they called them, and 
 inextiicably unintelligible till these also get to be a little un- 
 derstood, and cease to be utterly dark, hideous, and mythical 
 to us as they now are. 
 
 King Olaf Tryggveson is the first Norseman who is ex- 
 pressly mentioned to have been in England by our English 
 History books, new or old ; and of him it is merely said that 
 he had an interview with King Ethelred H. at Andover, of a 
 pacific and friendly nature, though it is absurdly added that 
 the noble Olaf was converted to Christianity by that ex- 
 tremely stupid Royal Person. Greater contrast in an inter- 
 view than in this at Andover, between heroic Olaf Tryggveson 
 and Ethelred the forever Unready, was not perhaps seen in 
 the terrestrial Planet that day. Olaf, or 'Olaus,' or 'Anlaf,' 
 as they name him, did ' engage on oath to Ethelred not to 
 invade England anymore,' and kept his promise, they farther 
 say. Essentially a truth, as we already know, though the cir- 
 cumstances were all different ; and the promise was to a de- 
 vout high-priest, not to a crowned Blockhead and cowardly 
 Do-nothing. One other ' Olaus ' I find mentioned in our 
 Books, two or three centuries before, at a time when there 
 existed no such individual, not to speak of several Anlafs, 
 who sometimes seem to mean Olaf, and still oftener to mean 
 nobody possible. Which occasions not a little obscurity in 
 4
 
 00 EAllLT KINGS OF NORWAY. 
 
 our early History, says the learned Selden. A thing remedia- 
 ble, too, in which, if any Englishman of due genius (or even 
 capacity for standing labour), who understood the Icelandic 
 and Anglo-Saxon languages, would engage in it, he might do 
 a great deal of good, and bring the matter into a comp ac- 
 tively lucid state. Vain aspirations, or perhaps not al- 
 together vain. 
 
 At the time of Olaf Tryggveson's death, and indeed long 
 before, King Svein Double-beard had always for chief enter- 
 prise the Conquest of England, and followed it by fits with 
 extreme violence and impetus ; often advancing largely to- 
 wards a successful conclusion ; but never, for thirteen years 
 yet. getting it concluded. He possessed long since all Eng- 
 land north of "\Vatling Street. That is to say, Northumber- 
 land, East Anglia (naturally full of Danish settlers by this 
 time), were fixedly his ; Mercia, his oftener than not ; AVessex 
 itself, with all the coasts, he was free to visit, and to bum and 
 rob in at discretion. There or elsewhere, Ethelred the Un- 
 ready had no battle in him whatever ; and, for a forty years 
 after the beginning of his reign, England excelled in anarchic 
 stupidit}', murderous devastation, utter misery, platitude, and 
 sluggish contemptibility all the countries one has read of. 
 Apparently a very opulent country, too ; a ready skill in such 
 arts and fine arts as there were ; Sveiu's very ships, they say, 
 had their gold dragons, top-mast pennons, and other metallic 
 splendours generally wrought for them in England. ' Unex- 
 ampled prosperity' in the manufacture way not unknown 
 there, it would seem ! But co-existing with such spiiitual 
 bankruptcy as was also unexampled, one would hope. Read Lu- 
 p\i.< ("Wulf stan), Archbishop of York's amazing Sermon on the 
 subject, 1 addressed to contemporary audiences ; setting forth 
 such a state of things, sons selling their fathers, mothers, and 
 sisters as Slaves to the Danish robber ; themselves living in 
 debauchery, blusterous gluttony, and depravity ; the details 
 of which are well-nigh incredible, though clearly stated as 
 
 1 This sermon was printed by Hearne, and is given also by Langebek 
 in his excellent collection, Her u in, Danicuruni, Scru/toras Mtdii ^Kd. 
 ILifuM, 1772-1831.
 
 JARLS ERIC AND SVEIN. 51 
 
 things generally known, the humour of these poor wretches 
 sunk to a state of what we may call greasy desperation, ' Let 
 us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.' The manner in 
 which they treated their own English nuns, if young, good- 
 looking, and captive to the Danes, buying them on a kind 
 of brutish or subter-brutish ' Greatest Happiness Principle' 
 (for the moment), and by a Joint-Stock arrangement (limited), 
 far transcends all human speech or imagination, and awak- 
 ens in one the momentary red-hot thought, The Danes have 
 served you right, ye accursed ! The so-called soldiers, one 
 finds, made not the least fight anywhere ; could make none, 
 led and guided as they were ; and the ' Generals,' often enough 
 traitors, always ignorant, and blockheads, were in the habit, 
 when expressly commanded to fight, of taking physic, and de- 
 claring that nature was incapable of castor-oil and battle both at 
 once. This ought to be explained a little to the modern English 
 and their Wai'-Secretaries, who undertake the conduct of ar- 
 mies. The undeniable fact is, defeat on defeat was the constant 
 fate of the English : during these forty years not one battle in 
 which they were not beaten. No gleam of victory or real resist- 
 ance till the noble Edmund Ironside (whom it is always strange 
 to me how such an Ethelred could produce for son) made his 
 appearance, and ran his brief course, like a great and far-seen 
 meteor, soon extinguished without result. No remedy for 
 England in that base time, but yearly asking the victorious 
 plundering, burning, and murdering Danes, 'How much 
 money will you take to go away ? ' Thirty thousand pounds 
 in silver, which the annual Ihmeylt soon rose to, continued 
 to be about the average yearly sum, though generally on the 
 increasing hand ; in the last year I think it had risen to 
 s 'venty-two thousand pounds in silver, raised yearly by a tax 
 (Income-Tax of its kind, rudely levied), the worst of all reme- 
 dies, good for the day only. Nay, there was one remedy still 
 worse, which the miserable Ethelred once tried : that of mas- 
 saciing ' all the Danes settled in England ' (practically, of a 
 few thousands or hundreds of them), by treachery and a kind 
 of Sicilian Vespers. Which issued, as such things usually do, 
 in terrible monition to you not to try the like again ! Issued,
 
 52 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY. 
 
 namely, in redoubled fury on the Danish part ; new fiercer 
 invasion by Svein's Jarl Thorkel ; then by Svein himself ; 
 which latter drove the miserable Ethelred, with wife and 
 family, into Normandy, to wife's brother, the then Duke there 5 
 and ended that miserable struggle by Svein's becoming King 
 of England himself. Of this disgraceful massacre, which it 
 would appear has been immensely exaggerated in the English 
 books, we can happily give the exact date (A. D. 1002) ; and 
 also of Svein's victorious accession (A. D. 1013),' pretty much 
 the only benefit one gets out of contemplating such a set of 
 objects. 
 
 King Svein's first act was to levy a terribly increased Income- 
 Tax for the payment of his army. Svein was levying it with 
 a strong-handed diligence, but had not yet done levying it, 
 when at Gainsborough one night he suddenly died ; smitten 
 dead, once used to be said, by St. Edmund, whilom mur- 
 dered king of the East Angles ; who could not bear to see 
 his shrine and monastery of St. Edmundsbury plundered by 
 the Tyrant's tax-collectors, as they were on the point of being. 
 In all ways impossible, however, Edmund's own death did 
 not occur till two years after Svein's. Svein's death, by what- 
 ever cause, befell 1014 ; his fleet then lying in the Humber, 
 and only Knut,'" his eldest son (hardly yet eighteen, count 
 some), in charge of it ; who, on short counsel, and arrange- 
 ment about this questionable kingdom of his, lifted anchor ; 
 made for Sandwich, a safer station at the moment ; 'cut off 
 the feet and noses ' (one shudders, and hopes Not, there 
 being some discrepancy about it !) of his numerous hostages 
 that had been delivered to King Svein, set them ashore ; and 
 made for Denmark, his natural storehouse and stronghold, as 
 the hopefullest first-thing he could do. 
 
 Kuut soon returned from Denmark, with increase of force 
 sufficient for the English problem ; which latter he now soon 
 ended in a victorious, and essentially, for himself and chaotic 
 England, beneficent manner. Became widely known by and 
 by, there and elsewhere, as Kuut the Great ; and is thought 
 
 1 Kennet, i. 67 ; Rctpin, i. 119, 121 (from the $<r?on Chronicle both). 
 5 Knut born A.r>. 988 according to Munch V calculation (II, 126).
 
 .KING OLAF THE THICK-SET'S VIKING DATS. 33 
 
 by judges of our own day to have really merited that title. 
 A most nimble, sharp-striking, clear-thinking, prudent, and 
 effective man, who regulated this dismembered and dis- 
 tracted England in its Church matters, in its State matte rs, 
 like a real King. Had a Standing Army (House Carles), who 
 were well paid, well drilled and disciplined, capable of in- 
 stantly quenching insurrection or breakage of the peace ; anil 
 piously endeavoured (with a signal earnestness, and even de- 
 voutuess, if we look well) to do justice to all men, and to 
 make all men rest satisfied with justice. In a word, he suc- 
 cessfully strapped-up, by every true method and regulation, 
 this miserable, dislocated, and dissevered mass of bleeding 
 Anarchy into something worthy to be called an England 
 again ; only that he died too soon, and a second ' Conqueror ' 
 of us, still weightier of structure, and under improved 
 auspices, became possible, and was needed here ! To ap- 
 pearance, Knut himself was capable of being a Charlemagne 
 of England and the North (as has been already said or 
 quoted), had he only lived twice as long as he did. But his 
 whole sum of years seems not to have exceeded forty. His 
 father Svein of the Forkbeard is reckoned to have been fifty 
 or sixty when St. Edmund finished him at Gainsborough. 
 We now return to Norway, ashamed of this long circuit 
 which has been a truancy more or less. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 KING OLAF THE THICK-SET'S VIKING DAYS. 
 
 King Harald Grsenske, who, with another from Russia ac- 
 cidentally lodging beside him, got burned to death in Sweden, 
 courting that unspeakable Sigrid the Proud, was third cousin 
 or so to Tryggve, father of our heroic Olaf. Accurately 
 counted, he is great-grandson of Bjorn the Chapman, first of 
 Haarfagr's sons whom Eric Blood-axe made away with. His 
 little 'kingdom,' as he called it, was a district named the 
 Greenland (Green eland) ; he himself was one of those little 
 Haarfacrr kinglets whom Hakon Jarl was content to leave
 
 i> EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY. 
 
 reigning, since they would keep the peace with him. Harald 
 had a loving wife of his own, Aasta the name of her, soon ex- 
 pecting the birth of her and his pretty babe, named Olaf, at 
 the time he went on that deplorable Swedish adventure, the 
 foolish, fated creature, and ended self and kingdom altogether. 
 Aasta was greatly shocked ; composed herself however ; mar- 
 ried a new husband, Sigurd Syr, a kinglet, and a great-grand- 
 son of Harald Fairhair, a man of great wealth, prudence, and 
 influence in those countries ; in whose house, as favourite and 
 well-beloved stepson, little -Olaf was wholesomely and skil- 
 fully brought up. In Sigurd's house he had, withal, a special 
 tutor entertained for him, one Rane, known as Rane the Far- 
 travelled, by whom he could be trained, from the earliest 
 basis, in Xorse accomplishments and arts. New children 
 came, one or two ; but Olaf, from his mother, seems always 
 to have known-that he was the distinguished and royal article 
 there. One day his foster-father, hurrying to leave home on 
 business, hastily bade Olaf, no other being by, saddle his 
 horse for him. Olaf went out with the saddle, chose the big- 
 gest he-goat about, saddled that, and brought it to the 
 door by way of horse. Old Sigurd, a most grave man, grinned 
 sardonically at the sight " Ha, I see thou hast no mind to 
 take commands from me ; thou art of too high a humour to 
 take commands." To which, says Snorro, Boy Olaf answered 
 little except by laughing, till Sigurd saddled for himself, and 
 rode away. His mother Aasta appears to have been a 
 thoughtful, prudent woman, though always with a fierce royal- 
 ism at the bottom of her memory, and a secret implacability 
 on that head. 
 
 At the age of twelve Olaf went to sea ; furnished with a 
 little fleet, and skilful sea-counsellor, expert old Rane, b} r his 
 foster-father, and set out to push his fortune in the world. 
 Rane was steersman and counsellor in these incipient times ; 
 but the crew always called Olaf ' King,' though at first, as 
 Snorro thinks, except it were in the hour of battle, he merely 
 pulled an oar. He cruised and fought in this capacity on 
 many seas and shores ; passed several years, perhaps till the 
 age of nineteen or twenty, in this wild element and way of
 
 KING OLAF TEE THICK-SET'S VIKING DAYS. DO 
 
 life ; fighting always in a glorious and distinguished manner. 
 In the hour of battle, diligent enough ' to amass property,' as 
 the Vikings termed it ; and in the long days and nights of 
 sailing, given over, it is likely, to his own thoughts and the 
 unfathomable dialogue with the ever-moaning brine ; not the 
 worst High School a man could have, and indeed infinitely 
 preferable to the most that are going even now, for a high and 
 deep young soul. 
 
 His first distinguished expedition was to Sweden: natural 
 to go thither first, to avenge his poor father's death, were it 
 nothing more. Which he did, the Skalds say, in a distin- 
 guished manner ; making victorious and handsome battle for 
 himself in entering Maelare Lake ; and in getting out of it 
 again, after being frozen there all winter, showing still more 
 surprising, almost miraculous contrivance and dexterity. 
 This was the first of his glorious victories ; of which the 
 Skalds reckon up some fourteen or thirteen very glorious in- 
 deed, mostly in the Western and Southern countries, most of 
 all in England ; till the name of Olaf Haraldson became quite 
 famous in the Tiking and strategic world. He seems really 
 to have learned the secrets of his trade, and to have been, 
 then and afterwards, for vigilance, contrivance, valour, and 
 promptitude of execution, a superior fighter. Several ex- 
 ploits recorded of him betoken, in simple forms, what may 
 be called a military genius. 
 
 The principal, and to us the alone interesting, of his ex- 
 ploits seem to have lain in England, and, what is further no- 
 table, always on the auti-Svein side. English books do not 
 mention him at all that I can find ; but it is fairly credible 
 that, as the Norse records report, in the end of Ethelred's 
 reign, he was the ally or hired general of Ethelred, and did a 
 great deal of sea-fighting, watching, sailing, and sieging for 
 this miserable king and Edmund Ironside, his son. Snorro 
 says expressly, London, the impregnable city, had to be be- 
 sieged again for Ethelred's behoof (in the interval between 
 Svein's death and young Knut's getting back from Denmark), 
 and that our Olaf Haraldsou was the great engineer and vic- 
 torious captor of London on that singular occasion, London
 
 r b EARLY KINGS OF y Oil WAY. 
 
 captured for the first time. The Bridge, as usual, Snorro says, 
 offered almost insuperable obstacles. But the engineering 
 genius of Olaf contrived huge 'platforms of wainscoting' (old 
 walls of wooden houses, in fact), ' bound together by withes ; ' 
 these, carried steadily aloft above the ships, will (thinks Olaf) 
 considerably secure them and us from the destructive mis- 
 siles, big boulder stones, and other mischief profusely show- 
 ered down on us, till we get under the Bridge with axes and 
 cables, and do some good upon it. Olaf's plan was tried ; 
 most of the other ships, in spite of their wainscoting and 
 withes, recoiled on reaching the Bridge, so destructive were 
 the boulder and other missile showers. But Olaf's ship and 
 self got actually under the Bridge ; fixed all manner of cables 
 there' ; and then, with the river current in their favotu 1 , and 
 the frightened ships rallying to help in this safer part of the 
 enterprise, tore out the important piles and props, and fairly 
 broke the poor Bridge, wholly or partly, down into the river, 
 and its Danish defenders into immediate surrender. That is 
 Snorro's account. 
 
 On a previous occasion, Olaf had been deep in a hopeful 
 combination with Ethelred's two younger sons, Alfred and 
 Edward, afterwards King Edward the Confessor : That they 
 two should sally out from Normandy in strong force, unite 
 with Olaf in ditto, and, landing on the Thames, do something 
 effectual for themselves. But impediments, bad weather or 
 the like, disheartened the poor Princes, and it came to noth- 
 ing. Olaf was much in Normandy, what they then called 
 "Walland ; a man held in honour by those Norman Dukes. 
 
 What amount of ' property ' he had amassed I do not know, 
 but could prove, were it necessary, that he had acquired some 
 tactical or even strategic faculty and real talent for war. At 
 Lynifjord, in Jutland, but some years after this (A.D. 1027), he 
 had a sea-battle with the great Knut himself, ships com- 
 bined with flood-gates, with roaring, artificial deluges ; right 
 well managed by King Olaf ; which were within a hair's- 
 breadth of destroying Knut, now become a King and Great ; 
 and did in effect send him instantly running. But of this 
 more particularly by and by.
 
 KING OLAF TEE THICK- SET'S VIKING DAYS. 5< 
 
 "What still more surprises me is the mystery, where Olaf, in 
 this wandering, fighting, sea-roving life, acquired his deeply 
 religious feeling, his intense adherence to the Christian Faith. 
 I suppose it had been in England, where many pious persons, 
 priestly and other, were still to be met with, that Olaf had 
 gathered these doctrines ; and that in those his unfathomable 
 dialogues with the ever-moaning brine, they had struck root 
 downwards in the soul of him, and borne fruit upwards to the 
 degree so conspicuous afterwards. It is certain he became a 
 deeply pious man during these long Viking cruises ; and di- 
 rected all his strength, when strength and authority were lent 
 him, to establishing the Christian religion in his country, and 
 suppressing and abolishing Vikingism there ; both of which 
 objects, and their respective worth and unworth, he must 
 himself have long known so well. 
 
 It was well on in A.D. 1016 that Knut gained his last victory, 
 at Ashdon, in Essex, where the earth pyramids and antique 
 church near by still testify the thankful piety of Knut, or, at 
 lowest, his joy at having won instead of lost and perished, as 
 he was near doing there. And it was still this same year when 
 the noble Edmund Ironside, after forced partition-treaty ' in 
 the Isle of Alney,' got scandalously murdered, and Knut be- 
 came indisputable sole king of England, and decisively set- 
 tled himself to his work of governing there. In the year be- 
 fore either of which events, while all still hung uncertain for 
 Knut, and even Eric Jarl of Norway had to be summoned in 
 aid of him, in that year 1015, as one might naturally guess, 
 and as all Icelandic hints and indications lead us to date the 
 thing, Olaf had decided to give up Vikingism in all its forms ; 
 to return to Norway, and try whether he could not assert the 
 place and career that belonged to him there. Jarl Eric had 
 vanished with all his war forces towards England, leaving only 
 a boy, Hakon, as successor, and Svein, his own brother, a 
 quiet man, who had. always avoided war. Olaf landed in Nor- 
 way without obstacle ; but decided to be quiet till he had him- 
 self examined and consulted friends. 
 
 His reception by his mother Aasta was of the kindest and 
 proudest, and is lovingly described by Snorro. A pretty
 
 58 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY. 
 
 idyllic or epic piece, of Norse Homeric type : How Aasta, 
 bearing of her son's advent, set all her maids and menials to 
 work at the top of their speed ; despatched a runner to the 
 harvest-field, where her husband Sigurd was, to warn him to 
 come home and dress. How Sigurd was standing among his 
 harvest folk, reapers and binders ; and what he had on, broad 
 slouch hat, with veil (against the midges), blue kirtle, hose of 
 I forget what colour, with laced boots ; and in his hand a stick 
 with silver head and ditto ring upon it ; a personable old 
 gentleman, of the eleventh century, in tho e parts. Sigurd 
 was cautious, prudentially cunctatory, though heartily friendly 
 in his counsel to Olaf, as to the King question. Aasta had a 
 Sp.irtau tone in her wild maternal heart ; and assures Olaf 
 that she, with a half-reproachful glance towards Sigurd, will 
 stand by him to the death in this his just and noble enter- 
 prise. Sigurd promises to consult farther in his neighbour- 
 hood, and to correspond by messages ; the result is, Olaf, re- 
 solutely pushing forward himself, resolves to call a Thing, and 
 openly claim his kingship thei'e. The Thing was itself willing 
 enough : opposition parties do here and there bestir them- 
 selves ; but Olaf is always swifter than they. Five kinglets 
 somewhere in the Uplands, 1 all descendants of Haarfagr, but 
 averse to break the peace, which Jarl Eric and Hakon Jarl 
 both have always willingly allowed to peaceable people, seem 
 to be the main opposition party. These five take the field 
 against Olaf with what force the}' have ; Olaf, one night, by 
 beautiful celerity and strategic practice which a Friedrich or 
 a Turenne might have approved, surrounds these Five ; and 
 when morning breaks, there is nothing for them but either 
 death or else instant surrender, and swearing of fealty to King 
 OLif. Which latter branch of the alternative they gladly ac- 
 cept, the whole five of them, and go home again. 
 
 This was a beautiful bit of war-practice by King Olaf on 
 land. By another stroke still more compendious at sea, he 
 had already settled poor young Hakon, and made him peace- 
 able for a long while. Olaf, by diligent quest and spy-mes- 
 
 1 FHOWO, Laing'ri Truncation, vol. ii. p. 31 et seq., will minutely spe- 
 cify.
 
 KING OLAF THE THICK-SET'S VIKING DA VS. 50 
 
 saving, had ascertained that Ilakon, just returning from Den- 
 mark and farewell to Papa and Kuut, both nosv under way for 
 England, was coasting north towards Trondhjem ; and in- 
 tended on or about such a day to land in such and such a fjord 
 towards the end of this Trondhjem voyage. Olaf at once 
 mans two big ships, steers through the narrow mouth of said 
 fjord, moors one ship on the north shore, another on the 
 south ; fixes a strong cable, well sunk under water, to the 
 capstans of these two ; and in all quietness waits for Hakoii. 
 Before many hours, Hakou's royal or quasi-royal barge steers 
 gayly into this fjord ; is a little surprised, perhaps, to see 
 within the jaws of it two big ships at anchor ; but steers gal- 
 lantly along, nothing doubting. Olaf, with a signal of ' All 
 h inds,' works his two capstans ; has the cable up high enough 
 at the right moment, catches with it the keel of poor Hak oil's 
 barge, upsets it, empties it wholly into the sea. Wholly into 
 the sea ; saves Hakon, however, and his people from drown- 
 ing, and brings tliern on board. His dialogue with poor 
 young Hakou, especially poor young Hakou's responses, is 
 very pretty. Shall I give it, out of Snorro, and let the reader 
 take it for as authentic as he can ? It is at least the true 
 image of it in authentic Snorro's head, little more than two 
 centuries later : 
 
 Jaii Hakon was led up to the King's ship. He was the 
 handsomest man that could be seen. He had long hair, as 
 fine as silk, bound about his head with a gold ornament. 
 When lie s-it down in the forehold the King said to him : 
 
 Kiity. It is not false, what is said of your family, that ye 
 are handsome people to look at ; but now your luck has de- 
 serted you. 
 
 Hakon. It has always been the case that success is change- 
 able ; and there is no luck in the matter. It has gone with 
 your family as with mine to have by turns the better lot. I 
 am little beyond childhood in years ; and at any rate we could 
 not have defended ourselves, as we did not expect any attack 
 on the way. It may turn out better with us another time. 
 
 . Kuiff. Dost thou not apprehend that thou art in such a 
 condition that, hereafter, there can be neither victory nor de- 
 feat for thee ?
 
 CO EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY. 
 
 Ilakon. That is what only thou canst determine, King, ac- 
 cording to thy pleasure. 
 
 K'iinj. What wilt thou give me, Jail, if, for this time, I let 
 thee go, whole and unhurt ? 
 
 Hakon. "What wilt thou take, King ? 
 
 King. Nothing, except that thou shalt leave the country ; 
 give up thy kingdom ; and take an oath that thou wilt never 
 go into battle against me. 1 
 
 Jarl Hakon accepted the generous terms ; went to England 
 and King Knut, and kept his bargain for a good few years ; 
 though he was at last driven, by pressure of King Knut, to 
 violate it, little to his profit, as we shall see. One victorious 
 naval battle with Jarl Svein, Hakon's uncle, and his adher- 
 ents, who fled to Sweden after his beating, battle not diffi- 
 cult to a skilful, hard-hitting king, was pretty much all the 
 actual fighting Olaf had to do in this enterprise. He vari- 
 ous times met angry Bonders and refractory Things with 
 arms in their hand ; but by skilful, firm management, per- 
 fectly patient, but also perfectly ready to be active, he mostly 
 managed without coming to strokes ; and was universally 
 recognized by Norway as its real king. A promising young 
 man, and fit to be a king, thinks Snorro. Only of middle 
 stature, almost rather shortish ; but firm-standing, and stout- 
 built ; so that they got to call him Olaf the Thick (meaning 
 Olaf the Thick-.srf, or Stout-built), though his final epithet 
 among them was infinitely higher. For the rest, a ' comely, 
 earnest, prepossessing look ; beautiful yellow hair in quantity, 
 broad, honest face of a complexion pure as snow and rose ; ' 
 and finally (or firstly) 'the brightest eyes in the world ; such 
 that, in his anger, no man could stand them.' He had a heavy 
 task ahead, and needed all his qualities and fine gifts to get 
 
 it done. 
 
 1 Snarro, vol. ii. pp. 24, 25.
 
 REIGN OF KING OLAF THE SAINT. 61 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 REIGN OF KING OLAF THE SAIXT. 
 
 The late two Jai'ls, now gone about their business, had 
 both been baptized, and called themselves Christians. But 
 during their government they did nothing in the conversion 
 way ; left every man to choose his own God or Gods ; so 
 that some had actually two, the Christian God by laud, and 
 at sea Thor, whom they considered safer in that element. 
 And in effect the mass of the people hud fallen back into a 
 sluggish heathenism or half-heathenism, the life-labour of 
 Olaf Tryggveson lying ruinous or almost quite overset. The 
 new Olaf, son of Harald, set himself with all his strength to 
 mend such a state of matters ; and stood by his enterprise to 
 the end, as the one highest interest, including all others, for 
 his People and him. His method was by no means soft ; on 
 the contrary, it was hard, rapid, severe, somewhat on the 
 model of Tryggveson 's, though with more of bishoping and 
 preaching superadded. Yet till there was a great deal 
 of mauling, vigorous punishing, and an entire intolerance of 
 these two things : Heathenism and Sea-robbery, at least of 
 Sea-robbery in the old style ; whether in the style we mod- 
 erns still practice, and call privateering, I do not quite know. 
 But Vikiugism proper had to cease in Norway ; still more, 
 Heathenism, under penalties too severe to be borne : death, 
 mutilation of limb, not to mention forfeiture and less rigor- 
 ous coercion. Olaf was inexorable against violation of the 
 law. ' Too severe/ cried many ; to whom one answers, ' Per- 
 haps iii part yes, perhaps also in great part no ; depends al- 
 together on the previous question, How far the law was the 
 eternal one of God Almighty in the universe, how far the law 
 merely of Olaf (destitute of right inspiration) left to his own 
 passions and whims?' 
 
 Many were the jangles Olaf had with the refractory Heathen 
 Things and Ironbeards of a new generation : very curious to 
 see. Scarcely ever did it come to fighting between King
 
 Cli EARLY ATAV7S OF NORWAY. 
 
 and Thing, though often enough near it ; but the Thing dis- 
 cerning, as it usually did in time, that the King was stronger' 
 in men, seemed to say unanimously to itself, "We have lost, 
 then ; baptize us ; we must burn our old gods and conform." 
 One new feature we do slightly discern : here and there a 
 touch of theological argument on the heathen side. At one 
 wild Thing, far up in the Dovrefjeld, of a very heathen 
 temper, there was much of that ; not to be quenched by 
 King Olaf at the moment ; so that it had to be adjourned till 
 the morrow, and again till the next day. Here are some 
 traits of it, much abridged from Snorro, who gives a highly 
 punctual account, which vividly represents Olaf's posture and 
 manner of proceeding in such intricacies. 
 
 The chief Ironbeard on this occasion was one Gudbrand, a 
 very rugged peasant ; who, says Snorro, was like a king in 
 that district. Some days before, King Olaf, intending a re- 
 ligious Thing in those deeply heathen parts, with alternative 
 of Christianity or conflagration, is reported, on looking down 
 into the valley and the beautiful village of Loar standing 
 there, to have said wistfully, " What a pity it is that so 
 beautiful a village should be burnt ! " Olaf sent out his 
 message-token all the same, however, and met Gudbrand and 
 an immense assemblage, whose humour towards him was un- 
 compliant to a high degree indeed. Judge by this prelim- 
 inary speech of Gudbrand to his Thing-people, while Olaf was 
 not yet arrived, but only advancing, hardly got to Breeden 
 on the other side of the hill : "A man has come to Loar who 
 is called Olaf," said Gudbrand, "and will force upon us 
 another faith than we had before, and will break in pieces all 
 our Gods. He says he has a much greater and more power- 
 ful God ; and it is wonderful that the earth does not burst 
 asunder under him, or that our God lets him go about un- 
 punished when he dares to talk such things. I know this for 
 certain, that if we carry Thor, who has always stood by us, 
 out of our Temple that is standing upon this farm, Olaf's 
 God will melt away, and he and his men be made nothing as 
 soon as Thor looks upon them." Whereupon the Bonders all 
 shouted as one man, "' Yea ! "
 
 REIG3 OF KING OLAF THE SAINT. G3 
 
 "Which tremendous message they even forwarded to Olaf 
 by Gud brand's younger son at the head of 700 armed men ; 
 but did not terrify Olaf with it, who, on the contrary, drew 
 up his troops, rode himself at the head of them, and began a 
 speech to the Bonders, in which he invited them to adoDt 
 Christianity as the one true faith for mortals. 
 
 Far from consenting to this, the Bonders raised a general 
 shout, smiting at the same time their shields with their 
 Aveapons ; but Olaf's men advancing on them swiftly, and 
 dinging spears, they turned and ran, leaving Gudbrand's son 
 behind, a prisoner, to whom Olaf gave his life: "Go home 
 now to thy father, and tell him I mean to be with him soon." 
 
 The son goes accordingly, and advises his father not to face 
 Olaf ; but Gudbrand angrily replies : " Ha, coward ! I see 
 thou, too, art taken by the folly that man is going about 
 with ;" and is resolved to fight. That night, however, Gud- 
 brand lias a most remarkable Dream, or Vision A Man sur- 
 rounded by light, bringing great terror with him, who warns 
 Guclbrand against doing battle with Olaf. "If thou dost, 
 thou and all thy people will fall ; wolves will drag away thee 
 and thine, ravens will tear thee in stripes ! " And lo, in tell- 
 ing this to Thord Potbelly, a sturdy neighbour of his, and 
 henchman in the Thing, it is found that to Thord also has 
 come the self-same terrible Apparition ! Better propose truce 
 to Olaf (who seems to have these dreadful Ghostly Powers on 
 his side), and the holding of a Thing, to discuss matters be- 
 tween us. Thing assembles on a day of heavy rain. Being 
 all seated, uprises King Olaf, and informs them: "The 
 people of Lesso, Loar, and Vaage have accepted Christianity, 
 and broken down their idol-houses : they believe now in the 
 True God, who has made heaven and earth, and knows all 
 tiling's ; " and sits down a^ain without more words. 
 
 Gudbrand replies, " We know nothing abotit him of whom 
 thou speakest. Dost thou call him God, whom neither thou 
 nor any one else can see ? But we have a God who can lie 
 seen every day, although he is not out to-day because the 
 weather is wet, and he will appear to thee terrible and very
 
 64 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY. 
 
 grand ; and I expect that fear will mix with thy very blood 
 when he comes into the Thing. But since thou sayest thy 
 God is so great, let him make it so that to-morrow we have a 
 cloudy day, but without rain, and then let us meet again. " 
 
 The King accordingly returned home to his lodging, taking 
 Gudbrand's son as a hostage ; but he gave them a man as 
 hostage in exchange. In the evening the King asked Gud- 
 brand's son what their God was like ? He replied that he 
 bore the likeness of Thor ; had a hammer in his hand ; was 
 of great size, but hollow within ; and had a high stand, upon 
 which he stood when he was out. "Neither gold nor sil- 
 ver are wanting about him, and every day he receives four 
 cakes of bread, besides meat." They then went to bed ; but 
 the King watched all night in prayer. When day dawned the 
 King went to mass ; then to table, and from thence to the 
 Thing. The weather was such as Gudbrand desired. Now 
 the Bishop stood up in his choir-robes, with bishop's coif on 
 his head and bishop's crosier in his hand. He spoke to the 
 ^Bonders of the true faith, told the many wonderful acts of 
 God, and concluded his speech well. 
 
 Thord Potbelly replies, '' Many things we are told of by 
 this learned man with the staff in his hand, crooked at the top 
 like a ram's horn. But since you say, comrades, that your 
 God is so powerful, and can do so many wonders, tell him to 
 make it clear sunshine to-morrow forenoon, and then we shall 
 meet here again, and do one of two things, either agree with 
 you about this business, or fight you." And they separated 
 for the day. 
 
 Overnight the king instructed Kolbein the Strong, an im- 
 mense fellow, the same who killed Gunhild's two brothers, 
 that he, Kolbein, must stand next him to-morrow ; people 
 must go down to where the ships of the Bonders lay, and 
 punctually bore holes in every one of them ; item, to the farms 
 where their horses were, and punctually unhalter the whole of 
 them, and let them loose : all which was done. Snorro con- 
 tinues : 
 
 Now the King was in prayer all night, beseeching God of 
 his goodness and mercy to release him from evil. When mass 
 was ended, and morning was grey, the king went to the Thing. 
 Wlaen he came thither, some Bonders had already arrived,
 
 REIGN OF KING OLAF THE SAINT. 65 
 
 and they saw a great crowd coming along, and bearing among 
 them a huge man's image, glancing with gold and silver. 
 When the Bonders who were at the Thing saAv it, they started 
 up, and bowed themselves down before the ugly idol. There- 
 upon it was set down upon the Thing field ; and on the one 
 side of it sat the Bonders, and on the other the King and his 
 people. 
 
 Then Dale Gudbrand stood up and said, " Where now, 
 King, is thy God ? I think he will now carry his head lower ; 
 and neither thou, nor the man with the horn, sitting beside thee 
 there, whom thou callest Bishop, are so bold to-day as on the 
 former days. For now our God, who rules over all, is come, 
 and looks on you with an angry eye ; and now I see well 
 enough that ye are terrified, and scarcely dare raise your eyes. 
 Throw away now all your opposition, and believe in the God 
 who has your fate wholly in his hands." 
 
 The King now whispers to Kolbein the Strong, without the 
 Bonders perceiving it, "If it come so in the course of my 
 speech that the Bonders look another way than towards their 
 idol, strike him as hai'd as thou canst with thy club." 
 
 The King then stood up and spoke : " Much hast thou talked 
 to us this morning, and greatly hast thou wondered that thou 
 canst not see our God ; but we expect that he will soon come 
 to us. Thou wouldst frighten us with thy God, who is both 
 blind and deaf, and cannot even move about without being car- 
 ried ; but now I expect it will be a short time before he meets 
 his fate : for turn your eyes towards the east, behold our 
 God advancing in great light" 
 
 The sun was rising, and all turned to look. At that moment 
 Kolbein gave their God a sti'oke, so that he quite burst asun- 
 der ; and there ran out of him mice as big almost as cats, and 
 reptiles and adders. The Bonders were so terrified that some 
 fled to their ships ; but when they sprang out upon them the 
 .ships filled with water, and could not get away. Others ran 
 to their horses, but could not find them. The King then or- 
 dered the Bonders to be called together, saying he wanted to 
 speak with them, on which the Bonders came back, and the 
 Tiling was again seated. 
 
 The King rose up and said, "I do not understand what 
 your noise and running mean. You yourselves see what your 
 God can do, the idol you adorned with gold and silver, and 
 brought meat and provisions to. You see now that the pro- 
 tecting powers, who used and got good of all that, were the 
 mice and adders, the reptiles and lizards ; and surely they do
 
 66 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY. 
 
 ill who trust to such, and will not abandon this folly. Take 
 now your gold and ornaments that are lying strewed on the 
 grass, and give them to your wives and daughters, but never 
 hang them hereafter upon stocks and stones. Here are two 
 conditions between us to choose upon : either accept Chris- 
 tianity, or fight this very day, and the victory be to them to 
 whom the God we worship gives it." 
 
 Then Dale Gudbrand stood up and said, "We have sus- 
 tained great damage upon our God ; but since he will not 
 help us, we will believe in the God whom thou believest in." 
 
 Then all received Christianity. The Bishop baptized Gud- 
 brand and his son. King Olaf and Bishop Sigurd left behind 
 them teachers ; and they who met as enemies parted as friends. 
 And afterwards Gudbrand built a church in the valley. 1 
 
 Olaf was by no means an unmerciful man, much the re- 
 verse where he saw good cause. There was a wicked old King 
 Raerik, for example, one of those five kinglets whom, with 
 their bits of armaments, Olaf by stratagem had surrounded one 
 night, and at once bagged and subjected when morning rose, 
 all of them consenting ; all of them except this Raerik, whom 
 Olaf, as the readiest sure course, took home with him ; blinded, 
 and kept in his own house ; finding there was no alternative 
 but that or death to the obstinate old dog, who was a kind of 
 distant cousin withal, and could not conscientiously be killed. 
 Stone-blind old Raerik was not always in murderous humour. 
 Indeed, for most part he wore a placid, conciliatory aspect, 
 and said shrewd, amusing things ; but had thrice over tried, 
 with amazing cunning of contrivance, though stone-blind, to 
 thrust a dagger into Olaf, and the last time had all but suc- 
 ceeded. So that, as Olaf still refused to have him killed, it 
 had become a problem what was to be done with him. Olaf's 
 good-humour, as well as his quiet, ready sense and practical- 
 ity, are manifested in his final settlement of this Raerik prob- 
 lem. Olaf's laugh, I can perceive, was not so loud as Tryggve- 
 son's, but equally hearty, coming from the bright mind of 
 him ! 
 
 Besides blind Raerik, Olaf had in his household one Thor- 
 arin, an Icelander : a remarkably ugly man, says Snorro, but 
 1 Xnorro, vol. ii. pp. 156-161.
 
 REIGN OF KING OLAF THE SAINT. 67 
 
 a far-travelled, shrewdly observant, loyal-minded, and good- 
 humoured person, whom Olaf liked to talk with. 'Remark- 
 ably ugly,' says Snorro, ' especially in his hands and feet, which 
 were large and ill-shaped to a degree.' One morning Thor- 
 arin, who, with other trusted ones, slept in Olafs apartment, 
 was lazily dozing and yawning, and had stretched one of his 
 feet out of the bed before the king awoke. The foot was still 
 there when Olaf did open his bright eyes, which instantly 
 lighted on the foot. 
 
 "Well, here is a foot," says Olaf, gayly, ' which one seldom 
 sees the match of ; I durst venture there is not another so 
 ugly in this city of Nidaros." 
 
 " Ha, King ! " said Thorarin, " there are few things one 
 cannot match if one seek long and take pains. I would bet, 
 with thy permission, King, to find an uglier." 
 
 "Done !" cried Olaf. Upon which Thorarin stretched out 
 the other foot. 
 
 "A still uglier," cried he ; "for it has lost the little toe." 
 
 " Ho, ho ! " said Olaf ; " but it is I who have gained the 
 bet. The less of an ugly thing the less ugly, not the more ! " 
 
 Loyal Thorarin respectfully submitted. 
 
 " What is to be my penalty, then ? The King it is that 
 must decide." 
 
 "To take me that wicked old Raerik to Leif Ericson in 
 Greenland.'.' 
 
 Which the Icelander did ; leaving two vacant seats hence- 
 forth at Olafs table. Leif Ericson, son of Eric, discoverer of 
 America, quietly managed Raerik henceforth ; sent him to 
 Iceland, I think to father Eric himself ; certainly to some 
 safe hand there, in whose house, or in some still quieter neigh- 
 bouring lodging, at his own choice, old. Raerik spent the last 
 three years of his life in a perfectly quiescent manner. 
 
 Olafs struggles in the matter of religion had actually set- 
 tled that question in Norway. By these rough methods of 
 his, whatever we may think of them, Heathenism had got it- 
 self smashed dead ; and was no more heard of in that coun- 
 try. Olaf himself was evidently a highly devout and pious 
 man ; whosoever is born with Olafs temper now will still
 
 OS KMiLy KIXVX OF NO:;\VAY. 
 
 find, as Olaf did, new and infinite field for it ! Christianity 
 in Norway had the like fertility as in other countries ; or even 
 rose to a higher and, what Dahlmann tbinks, exuberant pitch 
 in the course of the two centuries which followed that of 
 Olaf. Him all testimony represents to us as a most righteous 
 no less than most religious king. Continually vigilant, just, 
 and rigorous was Olafs administration of the laws ; repres- 
 sion of robbery, punishment of injustice, stem repayment of 
 evil-doers, wherever he could lay hold of them. 
 
 Among the Bonder or opulent class, and indeed everywhere, 
 for the poor too can be sinners and need punishment, Olaf 
 had, by tins course of conduct, naturally made enemies. His 
 severity so visible to all, and the justice and infinite benefi- 
 cence of it so invisible except to a very few. But, at any 
 rate, the first ten years of his life were victorious to the end, 
 had it not been intersected and interfered with by King Knut 
 in Jds far bigger orbit and current of affaire and inteiv 
 Knut's English affairs and Danish being all settled to his 
 mind, he seems, especially after that year of pilgrimage to 
 Rome, and association with the Pontiffs and Kaisers of the 
 world on that occasion, to have turned Ins more particular 
 attention upon Norway, and the daims lie himself had there. 
 Jarl Hakon, too, sister's son of Knut, and always well seen by 
 him, had long been busy in this direction, much forgetful of 
 that oath to Olaf when his barge got canted over by the cable 
 of two capstans, and his life was given him, not without con- 
 ditions altogether I 
 
 About the year 102G there arrived two speudid persons out 
 of England, bearing King Knut the Great's letter and seal, 
 with a message, likely enough to be far from welcome to 
 Olaf. For some days Olaf refused to see them or their letter, 
 shrewdly guessing what the purport would be. Which in- 
 deed was couched in mild language, but of sharp meaning 
 enough : a notice to King Olaf, namely, That Norway was 
 properly, by just heiitage, Knut the Great's ; and that Olaf 
 must become the great Knut's liegeman, and pay tribute to 
 him, or worse would follow. King Olaf, listening to these 
 two splendid persons and their letter, in indignant silence
 
 REIGN OF AVAV; 01. Al-' THK >,1/.V7'. f-9 
 
 till they quite ended, made answer : " I have heard say, by 
 old accounts there are, that King Gorm of Denmark " (Blue- 
 tooth's father, Knut's great- grandfather) " was considered but 
 a small king ; having Denmark only and few people to rule 
 over. But the kings who succeeded him thought that in- 
 sufficient for them ; and it has since come so far that King 
 Kuut rules over both Denmark and England, and has con- 
 quered for himself a part of Scotland. And now he claims 
 also my paternal bit of heritage ; cannot be contented with- 
 out that too. Does he wish to rule over all the countries of 
 the North ? Can lie eat up all the kale in England itself, this 
 Knut the Great? He shall do that, and reduce his England 
 to a desert, before I lay my head in his hands, or show him 
 any other kind of vassalage. And so I bid you tell him these 
 my words : I will defend Norway with battle-axe and sword as 
 long as life is given me, and will pay tax to no man for my 
 kingdom." Words which naturally irritated Knut to a high 
 degree. 
 
 Next year accordingly (year 1027). tenth or eleventh year 
 of Olaf's reign, there came bad rumours out of England : 
 That Kuut was equipping an immense army, land-army, and 
 such a fleet as had never sailed before ; Knut's own ship in 
 it, a Gold Dragon with no fewer than sixty benches of oars. 
 Olaf and the King of Sweden, whose sister he had married, 
 well guessed whither this armament was bound. They were 
 friends withal ; they recognized their common peril in this 
 imminence ; and had, in repeated consultations, taken meas- 
 ures the best that their united skill (which I find was mainly 
 Olaf's, but loyally accepted by the other) could suggest. It 
 was in this year that Olaf (with his Swedish king assisting) 
 did his grand feat upon Knut in Lymfjord of Jutland, which 
 was already spoken of. The special circumstances of which 
 were these : 
 
 Knut's big armament arriving on the Jutish coasts too late 
 in the season, and the coast country lying all plundered into 
 temporary wreck by the two Norse kings, who shrank away 
 on sight of Knut, there was nothing could be done upon them 
 by Knut this year, or, if anything, what ? Knut's ships ran
 
 i () EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY. 
 
 into Lymfjord, the safe-sheltered frith, or intricate long strag- 
 gle of friths and straits, which almost cuts Jutland in two in 
 that region ; and lay safe, idly rocking on the waters there, 
 uncertain what to do farther. At last he steered in hi,s big 
 ship and some others deeper into the interior of Lymfjord, 
 deeper and deeper onwards to the mouth of a big river called 
 the Helge (Htdge-aa, the Holy River, not discoverable in my 
 poor maps, but certainly enough still existing and still flow- 
 ing somewhere among those intricate straits and friths), to- 
 wards the bottom of which Helge river lay, in some safe 
 nook, the small combined Swedish and Norse fleet, under 
 charge of Onund, the Swedish king, while at the top or 
 source, which is a biggish mountain lake, King Olaf had been 
 doing considerable engineering works, well suited to such an 
 occasion, and was now ready at a moment's notice. Knut's 
 fleet having idly taken station here, notice from the Swedish 
 king was instantly sent ; instantly Olaf's well-engineered flood- 
 gates were thrown open ; from the swollen lake a huge deluge 
 of water was let loose ; Olaf himself with all his people hast- 
 ening down to join his Swedish Mend and get on board in 
 time ; Helge river all the while alongside of him, with ever- 
 increasing roar and wider-spreading deluge, hastening dov.u 
 the steeps in the night watches. So that along with Olaf, or 
 some way ahead of him, came immeasurable roaring waste of 
 waters upon Knut's negligent fleet ; shattered, broke, and 
 stranded many of his ships, and was within a trifle of destroy- 
 ing the Golden Dragon herself, with Knut on board. Olaf 
 and Onund, we need not say, were promptly there in person, 
 doing their very best ; the railings of the Golden Dragon 
 however were too high for their little ships, and Jarl Ulf, 
 husband of Knut's sister, at the top of his speed, courage- 
 ously intervening, spoiled their stratagem, and saved Knut 
 from this very dangerous pass. 
 
 Knut did nothing more this winter. The two Norse kings, 
 quite unequal to attack such an armament, except by ambush 
 and engineering, sailed away ; again plundering at discretion 
 on the Danish coast ; carrying into Sweden great booties and 
 many prisoners ; but obliged to lie there flxed all winter ;
 
 REIGN OP KING oLAF THE SAINT. 71 
 
 and indeed to leave their fleets there for a series of winters, 
 Knut's fleet, posted at Elsinore on both sides of the Sound, 
 rendering all egress from the Baltic impossible, except at his 
 pleasure. Ulf's opportune deliverance of his royal brother- 
 in-law did not much bestead poor Ulf himself. He had been 
 in disfavour before, pardoned with difficulty by Queen Emma's 
 intercession ; an ambitious, officious, pushing, stirring, and, 
 both in England and Denmark, almost dangerous man ; and 
 this conspicuous accidental merit only awoke new jealousy in 
 Kniu. Knut, finding nothing pass the Sound worth much 
 blockading, went ashore ; ' and the day before Michaelmas,' 
 says Snorro, 'rode with a great retinue to Roeskilde.' Snorro 
 continues his tragic narrative of what befell there : 
 
 There Knut's brother-in-law, Jarl Ulf, had prepared a great 
 feast for him. The Jarl was the most agreeable of hosts ; but 
 the King was silent and sullen. The Jarl talked to him in 
 every way to make him cheerful, and brought forward every- 
 thing he could think of to amuse him ; but the King remained 
 stern, and speaking little. At last the Jarl proposed a game 
 of chess, which he agreed to. A chess-board was produced, 
 and they played together. Jarl Ulf was hasty in temper, 
 stiff, and in nothing yielding ; but everything he managed 
 went on well in his hands ; and he was a great warrior, about 
 whom there are many stories. He was the most powerful 
 man in Denmark next to the King. Jarl Ulf's sister, Gyda, 
 was married to Jarl Gudin (Godwin) Ulfradsson ; and their 
 sons were, Harald, King of England, and Jarl Tosti, Jarl 
 Walthiof, Jarl Mauro-Kaare, and Jarl Svein. Gyda was the 
 name of their daughter, who was married to the English King 
 Edward the Good (whom we call the Confessor). 
 
 When they had played a while, the King made a false move ; 
 on which the Jarl took a knight from him ; but the King set 
 the piece on the board again, and told i^ie Jarl to make an- 
 other move. But the Jarl flew angry, tumbled the chess- 
 board over, rose, and went away. The King said, " Bun thy 
 ways, Ulf the Fearful." The Jarl turned round at the door 
 and said, " Thou wouldst have run farther at Helge river 
 hadst thou been left to battle there. Thou didst not call me 
 Ulf the Fearful when I hastened to thy help while the Swedes 
 were beating thee like a dog." The Jarl then went out and 
 went to bed.
 
 72 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY. 
 
 The following morning, while the King was putting on his 
 clothes, he said to his footboy, " Go thou to Jarl Ulf and kill 
 him." The lad went, was away a while, and then came back. 
 The King said, " Hast thou killed the Jarl ? " "I did not kill 
 him, for he was gone to St. Lucius's church." There was a 
 man called Ivar the White, a Norwegian by birth, who was 
 the King's courtman and chamberlain. The King said to him, 
 " Go thou and kill the Jarl." Ivar went to the church, and in 
 at the choir, and thrust his sword through the Jarl, who died 
 on the spot. Then Ivar went to the King, with the bloody 
 sword iu his hand. 
 
 The King said, " Hast thou killed the Jarl ? " "I have killed 
 him," said he. "Thou hast done well," answered the King. 1 
 
 From a man who built so many churches (one on each bat- 
 tle-field where he had fought, to say nothing of the others), 
 and who had in him such depths of real devotion and other 
 fine cosmic quality, this does seem rather strong ! But it is 
 characteristic, withal, of the man, and perhaps of the times 
 still more. In any case, it is an event worth noting, the slain 
 Jarl Ulf and his connections being of importance in the history 
 of Denmark and of England also. Ulfs wife was Astrid, sister 
 of Knut, and their only child was Svein, styled afterwards 
 ' Svein Estrithson ' (' Astrid-son ') when he became noted in 
 the world, at this time a beardless youth, who, on the back 
 of this tragedy, fled hastily to Sweden, where were friends of 
 Ulf. After some ten years' eclipse there, Kuut and both his 
 sons being now dead, Svein reappeared in Denmark under a 
 new and eminent figure, 'Jarl of Denmark,' highest Liege- 
 man to the then sovereign there. Broke his oath to said sov- 
 ereign, declared himself, Svein Estrithson. to be real King of 
 Denmark ; and, after much preliminary trouble, and many beat- 
 ings and disastrous flights to and fro, became in effect such, 
 to the wonder of mankind ; for he had not had one victory to 
 cheer him on, or any good luck or merit that one sees, except 
 that of surviving longer than some others. Nevertheless he 
 came to be the Restorer, so called, of Danish independence ; 
 sole remaining representative of Knut (or Knut's sister), of 
 Fork-beard, Blue-tooth, and Old Gorm ; and ancestor of all 
 1 $nurn>, vol. ii. pp. 232-3.
 
 \ 
 
 REIGN OF KING OLAF THE SAINT. -\ 
 
 the subsequent kings of Denmark for some 400 years ; himself 
 coming, as we see, only by the Distaff side, all of the Sword 
 or male side having died so soon. Early death, it has been 
 observed, was the Great Knut's allotment, and all his pos- 
 terity's as well ; fatal limit (had there been no others, which 
 we see there were) to his becoming ' Charlemagne of the 
 North ' in any considerable degree ! Jarl Ulf, as we have 
 seen, had a sister, Gyda by name, wife to Earl Godwin 
 ( ' Gudin Ulfradsson,' as Snorro calls him), a very memorable 
 Englishman, whose son and hers, King Harald, Harold in 
 English books, is the memorablest of all. These things 
 ought to be better known to English antiquaries, and will 
 perhaps be alluded to again. 
 
 This pretty little victory or affront, gained over Knut in 
 Lymfjord, was among the last successes of Olaf against that 
 mighty man. Olaf, the skilful captain he was, need not have 
 despaired to defend his Norway against Knut and all the 
 world. But he learned henceforth, month by month ever 
 more tragically, that his own people, seeing softer prospects 
 under Knut ; and in particular that the chiefs of them, indus- 
 triously bribed by Knut for years past, had fallen away from 
 him ; and that his means of defence were gone. Next sum- 
 mer, Knut'a grand fleet sailed, unopposed, along the coasts of 
 Norway ; Knut summoning a Thing every here and there, and 
 in all of them meeting nothing but sky-high acclamation and 
 acceptance. Olaf, with some twelve little ships, all he now 
 had, lay quiet in some safe fjord, near Lindenees, what we 
 now call the Naze, behind some little solitary isles on the 
 south-east of Norway there, till triumphant Knut had streamed 
 home again. Home to England again : ' Sovereign of Nor- 
 way ' now, with nephew Hakon appointed Jarl and Vice-regent 
 under him ! This was the news Olaf met on venturing out ; 
 and that his worst anticipations were not beyond the sad 
 truth. All, or almost all, the chief Bonders and men of 
 weight in Norway had declared against him, and stood with 
 triumphant Knut. 
 
 Olaf, with his twelve poor ships, steered vigorously along 
 the coast to collect money and force, if such could now any-
 
 J 
 
 74 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY. 
 
 where be bad. He himself was resolute to hold out, and try. 
 ' Sailing swiftly with a fair wind, morning cloudy with some 
 showers, he passed the coast of Jedderen, winch was Erling 
 Skjalgson's country, when he got sure notice of an endless 
 multitude of ships, w r ar-ships, armed merchant ships, all kinds 
 of shipping-craft, down to fisherman's boats, just getting 
 under way against him, under the command of Erling Skjalg- 
 son, the powerfullest of his subjects, once much a friend of 
 Olaf's, but now gon'e against him to this length, thanks to 
 Olaf's severity of justice, and Knut's abundance in gold and 
 promises for years back. To that complexion had it come 
 with Erling ; sailing with this immense assemblage of the 
 naval people and populace of Norway to seize King Olaf, and 
 bring him to the great Kuut dead or alive. 
 
 Erling had a grand new ship of his own, which far out- 
 sailed the general miscellany of rebel ships, and was visibly 
 fast gaining distance on Olaf himself, who well understood 
 what Erling's puzzle was, between the tail of his game (the 
 miscellany of rebel ships, namely) that could not come up, 
 and the head or general prize of the game which was crowding 
 all sail to get away ; and Olaf took advantage of the same. 
 " Lower your sails ! " said Olaf to his men (though we must 
 go slower). "Ho you, we have lost sight of them ! " said Er- 
 ling to his, and put on all his speed ; Olaf going, soon after 
 this, altogether invisible, behind a little island that he knew 
 of, whence into a certain fjord or bay (Bay of Fungen on the 
 maps), w j hich he thought would suit him. "Halt here, and 
 get out your- arms," said Olaf, and had not to wait long till 
 Erling came bounding in, past the rocky promontory, and 
 with astonishment beheld Olaf's fleet of twelve with their 
 battle-axes and their grappling-irons all in perfect readiness. 
 These fell on him, the unready Erling, simultaneous, like a 
 cluster of angry bees ; and in a few minutes cleared his ship 
 of men altogether, except Erling himself. Nobody asked his 
 life, nor probably would have got it if he had. Only Erling 
 still stood erect on a high place on the poop, fiercely defen- 
 sive, and very difficult to get at. ' Could not be reached at 
 all,' says Snorro, 'except by spears or arrows, and these he
 
 REIGN OF KING OLAF THE SAINT. < 5 
 
 warded off with untiring dexterity ; no man in Norway, it was 
 said, bad ever defended himself so long alone against many,' 
 an almost invincible Erling, had his cause been good. Olaf 
 himself noticed Erling's behaviour, and said to him, from the 
 foredeck below, " Thou hast turned against me to-day, Er- 
 ling." " The eagles fight breast to breast,'' answers he. This 
 was a speech of the King's to Erliiig once long ago, while 
 they stood fighting, not as now, but side by side. The King, 
 with some transient thought of possibility going through his 
 head, rejoins, "Wilt thou surrender, Erling?" "That will 
 "I," answered he ; took the helmet off his head ; laid down 
 sword and shield ; and went forward to the forecastle-deck. 
 The King pricked, I think not very harshly, into Erliug's 
 chin or beard with the point of his battle-axe, saying, " I 
 must mark thee as traitor to thy sovereign, though." Where- 
 upon one of the bystanders, Aslak Fitiaskalle, stupidly and 
 fiercely burst up ; smote Eiiing on the head with his axe ; so 
 that it stuck fast in his brain, and was instantly the death of 
 Erling. "Ill-luck attend thee for that stroke ; thou hast 
 stmck Norway out of my hand by it ! " cried the King to 
 Aslak ; but forgave the poor fellow, who had done it meaning 
 well. The insurrectionary Bonder fleet arriving soon after, 
 as if for certain victory, was struck with astonishment at this 
 Erling catastrophe ; and, being now without any leader of 
 authority, made not the least attempt at battle ; but, full of 
 discouragement and consternation, thankfully allowed Olaf to 
 sail away on his northward voyage at discretion ; and them- 
 selves went off lamenting, with Erling's dead body. 
 
 This small victory was the last that Olaf had over his many 
 enemies at present. He sailed along, still northward, day 
 after day ; several important people joined him ; but the news 
 from landward grew daily more ominous : Bonders busily 
 arming to rear of him ; and ahead, Hakon still more busily 
 at Trondhjem, now near by, " and he will end thy days, 
 King, if he have strength enough ! " Olaf paused ; sent 
 scouts to a hill-top : "Hakon's armament visible enough, and 
 under way hitherward, about the Isle of Bjarno, yonder ! " 
 Soon after, Olaf himself saw the Bonder armament of twenty-
 
 7r EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY. 
 
 five ships, from the southward, sail past in the distance to 
 join that of Hakon ; and, worse still, his own ships, one and 
 another (seven in all), were slipping off on a like errand ! He 
 made for the Fjord of Fodrar, mouth of the rugged strath 
 called Valdai, which I think still knows Olaf, and has now 
 an ' Olaf's Highway,' where, nine centuries ago, it scarcely 
 had a path. Olaf entered this fjord, had his land-tent set up, 
 and a cross beside it, on the small level green behind the 
 promontory there. Finding that his twelve poor ships were 
 now reduced to five, against a world all risen upon him, he 
 could not but see and admit to himself that there was no' 
 chance left ; and that he must withdraw across the mountains 
 and wait for a better time. 
 
 His journey through that wild country, in these forlorn 
 and straitened circumstances, has a mournful dignity and 
 homely pathos, as described by Snorro : how he drew up his 
 five poor ships upon the beach, packed all their furniture 
 away, and with his hundred or so of attendants and their 
 journey -baggage, under guidance of some friendly Bonder, 
 rode up into the desert and foot of the mountains ; scaled, 
 after three days' effort (as if by miracle, thought his attend- 
 ants and thought Snorro), the well-nigh precipitous slope 
 that led across, never without miraculous aid from Heaven 
 and Olaf could baggage-wagons have ascended that path ! 
 In short, How he fared along, beset by difficulties and the 
 ruourufullest thoughts ; but patiently persisted, steadfastly 
 trusted in God ; and was fixed to return, and by God's help 
 try again. An evidently very pious and devout man ; a good 
 man struggling with, adversity, such as the gods, we may still 
 imagine with the ancients, do look down upon as their noblest 
 sight. 
 
 He got to Sweden, to the court of his brother-in-law ; kind- 
 ly and nobly enough received there, though gradually, per- 
 haps, ill-seen by the now authorities of Norway. So that be- 
 fore long he quitted Sweden ; left his queen there with her 
 only daughter, his and hers, the only child they had ; he him- 
 self had an only son, 'by a bond- woman,' Magnus by name, 
 who came to great things afterwards ; of whom, and of which,
 
 11EIGN OF KING OLAF THE JUAI^T. 77 
 
 by and by. With this bright little boy, and a selected escort 
 of attendants, he moved away to Russia, to King Jarroslav ; 
 where he might wait secure against all risk of hurting kind 
 friends by his presence. He seems to have been an exile al- 
 together some two years, such is one's vague notion ; for 
 there is no chronology in Snorro or his Sagas, and one is re- 
 duced to guessing and inferring. He had reigned over Nor- 
 way, reckoning from the first days of his landing there to those 
 last of his leaving it across the Dovrefjeld, about fifteen years, 
 ten of them shiningly victorious. 
 
 The news from Norway were naturally agitating to King 
 Olaf ; and, in the fluctuation of events there, his purposes and 
 prospects varied much. He sometimes thought of pilgriming 
 to Jerusalem, and a henceforth exclusively religious life ; but 
 for most part his pious thoughts themselves gravitated towards 
 Norway, and a stroke for his old place and task there, which 
 he steadily considered to have been committed to him by God. 
 Norway, by the rumours, was evidently not at rest. Jarl Ha- 
 kon, under the high patronage of his uncle, had lasted there 
 but a little while. I know not that his government was es- 
 pecially unpopular, nor whether he himself much remembered 
 his broken oath. It appears, however, he had left in England 
 a beautiful bride ; and considering farther that in England 
 only could bridal ornaments and other wedding outfit of a 
 sufficiently royal kind be found, he set sail thither, to fetch 
 her and them himself. One evening of wildish-looking weather 
 he was seen about the north-east corner of the Pentland Frith ; 
 the night rose to be tempestuous ; Hakon or any timber of his 
 fleet was never seen more. Had all gone down, broken 
 oaths, bridal hopes, and all else ; mouse and man, into the 
 roaring waters ? There was no farther Opposition-line ; the 
 like of which had lasted ever since old heathen Hakon Jarl, 
 down to this his grandson Hakon's^???^- in the Pentland Frith. 
 "With this Hakon's disappearace it now disappeared. 
 
 Indeed Kiiut himself, though of an empire suddenly so 
 great, was but a temporary phenomenon. Fate had decided 
 that the great and wise Knut was to be short lived ; and to 
 leave nothing as successors but an insignificant young Harald
 
 78 EARLY KING 8 OF NORWAY. 
 
 Harefoot, who soon perished and a still stupider fiercely-drink- 
 ing Harda-Knut, who rushed down of apoplexy (here in Lon- 
 don City, as I gather), with the goblet at his mouth, drinking 
 health and happiness at a wedding-feast, also before long. 
 
 Hakon having vanished in this dark way, there ensued a 
 pause, both on Knut's part and on Norway's. Pause or inter- 
 regnum of some months, till it became certain, first, whether 
 Hakon were actually dead, secondly, till Norway, and espe- 
 cially till King Knut himself, could decide what to do. Knut, 
 to the deep disappointment, which had to keep itself silent, of 
 three or four chief Norway men, named none of these three 
 or four Jaii of Norway ; but bethought him of a certain Svein, 
 a bastard son of his OWE, who, and almost still more his Eng- 
 lish mother, much desired a career in the world fitter for him, 
 thought they indignantly, than that of captain over Jomsburg, 
 where alone the father had been able to provide for him hither- 
 to. Svein was sent to Norway as king or vice-king for Father 
 Knut ; and along with him his fond and vehement mother. 
 Neither of whom gained any favour from the Norse people by 
 the kind of management they ultimately came to show. 
 
 Ola-f on news of this change, and such uncertainty prevail- 
 ing everywhere in Norway as to the future course of things, 
 whether Svein would come, as was rumoured of at last, and be 
 able to maintain himself if he did, thought there might be 
 something in it of a chance for himself and his rights. And, 
 after lengthened hesitation, much prayer, pious invocation 
 and consideration, decided to go and try it. The final grain 
 that had turned the balance, it appears, was a half-waking 
 morning dream, or almost ocular vision he had of his glorious 
 cousin Olaf Tryggveson, who severely admonished, exhorted 
 and encouraged him ; and disappeared grandly, just in the 
 instant of Olaf's awakening ; so that Olaf almost fancied he 
 had seen the very figure of him as it melted into air. " Let 
 us on, let us on ! " thought Olaf always after that. He left his 
 sou, not in Russia, but in Sweden with the Queen, who proved 
 very good and carefully helpful in wise ways to him : in 
 Russia Olaf had now nothing more to do but give his grateful 
 adieus, and get ready.
 
 REIGN OF KL\G OLAF THE SAINT. 79 
 
 His march towards Sweden, and from that towards Norway 
 and the passes of the mountains, down Vaerclal, towards 
 Stickelstad, and the crisis that awaited, is beautifully depicted 
 by Snorro. It has, all of it, the description (and we see clearly 
 the fact itself had), a kind of pathetic grandeur, simplicity, 
 and rude nobleness ; something Epic or Homeric, without 
 the metre or the singing of Homer, but with all the sincerity, 
 rugged truth to nature, aud much more of piety, devoutness, 
 reverence for what is for ever High in this Universe, than 
 meets us in those old Greek Ballad-mongers. Singularly vis- 
 ual all of it, too, brought home in every pai'ticular to one's 
 imagination, so that it stands out almost as a thing one actu- 
 ually saw. 
 
 Olaf had about three thousand men with him ; gathered 
 mostly as he fared along through Norway. Four hundred, 
 raised by one Dag, a kinsman whom he had found in Sweden 
 and persuaded to come with him, marched usually in a sepa- 
 rate body ; aud were, or might have been, rather an important 
 element. Learning that the Bonders were ah 1 arming, espe- 
 cially in Trondhjem country, Olaf streamed down towards them 
 in the closest order he could. By no means very close, sub- 
 sistence even for three thousand being difficult in such a coun- 
 try. His speech was almost always free and cheerful, though 
 his thoughts always naturally were of a high and earnest, al- 
 most sacred tone ; devout above all. Stickelstad, a small poor 
 hamlet still standing where the valley ends, was seen by Olaf, 
 and tacitly by the Bonders as well, to be the natural place for 
 offering battle. There Olaf issued out froni the hills one 
 morning ; drew himself up according to the best rules of 
 Norse tactics, rules of little complexity, but perspicuously 
 true to the facts. I think he had a clear open ground still 
 rather raised above the plain in front ; he could see how the 
 Bonder army had not yet quite arrived, but was pouring for- 
 ward, in spontaneous rows or groups, copiously by every path. 
 This was thought to be the biggest army that ever met in Nor- 
 way ; ' certainly not much fewer than a hundred times a hun- 
 dred men, according to Snorro ; great Bonders several of them, 
 small Bonders very many, all of willing mind, animated with
 
 80 EARLY AY-.WJ.s- OF NORWAY. 
 
 a hot sense of intolerable injuries. ' King Olaf bad punished 
 great and small with equal rigour/ says Snorro ; ' which ap- 
 peared to the chief people of the country too severe ; and ani- 
 mosity rose to the highest when they lost relatives by the 
 King's just sentence, although they were in reality guilty. He 
 again would rather renounce his dignity than omit righteous 
 judgment. The accusation against him of being stingy with 
 
 ,l O O/ 
 
 his money was not just, for he was a most generous man to- 
 wards his friends. Bat that alone was the cause of the discon- 
 tent raised against him that he appeared hard and severe in 
 his retributions. Besides, King Knut offered large sums of 
 money, and the great chiefs were corrupted by this, and by 
 his offering them greater dignities than they had possessed 
 before.' On these grounds, against the intolerable man, great 
 and small were now pouring along by every path. 
 
 Olaf perceived it would still be some time before the Bonder 
 army was in rank. His own Dag of Sweden, too, was not yet 
 come up ; he was to have the right banner ; King Olaf's own 
 being the middle or grand one ; some other person the third 
 or left banner. All which being perfectly ranked and settled, 
 according to the best rules, and waiting only the arrival of 
 Dag, Olaf bade his men sit down, and freshen themselves with 
 a little rest. There were religious services gone through : a 
 matins-worship such as there have been few ; sternly earnest 
 to the heart of it, and deep as death and eternity, at least on 
 Olaf's own part. For the rest Thormod sang a stave of the 
 fiercest Skaldic poetry that was in him ; all the army straight- 
 way sang it in chorus with fiery mind. Tiie Bonder of the 
 nearest farm came up to tell Olaf that he also wished to fight 
 for him. "Thanks to thee ; but don't." said Olaf; ' : stay at 
 home rather, that the wounded may have some shelter." To 
 this Bonder Olaf delivered all the money he had, with solemn 
 order to lay out the whole of it in masses and prayers for the 
 souls of such of his enemies as fell. " Such of thy enemies, 
 King?'' "Yes, surely," said Olaf; "my friends will all either 
 conquer, or go whither I also am going." 
 
 At last the Bonder army, too, was got ranked ; three com- 
 manders, one of them with a kind of loose chief command,
 
 REIGX />' KING OLAF THE SAINT. 81 
 
 having settled to take charge of it ; and began to shake itself 
 towards actual advance. Olaf in the meanwhile had laid his 
 head on the knees of Finn Arneson, his trustiest man, and 
 fallen fast asleep. Finn's brother, Kalf Arneson, once a warm 
 friend of Olaf, was chief of the three commanders on the op- 
 posite side. Finn and he addressed angry speech to one an- 
 other from the opposite ranks when they came near enough. 
 Finn, seeing the enemy fairly approach, stirred Olaf from his 
 sleep. " Oh, why hast thou awakened me from such a dream ? " 
 said Olaf, in a deeply solemn tone. " What dream was it, 
 then ? " asked Finn. " I dreamt that there rose a ladder here 
 reaching up to very Heaven," said Olaf ; "I had climbed and 
 climbed, and got to the very last step, and should have en- 
 tered there hadst thou given me another moment." "King, 
 I doubt thou art/tf// ; I do not quite like that dream." 
 
 The actual fight begin about one of the clock in a most 
 bright last day of July, and was vei'y fierce and hot, especially 
 on the part of Olaf s men, who shook the others back a little, 
 though fierce enough they too ; and had Dag been on the 
 ground, which he wasn't yet, it was thought victory might 
 have been won. Soon after battle joined the sky grew of 
 a ghastly brass or copper colour, darker and darker, till thick 
 night involved all things ; and did not clear away again till 
 battle was near ending. Dag, with his four hundred, arrived 
 in the darkness, and made a furious charge, what was after- 
 wards, in the speech of the people, called 'Dag's storm.' 
 Which had nearly prevailed, but could not quite ; victory 
 again inclining to the so vastly larger part}'. It is uncertain 
 still how the matter would have gone ; for Olaf himself was 
 now fighting with his own hand, and doing deadly execution 
 on his busiest enemies to right and to left. But one of these 
 chief rebels, Thorer Hund (thought to have learnt magic from 
 the Laplanders, whom he long traded with, and made money 
 by), mysteriously would not fall for Olaf's best strokes. Best 
 strokes brought only dust from the (enchanted) deer-skin coat 
 of the fellow, to Olafs surprise. -when another of the rebel 
 chiefs rushed forward, struck Olaf with his battle-axe a wild 
 slashing wound, and miserably broke his thigh, so that he
 
 82 EARLY KIN 08 OF NORWAY. 
 
 staggered or was supported back to the nearest stone ; and 
 there sat down, lamentably calling on God to help him in this 
 bad hour. Another rebel of note (the name of him long mem- 
 orable in Norway) slashed or stabbed Olaf a second time, as 
 did then a third. Upon which the noble Olaf sank dead, and 
 forever quitted this doghole of a world, little worthy of such 
 men as Olaf, one sometimes thinks. But that, too, is a mis- 
 take, and even an important one, should we persist in it. 
 
 With Olaf's death the sky cleared again. Battle, now near 
 done, ended with complete victory to the rebels, and next to 
 no pursuit or result, except the death to Olaf ; everybody 
 hastening home as soon as the big Duel had decided itself. 
 Olaf's body was secretly carried, after dark, to some out- 
 house on the farm near the spot ; whither a poor blind beg- 
 gar creeping in for rhelter that very evening was miraculously 
 restored to sight. And, truly with a notable, almost miracu- 
 lous speed, the feelings of all Norway for King Olaf changed 
 themselves, and were turned upside down, ' within a year,' 
 or almost within a day. Superlative example of Extinct us 
 amabitur idem. Not 'Olaf the Thick-set' an} 7 longer, but 
 ' Olaf the Blessed ' or Saint, now clearly in Heaven ; such the 
 name and character of him from that time to this. Two 
 churches dedicated to him (out of four that once stood) stand 
 in London at this moment. And the miracles that have been 
 done there, not to speak of Norway and Christendom elsewhere, 
 in his name, were numerous and great for long centuries after- 
 wards. Visibly a Saint Olaf ever since ; and, indeed, in 
 flollandus or elsewhere, I have seldom met with better stuff 
 to make a Saint of, or a true World-Hero in all good senses. 
 Speaking of the London Olaf Churches. I should have added 
 that from one of these the thrice-famous Tooley Street gets 
 its name, where those Three Tailors, addressing Parliament 
 and the Universe, sublimely styled themselves, ' We, the Peo- 
 ple of England.' Saint Olave Street, St. Oley Street, Stoo- 
 ley Street, Tooley Street : such are the metamorphoses of 
 human fame in the world ! 
 
 The battle-day of Stickelstad, King Olaf's death-day, is 
 generally believed to have been Wednesday, July 31, 1033.
 
 MAGNUS THE GOOD AND OTHERS. S3 
 
 But on investigation, it turns out that there was no total 
 eclipse of the sun visible in Norway that year ; though three 
 years before there was one ; but on the 29th instead of the 
 31st. So that the exact date still remains uncertain ; Dahl- 
 mann, the latest critic, inclining for 1030, and its indisputa- 
 ble eclipse. 1 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 MAGNUS THE GOOD AND OTHERS. 
 
 St. Olaf is the highest of these Norway Kings, and is the 
 last that much attracts vis. For this reason, if a reason were 
 not superfluous, we might here end our poor rerninescences 
 of these dim Sovereigns. But we will, nevertheless, for the 
 sake of their connection with bits of English History, still 
 hastily mention the names of one or two who follow, and who 
 throw a momentary gleam of life and illumination on events 
 and epochs that have fallen so extinct among ourselves at 
 present, though once they were so momentous and memorable. 
 
 The new King Svein, from Jornsburg, Kunt's natural son, 
 had no success in Norway, nor seems to have deserved any. 
 His English mother and he were found to be grasping, op- 
 pressive persons ; and awoke, almost from the instant that 
 Olaf was suppressed and crushed away from Norway into 
 Heaven, universal odium more and more in that country. 
 Well-deservedly, as still appears ; for their taxings and extor- 
 tions of malt, of herring, of meal, smithwork, and every arti- 
 cle taxable in Norway, were extreme ; and their service to the 
 country otherwise nearly imperceptible. In brief, their one 
 basis there was the power of Knut the Great ; and that, like 
 all earthly things, was liable to sudden collapse, and it suf- 
 fered such in a notable degree. King Knut, hardly yet of 
 middle age, and the greatest king in the then world, died 
 at Shaftesbury, in 1035 as Dahlmann thinks, 2 leaving two 
 
 ! S'U-on Chro/tiflf says expressly, under A.I>. 1030: ''In this year 
 King Olaf was slain in Norway by his own people, and was afterward 
 sainted." 
 
 says : ' 1035. In this year died King Cnut. . . . 
 He departed at Shaftesbury, November 12 : and they conveyed him 
 thence to Winchester and there buried him.'
 
 84 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY. 
 
 legitimate sons and a busy intriguing widow (Norman Emma, 
 widow of Ethelred the Unready), mother of the younger of 
 these two ; neither of whom proved to have any talent or any 
 continuance. In spite of Emma's utmost efforts, Harald, the 
 elder son of Knut, not hers, got England for his kingdom ; 
 Ernma and her Harda-Knut had to be content with Denmark, 
 and go thither, much against their will. Harald in England, 
 light-going little figure as his father before him, got the 
 name of Harefoot here ; and might have done good work 
 among his now orderly and settled people ; but he died almost 
 within year and day, and has left no trace among us, except 
 that of ' Harefoot/ from his swift mode of walking. Emma 
 and her Harda-Knut now returned joyful to England. But 
 the violent, idle, and drunken Harda-Knut did no good there ; 
 and, happily for England and him, soon suddenly ended, by 
 stroke of apoplexy at a marriage festival, as mentioned above. 
 In Denmark he had done still less good. And indeed, under 
 him, in a year or two, the grand imperial edifice, laboriously 
 built by Knut's valour and wisdom, had already tumbled all 
 to the ground, in a most unexpected and remarkable way. 
 As we are now to indicate with all brevity. 
 
 Svein's tyrannies in Norway had wrought such fruit that, 
 within the four years after Olaf's death, the chief men in Nor- 
 way, the very slayers of King Olaf, Kalf Arneson at the head of 
 them, met secretly once or twice ; and unanimously agreed that 
 Kalf Arneson must go to Sweden, or to Russia itself ; seek 
 young Magnus, son of Olaf, home : excellent Magnus, to be 
 king over all Norway and them, instead of this intolerable 
 Sveiu. Which was at once done, Magnus, brought home in 
 a kind of triumph, all Norway waiting for him. Intolerable 
 Svein had already been' rebelled against : some years before 
 this, a certain young Tryggve out of Ireland, authentic son of 
 Olaf Tryggveson and of that fine Irish Princess who chose him 
 in his low habiliments and low estate, and took him over to 
 her own Green Island, this royal young Tryggve Olaf son had 
 invaded the usurper Svein in a fierce, valiant, and determined 
 manner ; and, though with too small a party, showed excel- 
 lent fight for some time ; till Svein, zealously bestirring him-
 
 MAGNUS THE GOOD AND OTHER*. 85 
 
 self, managed to get him beaten and killed. But that was 
 a couple of years ago ; the party still too small, not includ- 
 ing one and all as now ! Svein, without stroke of sword this 
 time, moved off towards Denmark, never showing face in Nor- 
 way again. His drunken brother, Harda-Knut, received him 
 brother-like ; even gave him some territory to rule over and 
 subsist upon. But he lived only a short while ; was gone be- 
 fore Harda-Knut himself ; and we will mention him no more. 
 Magnus was a fine bright young fellow, and proved a vali- 
 ant, wise, and successful king, known among his people as 
 Magnus the Good. He was only natural son of King Olaf ; 
 but that made little difference in those times and there. His 
 strange-looking, unexpected Latin name he got in this way : 
 Alfhild, his mother, a slave through ill-luck of war, though 
 nobly born, was seen to be in a hopeful way ; and it was 
 known in the King's house how intimately Olaf was connected 
 with that occurrence, and how much he loved this ' King's 
 serving-maid,' as she was commonly designated. Alfhild was 
 brought to bed late at night ; and all the world, especially 
 King Olaf, was asleep ; Olaf's strict rule, then and always, 
 being, don't awaken me : seemingly a man sensitive about 
 his sleep. The child was a boy, of rather weakly aspect ; no 
 important person present, except Sigvat, the King's Icelandic 
 Skald, who happened to be still awake ; and the Bishop of 
 Norway, who, I suppose, had been sent for in a hurry. " What 
 is to be done ? " said the Bishop, " here is an infant in press- 
 ing need of baptism ; and we know not what the name is : go, 
 Sigvat, awaken the King, and ask." "I dare not for my life," 
 answered Sigvat : " King's orders are rigorous on that point. '' 
 "But if the child die uubaptized," said the Bishop, .shudder- 
 ing ; too certain, he and everybody, where the child would go 
 in that case ! "I will myself give him a name," said Sigvat, 
 with a desperate concentration of all his faculties ; "he shall 
 be namesake of the greatest of mankind, imperial Carolus 
 Magnus ; let us call the infant Magnus ! " King Olaf, on the 
 morrow, asked rather sharply how Sigvat had dared take such 
 a liberty ; but excused Sigvat, seeing what the perilous alter- 
 native was. And Magnus, by such accident, this boy was
 
 86 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY. 
 
 called ; and he, not another, is the prime origin and intro- 
 ducer of that name Magnus, which occurs rather frequently, 
 not among the Norway Kings only, but by and by among the 
 Danish and Swedish ; and, among the Scandinavian popula- 
 tions, appears to be rather frequent to this day. 
 
 Magnus, a youth of great spirit, whose own, and standing 
 at his beck, all Norway now was, immediately smote home on 
 Denmark ; desirous naturally of vengeance for what it had 
 done to Norway, and the sacred kindred of Magnus. Den- 
 mark, its great Knut gone, and nothing but a drunken Harda- 
 Knut, fugitive Svein & Co., there in his stead, was become a 
 weak, dislocated Country. And Magnus plundered in it, 
 burnt it, beat it, as often as he pleased ; Harda-Knut strug- 
 gling what he could to make resistance or reprisals, but never 
 once getting any victory over Magnus. Magnus, I perceive, 
 was, like his Father, a skilful as well as valiant fighter by sea 
 and laud ; Magnus, with good battalions, and probably backed 
 by immediate alliance with Heaven and St. Olaf, as was then 
 the general belief or surmise about him, could not easily be 
 beaten. And the truth is, he never was, by Harda-Knut or 
 any other. Harda-Knut's last transaction with him was, To 
 make a firm Peace and even Family-treaty sanctioned by all 
 the grandees of both countries, who did indeed mainly them- 
 selves make it ; their two Kings assenting : That there should 
 be perpetual Peace, and no thought of war more, between 
 Denmark and Norway ; and that, if either of the Kings died 
 childless while the other was reigning, the other should suc- 
 ceed him in both Kingdoms. A magnificent arrangement, 
 such as has several times been made in the world's history ; 
 but which in this instance, what is very singular, took actual 
 effect ; drunken Harda-Kuut dying so speedily, and Magnus 
 being the man he was. -One would like to give the date of 
 this remarkable Treaty ; but cannot with precision. Guess 
 somewhere about 1040 : ' actual fruition of it came to Magnus, 
 beyond question, in 1042, when Harda-Knut drank that was- 
 sail bowl at tho wedding at Lambeth, and fell down dead ; 
 which in the S-i.rmi ( 'hronide is dated 3rd June of that year. 
 : 31:,] ;lie date KKJS ;il. 840), Adam o Bremen, 1040.
 
 MAGNUS THE GOOD AND OTHERS. 87 
 
 Magnus at once went to Denmark on hearing this event ; was 
 joyfully received by the head men there, who indeed, with 
 their fellows in Norway, had been main contrivers of the 
 Treaty ; both Countries longing for mutual peace, and the end 
 of such incessant broils. 
 
 Magnus was triumphantly received as King in Denmark. 
 The only unfortunate thing was that Svein Estrithson, the 
 exile son of Of, Knut's Brother-in-law, whom Knut, as we 
 saw, had summarily killed twelve years before, emerged from 
 his exile in Sweden in a flattering form ; and proposed that 
 Magnus should make him Jarl of Denmark, and general ad- 
 ministrator there in his own stead. To which the sanguine 
 Magnus, in spite of advice to the contrary, insisted on acced- 
 ing. " Too powerful a Jarl," said Einar Tamberskelver the 
 same Einar whose bow was heard to break in Olaf Trygg- 
 veson's last battle (-''Norway breaking from thy hand, King ! "), 
 who had now become Magnus's chief man, and had long been 
 among the highest chiefs of Norway ; " too powerful a Jarl," 
 said Einar, earnestly. But Magnus disregarded it; and a 
 troublesome experience had to teach him that it was true. In 
 about a year, crafty Svein, bringing ends to meet, got himself 
 declared King of Denmark for his own behoof, instead of Jarl 
 for another's : and had to be driven and beaten out by Mag- 
 nus. Beaten every year ; but almost always returned next 
 year for a new beating, almost, though not altogether ; hav- 
 ing at length got one dreadful smashing-down and half-kill- 
 ing, which held him quiet a while, so long as Magnus lived. 
 Nay, in the end he made good his point, as if by mere patience 
 in being beaten ; and did become king himself, and progenitor 
 of all the kings that followed. King Svein Estrithson ; so 
 called from Astrid or Estrith, his mother, the great Knut's 
 sister, daughter of Svein Forkbeard by that amazing Sigrid 
 .the Proud, who burnt those two ineligible suitors of hers both 
 at once, and got a switch on the face from Olaf Tryggveson, 
 which proved the death of that high man. 
 
 But all this high fortune of the often-beaten Estrithson was 
 posterior to Magnus's death ; who never would have suffered 
 it, had he been alive. Magnus was a mightv fighter ; a fiery 
 
 O s. O /
 
 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY. 
 
 man ; very proud and positive, among other qualities, and 
 had such luck as was never seen before. Luck invariably 
 good, said everybody ; never once was beaten, which proves, 
 continued everybody, that his Father Olaf and the miraculous 
 power of Heaven were' with him always. Magnus, I believe, 
 did put down a great deal of anarchy in those countries. One 
 of his earliest enterprises was to abolish Jomsburg, and 
 trample out that nest of pirates. Which he managed so com- 
 pletely that Jomsburg remained a mere reminiscence thence- 
 forth ; and its place is not now known to any mortal. 
 
 One perverse thing did at last turn up in the course of Mag- 
 nus : a new Claimant for the Crown of Norway, and he a for- 
 midable person withal. This was Harald, half-brother of the 
 late Saint Olaf ; uncle or half-uncle, therefore, of Magnus him- 
 self. Indisputable son of the Saint's mother b} r St. Olaf's 
 step-father, who was himself descended straight from Harald 
 Haarfagr. This new Harald was already much heard of in 
 the world. As an ardent Boy of fifteen he had fought at 
 King Olaf's side at Stickelstad ; would not be admonished by 
 the Saint to go away. Got smitten down there, not killed ; 
 was smuggled away that night from the field by friendly help ; 
 got cured of his wounds, forwarded to Russia, where he grew 
 to man's estate, under bright auspices and successes. Fell in 
 love with the Russian Princess, but could not get her to 
 wife ; went off thereupon to Constantinople as Vwringer (Life- 
 Guardsman of the Greek Kaiser) ; became Chief Captain of 
 the Vseringers, invincible champion of the poor Kaisers that 
 then were, and filled all the East with the shine and noise of 
 his exploits. An authentic Waring or J}a?'ing, such the sur- 
 name we now have derived from these people ; who were an 
 important institution in those Greek countries for several 
 ages : Vseringer Life-Guard, consisting of Norsemen, with 
 sometimes a few English among them. Harald had innumer- 
 able adventures, nearly always successful, sing the Skalds ; 
 gained a great deal of wealth, gold ornaments, and gold coin ; 
 had even Queen Zoe (so they sing, though falsely) enamoured 
 of him at one time ; and was himself a Skald of eminence ;
 
 3 THE GOOD AND OTHERS. 89 
 
 some of whose verses, by no means the worst of their kind, 
 remain to this da}'. 
 
 This character of Waring much distinguishes Harald to me ; 
 the only Vseringer of whom I could ever get the least biogra- 
 phy, true or half-true. It seems the Greek History-books but 
 indifferently correspond with these Saga records ; and scholars 
 say there could have been no considerable romance between 
 Zoe and him, Zoe at that date being sixty years of age ! 
 Harald's own lays say nothing of any Zoe, but are still full of 
 longing for his Russian Princess far away. 
 
 At last, what with Zoes, what with Greek perversities and 
 perfidies, and troubles that could not fail, he determined on 
 quitting Greece ; packed up his immensities of wealth in suc- 
 cinct shape, and actually returned to Russia, where new hon- 
 ours and favours awaited him from old friends, and especially, 
 if I mistake not, the hand of that adorable Princess, crown of 
 all his wishes for the time being. Before long, however, he 
 decided farther to look after his Norway Royal heritages ; and, 
 for that purpose, sailed in force to the Jarl or quasi-King of 
 Denmark, the often-beaten Svein, who was now in Sweden on 
 his usual winter exile after beating. Svein and he had evi- 
 dently intei-ests in common. Svein was charmed to see him, 
 so warlike, glorious, and renowned a man, with masses of 
 money about him too. Sveiu did by and by become treacher- 
 ous ; and even attempted, one night, to assassinate Harald in 
 his bed on board ship : but Harald, vigilant of Svein, and a 
 man of quick and sure insight, had providently gone to sleep 
 elsewhere, leaving a log instead of himself among the blankets. 
 In which log, next morning, treacherous Svein 's battle-axe was 
 found deeply sticking ; and could not be removed without 
 difficulty ! But this was after Harald and King Magnus him- 
 self had begun treating, with the fairest prospects, which 
 this of the Svein battle-axe naturally tended to forward, as it 
 altogether ended the other copartnery. 
 
 Magnus, on first hearing of Vscringer Harald and his inten- 
 tions, made instant equipment, and determination to fight his 
 uttermost against the same. But wise persons of influence 
 round him, a:j did the like sort round V<eriuger Harald, ear-
 
 90 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY. 
 
 neatly advised compromise and peaceable agreement. Which, 
 soon after that of Svein's nocturnal battle-axe, was the course 
 adopted ; and, to the joy of all parties, did prove a successful 
 solution. Magnus agreed to part his kingdom with Uncle 
 Harald ; Uncle parting his treasures, or uniting them with 
 Magnus's poverty. Each was to be an independent king, but 
 they were to govern in common ; Magnus rather presiding. 
 He to sit, for example, in the High Seat alone ; King Harald 
 opposite him in a seat not quite so high, though if a stranger 
 king came on visit, both the Norse Kings were to sit in the 
 High Seat. With various other punctilious regulations, which 
 the fiery Magnus was extremely strict with ; rendering the 
 mutual relation a very dangerous one, had not both the Kings 
 been honest men, and Harald a much more prudent and tol- 
 erant one than Magnus. They, on the whole, never had any 
 weighty quarrel, thanks now and then rather to Harald than 
 to Magnus. Magnus too was very noble ; and Harald, with 
 his Avicle experience and greater length of years, carefully held 
 his heat of temper well covered in. 
 
 Prior to Uncle Harald's coming, Magnus had distinguished 
 himself as a Lawgiver. His Code of Laws for the Trondhjem 
 Province was considered a pretty piece of legislation ; and in 
 subsequent times got the name of ' Grey-goose ' (Gragas), 
 one of the wonderfullest names ever given to a wise Book. 
 Some say it came from the grey colour of the parchment, some 
 give other incredible origins ; the last guess I have heard is that 
 the name merely denotes antiquity ; the witty name in Norway 
 for a man growing -old having been, in those times, that he 
 was now becoming a grey-goose. Very fantastic, indeed ; 
 certain, however, that Grey-goose is the name of that ven- 
 erable Law Book ; nay, there is another, still more famous, 
 belonging to Iceland, and not far from a century younger, 
 the Iceland Grey-goose. The Norway one is perhaps of date 
 about 1037, the other of about 1118 ; peace be with them 
 both ! Or, if anybody is inclined to such matters, let him go 
 to Dahlmann, for the amplest information and such minute- 
 ness of detail as might almost enable him to be an Advocate, 
 with Silk Gown, in any Court depending on these Grey-geese.
 
 MAGNUS THE GOOD AND OTHERS. 91 
 
 Magnus did not live long. He had a dream one night of 
 his Father Olaf s coming to him in shining presence, and 
 announcing, That a magnificent fortune and world-great re- 
 nown was now possible for him ; but that perhaps it WHS 
 his duty to refuse it ; in which case, his earthly life would be 
 short. " Which way wilt thou do, then ? " said the shining 
 presence. "Thou shalt decide for me, Father thou, not 
 I ! '' and told his Uncle Harald on the morrow, adding- that 
 he thought he should now soon die ; which proved to be the 
 fact. The magnificent fortune, so questionable otherwise, has 
 reference, no doubt, to the Conquest of England ; to which 
 country Magnus, as rightful and actual King of Denmark, as 
 well as undisputed heir to drunken Harda-Knut, by treaty 
 long ago, had now some evident claim. The enterprise itself 
 was reserved to the patient, gay, and prudent Uncle Harald ; 
 and to him it did prove fatal, and merely paved the way for 
 Another, luckier, not likelier ! 
 
 Svein Estrithson, always beaten during Magnus's life, by 
 and by got an agreement from the prudent Harald to be King 
 of Denmark, then ; and end these wearisome and ineffectual 
 brabbles ; Harold having other work to do. But in the 
 autumn of 10G6, Tosti, a younger son of our English Earl 
 Godwin, came to Svein's court with a most important an- 
 nouncement ; namely, that King Edw T ard the Confessor, so 
 called, was dead, and that Harold, as the English write it, his 
 eldest Brother, would give him, Tosti, no sufficient share in 
 the kingship. Which state of matters, if Svein would go 
 ahead with him to rectify it, would be greatly to the advan- 
 tage of Svein. Svein, taught by many beatings, was too wise 
 for this proposal ; refused Tosti, who indignantly stepped 
 over into Norway, and proposed it to King Harald there. 
 Svein really had acquired considerable teaching, I should 
 guess, from his much beating and hard experience in the 
 world ; one finds him afterwards the esteemed friend of the 
 famed Historian Adam of Bremen, who reports various wise 
 humanities and pleasant discoursings with Svein Estrithson. 
 
 As for Harald Hardrade, 'Harald the Hard or Severe,' as 
 he was now called, Tosti's proposal awakened in him all his
 
 H2 KAllLY KlXdX OF NORWAY. 
 
 old Vseringer ambitions and cupidities into blazing vehe- 
 mence. He zealously consented ; and at once, with his whole 
 strength, embarked in the adventure. Fitted out two hun- 
 dred ships, and the biggest army he could carry in them ; 
 and sailed witli Tosti towards the dangerous Promised L;md. 
 Got into the Tyne, and took booty ; got into the Humber, 
 thence into the Ouse ; easily subdued any opposition the 
 official people or their populations could make ; victoriously 
 scattered these ; victoriously took the City of York in a day ; 
 and even got himself hornaged there, ' King of Northumber- 
 land,' as per covenant, Tosti proving honourable, Tosti and 
 he going with faithful strict copartnery, and all things look- 
 ing prosperous and glorious. Except only (an important ex- 
 ception !) that they learnt for certain English Harold was ad- 
 vancing with all his strength, and in a measurable space of 
 hours, unless care were taken, would be in York himself. 
 Harald and Tosti hastened off to seize the post of Stamford 
 Bridge on Derwent River, six or seven miles east of York 
 City, and there bar this dangerous advent. Their own ships 
 lay not far off in Ouse River, in case of the worst. The 
 battle that ensued the next day, September 20, 1066, is for- 
 ever memorable in English history. 
 
 SnoiTO gives vividly enough his view of it from the Ice- 
 landic side : A ring of stalwart Norsemen, close ranked, with 
 their steel tools in hand ; English Harold's Army, mostly cav- 
 alry, prancing and pricking all round ; trying to find or make 
 some opening in that ring. For a long time trying in vain, 
 till at length, getting them enticed to burst out somewhere 
 in pursuit, they quickly turn round, and quickly made an 
 end of that matter. Snorro represents English Harold, with 
 a first party of these horse, coming up, and, with preliminary 
 salutations, asking if Tosti were there, and if Harald were ; 
 making generous proposals to Tosti ; but, in regard to Har- 
 ald, and what share of England was to be his, answering Tosti 
 with the w r ords, " Seven feet of English earth, or more if he 
 require it, for a grave." Upon which Tosti, like an honour- 
 able man and copartner, said, ' No, never ; let us fight you 
 rather till we all die." "Who is this that spoke to you V" in-
 
 J/.-l^.\T.S THE GOOD AND 
 
 quired Harald, when the cavaliers had withdrawn. " My 
 brother Harold," answers Tosti, which looks rather like a 
 Saga, but may be historical after all. Snorro's history of the 
 battle is intelligible only after you have premised to it, what 
 he never hints at, that the scene was on the east side of the 
 bridge and of the Derwent ; the great struggle for the bridge, 
 one at last finds, was after the fall of Harald ; and to the Eng- 
 lish Chroniclers, said struggle, which was abundantly severe, 
 is all they know of the battle. 
 
 Enraged at that breaking loose of his steel ring of infantry, 
 Norse Harald blazed up into time Norse fury, all the old 
 Vseringer and Berserkir rage awakening in him ; nprang forth 
 into the front of the fight, and mauled and cut and smashed 
 down on both hands of him everything he met, irresistible by 
 any horse or man, till an arrow cut him through the wind- 
 pipe, and laid him low forever. That was the end of King 
 Harald and of his workings in this world. The circumstance 
 that he was a Waring or Baring, and had smitten to pieces so 
 many Oriental cohorts or crowds, and had made love-verses 
 (kind of iron madrigals) to his Russian Princess, and caught 
 the fancy of questionable Greek queens, and had amassed 
 such heaps of money, while poor nephew Magnus had only 
 one gold ring (which had been his father's, and even his 
 father's mother's, as Uncle Harald noticed), and nothing more 
 whatever of that precious metal to combine with Harald's 
 treasures : all this is new to me, naturally no hint of it in any 
 English book ; and lends some gleam of romantic splendour 
 to that dim business of Stamford Bridge, now fallen so dull 
 and torpid to most English minds, transcendently important 
 as it once was to all Englishmen. Adam of Bremen says the 
 English got as much gold plunder from Harald's people as 
 was a heavy burden for twelve men ; ' a thing evidently im- 
 possible, which nobody need try to believe. Young Olaf, 
 Harald's son. age about sixteen, steering down the Ouse at 
 the top of his speed, escaped home to Norway with all his 
 ships, and subsequently reigned there with Magnus, his 
 brother. Harald's body did lie in English earth for about a 
 1 Camden, Rapin, &c., quote.
 
 '>4 EARLY tfAVC/.S OF NORWAY. 
 
 year ; but was then brought to Norway for burial. He needed 
 more than seven feet of grave, say some ; Laing, interpreting 
 Snorro's measurements, makes Harald eight feet in stature, 
 I do hope with some error in excess ! 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 OLAF THE TRANQUIL, MAGNUS BAREFOOT, AND SIGURD THE CRUSADER. 
 
 The new King Olaf, his brother Magnus having soon 
 died, bore rule in Norway for some five-and-twenty years. 
 Rule soft and gentle, not like his father's, and inclining rather 
 to improvement in the arts and elegancies than to anything 
 severe or dangerously laborious. A slim-built, witty-talking, 
 popular, and pretty man, with uncommonly bright eyes, and 
 hair like floss silk : they called him Olaf Kyrre (the Tranquil 
 or Easy-going). 
 
 The ceremonials of the palace were much improved by him. 
 Palace still continued to be built of huge logs pyramidally 
 sloping upwards, with fire-place in the middle of the floor, and 
 no egress for smoke or ingress for light except right over- 
 head, which in bad weather you could shut or all but shut, 
 with a lid. Lid originally made of mere opaque board, but 
 changed latterly into a light frame, covered (glazed, so to 
 speak) with entrails of animals, clarified into something of 
 pellucidity. All this Olaf, I hope, further perfected, as he did 
 the placing of the court ladies, court officials, and the like ; 
 but I doubt if the luxury of a glass window were ever known 
 to him, or a cup to drink from that was not made of metal or 
 iron. In fact it is chiefly for his son's sake I mention him 
 here ; and with the sou, too, I have little real concern, but 
 only a kind of fantastic. 
 
 This son bears the name of Magnus Barfod (Barefoot, or 
 Bareleg) ; and if you ask why so, the answer is : He was used 
 to appear in the streets of Nidaros (Troudhjem) now and then 
 in complete Scotch Highland dress, authentic tartan plaid
 
 OLAF THE TRANQUIL AND OTHERS. 95 
 
 and philibeg, at that epoch, to the wonder of Trondhjem and 
 us ! The truth is, he had a mighty fancy for these Hebrides 
 and other Scotch possessions of his ; and seeing England now 
 quite impossible, eagerly speculated on some conquest in Ire- 
 land as next best. He did, in fact, go diligently voyaging 
 and inspecting among those Orkney and Hebridian Isles ; 
 putting everything straight there, appointing stringent author- 
 ities, jarls, nay, a king, 'Kingdom of the Suderoer' (South- 
 ern Isles, now called So'lor], and, as first king, Sigurd, his 
 pretty little boy of nine years. All which done, and some 
 quarrel with Ssveclen fought out, he seriously applied himself 
 to visiting in a still more emphatic manner ; namely, to in- 
 vading, with his best skill and strength, the considerable vir- 
 tual or actual kingdom he had in Ireland, intending fully to 
 enlarge it to the utmost limits of the Island if possible. He 
 got prosperously into Dublin (guess A.D. 1102). Considerable 
 authority he already had, even among those poor Irish kings, 
 or kinglets, in their glibs and yellow saffron gowns ; still 
 more, I suppose, among the numerous Norse Principalities 
 there. ' King Murdog, King of Ireland,' says the Chronicle 
 of Mm, 'had obliged himself, every Yule-day, to take a pair 
 of shoes, hang them over his shoulder, as your servant does 
 on a journey, and walk across his court at bidding and in 
 presence of Magnus Barefoot's messenger, by way of homage 
 to tho said King.' Murdog on this greater occasion did what- 
 ever homage could be required of him ; but that, though 
 comfortable, was far from satisfying the great King's am- 
 bitious mind. The great King left Murdog ; left his own 
 Dublin ; marched off westward on a general conquest of Ire- 
 land. Marched easily victorious for a time ; had got, some 
 say, into the wilds of Couuaught, but there saw himself be- 
 set by ambuscades and wild Irish countenances intent on mis- 
 chief, and had, on the sudden, to draw up for battle ; place, 
 I regret to say, altogether undiscoverable to me ; known 
 only that it was boggy in the extreme. Certain enough, too 
 certain and evident, Magnus Barefoot, searching eagerly, 
 could find no firm footing there ; nor, fighting furiously up 
 to the knees or deeper, any result but honourable death !
 
 96 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY. 
 
 Date is confidently marked ' 24 August, 1103,' as if people 
 knew the very day of the month. The natives did humanely 
 give King Magnus Christian burial. The remnants of his 
 force, without farther molestation, found their ships on the 
 coast of Ulster ; and sailed home, without conquest of Ire- 
 land ; nay, perhaps leaving royal Murdog disposed to be re- 
 lieved of his procession with the pair of shoes. 
 
 Magnus Barefoot left three sons, all kings at once, reigning 
 peaceably together. But to us, at present, the only noteworthy 
 one of them was Sigurd ; who, finding nothing special to do 
 at home, left his brothers to manage for him, and went off on 
 a far Voyage, which has rendered him distinguishable in the 
 crowd. Voyage through the Strait of Gibraltar, on to Jeru- 
 salem, thence to Constantinople ; and so home through Rus- 
 sia, shining with such renown as filled all Norway for the time 
 being. A king called Sigurd Jorsalafarer (Jerusalemer), or 
 Sigurd the Crusader, henceforth. His voyage had been only 
 partially of the Viking type ; in general it was of the Royal- 
 Progress kind rather ; Vikingism only intervening in cases of 
 incivility or the like. His reception in the Courts of Portugal, 
 Spain, Sicily, Italy, had been honourable and sumptuous. The 
 King of Jerusalem broke out into utmost splendour and effu- 
 sion at sight of such a pilgrim ; and Constantinople did its 
 highest honours to such a Prince of Vseringers. And the 
 truth is Sigurd intrinsically was a wise, able, and prudent 
 man ; who, surviving both his brothers, reigned a good while 
 alone in a solid and successful way. He shows features of an 
 original, independent, thinking man ; something of ruggedly 
 strong, sincere, and honest, with peculiarities that are amiable 
 and even pathetic in the character and temperament of him ; 
 as certainly the course of life he took was of his own choosing, 
 and peculiar enough. He happens furthermore to bfc|'w iat 
 he least of all could have chosen or expected, the last of the 
 Haarfagr Genealogy that had any success, or much deserved 
 any, in this world. The last of the Haarfagrs, or as good as 
 the last ! So tfcai singular to say, it is in reality for one
 
 OLAF THE TRANQUIL AND OTHERS. 97 
 
 thing only that Sigurd, after all his crusadings and wonderful 
 adventures, is memorable to us here : the advent of an Irish 
 Gentleman called ' Gylle Krist ' (Gilchrist, Servant of Christ), 
 who, not over welcome, I should think, but (unconsciously) 
 big with the above result, appeared in Norway while King 
 Sigurd was supreme. Let us explain a little. 
 
 This Gylle Krist, the unconsciously fatal individual, who 
 ' spoke Norse imperfectly,' declared himself to be the natural 
 son of whilom Magnus Barefoot ; born to him there while en- 
 gaged in that unfortunate 'Conquest of Ireland.' "Here is 
 my mother come with me," said Gilchrist, " who declares my 
 real baptismal name to have been Harald, given me by that 
 great king ; and who will carry the red-hot ploughshares or 
 do any reasonable ordeal in testimony of these facts. I am 
 King Sigurd's veritable half-brother : what will King Sigurd 
 think it fair to do with me ? " Sigurd clearly seems to have 
 believed the man to be speaking truth ; and, indeed, nobody 
 to have doubted but he was. Sigurd said, "Honourable sus- 
 tenance shalt thou have from me here. But, under pain of 
 extirpation, swear that neither in my time nor in that of my 
 young sou Magnus wilt thou ever claim any share in this 
 Government." Gylle swore ; and punctually kept his promise 
 during Sigurd's reign. But during Magnus's he conspicuously 
 broke it ; and, in result, through many reigns, and during 
 three or four generations afterwards, produced unspeakable 
 contentions, massacrings, confusions in the country he had 
 adopted. There are reckoned, from the time of Sigurd's death 
 (A. D. 1130), about a hundred years of civil war: no king 
 allowed to distinguish himself by a solid reign of well-doing, 
 or by any continuing reign at all, sometimes as many as four 
 kings simultaneously fighting ; and in Norway, from sire to 
 son, nothing but sanguinary anarchy, disastei', and bewilder- 
 iu; a Country sinking steadily as if towards absolute ruin. 
 Of all which frightful misery and discord Irish Gylle, styled 
 afterwards King Harald Gylle, was, by ill destiny and other- 
 wise, the visible origin : an illegitimate Irish Haarfagr who 
 proved to be his own destruction, and that of the Haarfagr 
 
 kindred altogether ! 
 7
 
 98 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY. 
 
 Sigurd himself seems always to have rather favoured Gylle, 
 who was a cheerful, shrewd, patient, witty, and effective fel- 
 low ; and had at first much quizzing to endure, from the 
 younger kind, on account of his Irish way of speaking Norse, 
 and for other reasons. One evening, for example, while the 
 drink was going round, Gylle mentioned that the Irish had a 
 wonderful talent of swift running, and that there were among 
 them people who could keep up with the swiftest horse. At 
 which, especially from young Magnus, there were peals of 
 laughter ; and a declaration from the latter that Gylle and he 
 would have it tried to-morrow morning ! Gylle in vain urged 
 that he had not himself professed to be so swift a runner as 
 to keep up with the Prince's horses ; but only that there were 
 men in Ireland who could. Magnus was positive, and early 
 next morning Gylle had to be on the ground ; and the race, 
 naturally under heavy bet, actually went off. Gylle started 
 parallel to Magnus's stirrup ; ran like a very roe, and was 
 clearly ahead at the goal. "Unfair," said Magnus; " thou 
 must have had hold of my stirrup-leather and helped thyself 
 along ; we must try it again." Gylle ran behind the horse 
 this second time ; then at the end sprang forward, and again 
 was fairly in ahead. " Thou must have held by the tail," said 
 Magnus ; " not by fair running was this possible ; we must 
 try a third time ! " Gylle started ahead of Magnus and his 
 horse this third time ; kept ahead with increasing distance, 
 Magnus galloping his very best ; and reached the goal more 
 palpably foremost than ever. So that Magnus had to pay his 
 bet, and other damage and humiliation. And got from his 
 father, who heard of it soon afterwards, scoffing rebuke as a 
 silly fellow, who did not know the worth of men, but only the 
 clothes and rank of them, and well deserved what he had got 
 from Gylle. All the time King Sigurd lived, Gylle seems to 
 have had good recognition and protection from that famous 
 man ; and, indeed, to have gained favour all round by his 
 quiet social demeanour and the qualities he showed.
 
 MAGNUS THE BLIND AND OTHERS, 99 
 
 CHAPTER Xin. 
 
 MAGNUS THE BLIND, HARALD GYLLE, AND MUTUAL EXTINCTION OF 
 THE HAARFAGRS. 
 
 On Sigurd the Crusader's death, Magnus naturally came to 
 the throne ; Gylle keeping silence and a cheerful face for the 
 time. But it was not long till claim arose on Gylle's part, till 
 war and fight arose between Magnus and him, till the skilful, 
 popular, ever-active, and shifty Gylle had entirely beaten Mag- 
 nus ; put out his eyes ; mutilated the poor body of him in a 
 horrid and uanamable manner, and shut him up in a convent 
 as out of the game henceforth. There in his dark misery 
 Magnus lived now as a monk, called ' Magnus the Blind ' by 
 those Norse populations ; King Harald Gylle reigning vic- 
 toriously in his stead. But this also was only for a time. 
 There arose avenging kinsfolk of Magnus, who had no Irish 
 accent in their Norse, and were themselves eager enough to 
 bear rule in their native country. By one of these, a terribly 
 strong-handed, fighting, violent, and regardless fellow, who 
 also was a Bastard of Magnus Barefoot, and had been made a 
 Priest, but liked it unbearably ill, and had broken loose from 
 it into the wildest courses at home and abroad ; so that his 
 current name got to be ' Slembi-diakn,' Slim or 111 Deacon, 
 under which he is much noised of in Snorro and the Sagas ; 
 by this Slim-Deacon, Gylle was put an end to (murdered by 
 night, drunk, in his sleep) ; and poor blind Magnus was 
 brought out, and again set to act as King, or King's Cloak, in 
 hopes Gylle's posterity would never rise to victory more. But 
 Gylle's posterity did, to victory and also to defeat, and were 
 the death of Magnus and of Slim-Deacon, too, in a frightful 
 way ; and all got their own death by and by in a ditto. In 
 brief, these two kindreds (reckoned to be authentic enough 
 Haarfagr people, both kinds of them) proved now to have be- 
 come a veritable crop of dragon's teeth ; who mutually fought, 
 plotted, struggled, as if it had been their life's business ; 
 never ended fighting, and seldom long intermitted it, till they
 
 1" ;) EARLY KINGS OF NORWA7. 
 
 had exterminated one another, and did at last all rest in death. 
 Oue of these later Gylle temporary kings I remember by the 
 name of Harald Herdebred, Harald with the Broad Shoul- 
 ders. The very last of them I think was Harald Mund 
 (Harald with the Wry-Mouth), who gave rise to two Impostors, 
 pretending to be Sons of his, a good while after the poor 
 Wry-Mouth itself and all its troublesome belongings were 
 quietly underground. What Norway suffered during that sad 
 century may be imagined. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 SVEERIR AND DESCENDANTS, TO HAKON THE OLD. 
 
 The end of it was, or rather the first abatement and begin- 
 ning of the end, That, when all this had gone on ever 
 worsening for some forty years or so, one Sverrir (A.D. 1177), 
 at the head of an armed mob of poor people called Birkebeins, 
 came upon the scene. A strange enough figure in History, 
 this Sverrir and his Birkebeins ! At first a mere mockery and 
 dismal laughing-stock to the enlightened Norway public. 
 Nevertheless, by unheard of fighting, hungering, exertion, and 
 endurance, Sverrir, after ten years of such a death-wrestle 
 against men and things, got himself accepted as King ; and 
 by wonderful expenditure of ingenuity, common cunning, 
 unctuous Parliamentary Eloquence or almost Popular Preach- 
 ing, and (it must be owned) general human faculty and 
 valour (or value) in the overclouded and distorted state, did 
 victoriously continue such. And founded a New Dynasty in 
 Norway, which ended only with Norway's separate existence, 
 after near three hundred years. 
 
 This Sverrir called himself a Son of Harald Wry-Mouth ; 
 but was in reality the son of a poor Comb-maker in some 
 little town of Norway ; nothing heard of Sonship to Wry- 
 Mouth till after good success otherwise. His Birkebeins 
 (that is to say, Birchlegs ; the poor rebellious wretches having 
 taken to the woods ; and been obliged, besides their intoler- 
 able scarcity of food, to thatch their bodies from the cold
 
 8VERRIR AND DESCENDANTS, TO HAKON THE OLD. 101 
 
 \vith whatever covering could be got, and their legs especially 
 with birch bark, sad species of fleecy hosiery, whence 
 their nickname), his Birkebeins I guess always to have been 
 a kind of Norse Jacquerie : desperate rising of thralls and in- 
 digent people, driven mad by their unendurable sufferings 
 and famishings, theirs the deepest stratum of misery, and 
 the densest and heaviest, in this the general misery of Norway, 
 which had lasted towards the third generation, and looked 
 as if it would last forever : whereupon they had risen pro- 
 claiming, in this furious dumb manner, unintelligible except 
 to Heaven, that the same could not, nor would not be endured 
 any longer ! And by their Sverrir, strange to say, they did 
 attain a kind of permanent success ; and, from being a dis- 
 mal laughing-stock in Norway, came to be important, and for 
 a time all-important there. Their opposition nicknames, 
 ' Baglers ' (from Kigali, bandits, bishop's staff ; Bishop Nicholas 
 being chief Leader), ' Gold-legs,' and the like obscure terms 
 (for there was still a considerable course of counter-fighting 
 ahead, and especially of counter-nicknaming), I take to have 
 meant in Norse prefigurement seven centuries ago, ' bloated 
 Aristocracy,' 'tyrannous Bourgeoisie,' till in the next century 
 these rents were got closed again ! 
 
 King Sverrir, not himself bred to comb-making, had in his 
 fifth year gone to an uncle, Bishop in the Faroe Islands : and 
 got some considerable education from him, with a view to 
 Priesthood on the part of Sverrir. But, not liking that 
 career, Sverrir had fled and smuggled himself over to the 
 Birkebeins, who, noticing the, learned tongue, and other mi- 
 raculous qualities of the man, proposed to make him Cap- 
 tain of them ; and even threatened to kill him if he would 
 not accept, which thus at the sword's point, as Sverrir says, 
 he was obliged to do. It was after this that he thought of 
 becoming son of "Wry-Motith and other higher things. 
 
 His Birkebeins and he had certainly a talent of campaign- 
 ing which has hardly ever been equalled. They fought like 
 devils against any odds of number ; and before battle they 
 have b.een known to inarch six days together without food, 
 except, perhaps, the inner bark of trees, and in such clothing
 
 102 EARL Y KINGS OF NORWAY. 
 
 and shoeing as mere birch bark : at one time, somewhere in 
 the Dovrefjeld, there was serious counsel held among them 
 whether they should not all, as one man, leap down into the 
 frozen gulfs and precipices, or at once massacre one another 
 wholly, and so finish. Of their conduct in battle, fiercer than 
 that of Baresarks, where was there ever seen the parallel? 
 In truth they are a dim, strange object to one in that black 
 time ; wondrously bringing light into it withal ; and proved 
 to be, under such unexpected circumstances, the beginning of 
 better days ! 
 
 Of Sverrir's public speeches there still exist authentic speci- 
 mens ; wonderful indeed, and much characteristic of such a 
 Sverrir. A comb-maker King, evidently meaning several 
 good and solid things, and effecting them too, athwart such 
 an element of Norwegian chaos-come-agaiu. His descend- 
 ants and successors were a comparatively respectable kin. 
 The last and greatest of them I shall mention is Hakon VIE., 
 or Hakon the Old ; whose fame is still lively among us, from 
 the Battle of Largs, at least. 
 
 CHAPTEE XV. 
 
 HAKON THE OLD AT LAKGS. 
 
 In the Norse annals our famous Battle of Largs makes 
 small figure, or almost none at all, among Hakon's battles and 
 feats. They do say indeed, these Norse annalists, that the 
 King of Scotland, Alexander HI. (who had such a fate among 
 the crags about Kinghorn in time coming), was very anxious 
 to purchase from King Hakon his sovereignty of the Western 
 Isles ; but that Hakon pointedly refused ; and at length, be- 
 ing again importuned and bothered on the business, decided 
 on giving a refusal that could not be mistaken. Decided, 
 namely, to go with a big expedition, and look thoroughly 
 into that wing of his Dominions ; where no doubt much has 
 fallen awry since Magnus Barefoot's grand visit thither, and 
 seems to be inviting the cupidity of bad neighbors! "All 
 this we will put right again," thinks Hakon, " and gird it up
 
 EAKON THE OLD -AT LARGS. 103 
 
 into a safe and defensive posture," Hakon sailed accord- 
 ingly, with a strong fleet ; adjusting and rectifying among his 
 Hebrides as he went along, and landing withal on the Scotch 
 coast to plunder and punish as he thought fit The Scots 
 say he had claimed of them Arran, Bute, and the Two Cum- 
 braes (" given my ancestors by Donald Bain," said Hakon, 
 to the amazement of the Scots) "as parts of the SudOer" 
 (Southern Isles) : so far from selling that fine kingdom ! 
 and that it was after taking both Arran and Bute that he 
 made his descent at Largs. 
 
 Of Largs there is no mention whatever in Norse books. 
 But beyond any doubt, such is the other evidence, Hakon 
 did land there ; land and fight, not conquering, probably 
 rather beaten ; and very certainly ' retiring to his ships,' as 
 in either case he behooved to do ! It is further certain he 
 was dreadfully maltreated by the weather on those wild 
 coasts ; and altogether credible, as the Scoteh records bear, 
 that he was so at Largs very specially. The Norse Records 
 or S:igas say merely he lost many of his ships by the tem- 
 pests, and many of his men by land fighting in various parts, 
 tacitly including Largs, no doubt, which was the last of 
 these misfortunes to him. 'In the battle here he lost 15,000 
 men, say the Scots, we 5,000 ! ' Divide these numbers by 
 ten, and the excellently brief and lucid Scottish summary by 
 Buchanan may be taken as the approximately true and exact. 1 
 Date of the battle is A.D. 1263. 
 
 To this day, on a little plain to the south of the village, 
 now town, of Largs, in Ayrshire, there are seen stone cairns 
 and monumental heaps, and, until within a century ago, one 
 huge, solitary, upright stone ; still mutely testifying to a bat- 
 tle there altogether clearly to this battle of King Hakon's ; 
 who by the Norse records, too, was in these neighborhoods at 
 that same date, and evidently in an aggressive, high kind of 
 humour. For ' while his ships and army were doubling the 
 Mull of Cantire, he had his own boat set on wheels, and 
 therein, splendidly enough, had himself drawn across the 
 Promontory at a flatter part,' no doubt with horns sound- 
 1 Bu-cliMimni Hist., i. 130.
 
 104 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY. 
 
 ing, banners waving. " All to the left of me is mine and Nor- 
 way's," exclaimed Hakon in bis triumphant boat progress, 
 which such disasters soon followed. 
 
 Hakon gathered his wrecks together, and sorrowfully made 
 for Orkney. It is possible enough, as our Guide-Books now 
 say, he may have gone by lona, Mull, and the narrow seas in- 
 side of Skye ; and that the Kyle Akin, favourably known to 
 sea-bathers in that region, may actually mean the Kyle (nar- 
 row strait) of Hakon, where Hakon may have dropped 
 anchor, and rested for a little while in smooth water and 
 beautiful environment, safe from equinoctial storms. But 
 poor Hakon's heart was now broken. He went to Orkney ; 
 died there in the winter ; never beholding Norway more. 
 
 He it was who got Iceland, which had been a Republic for 
 four centuries, united to his kingdom of Norway : a long and 
 intricate operation, much presided over by our Snorro Stur- 
 leson, so often quoted here, who indeed lost his life (by as- 
 sassination from his sons-in-law), and out of great wealth 
 sank at once into poverty of zero, one midnight in his own 
 cellar, in the course of that bad business. Hakon was a great 
 Politician in his time ; and succeeded in many things before 
 he lost Largs. SnoiTo's death by murder had happened about 
 twenty years before Hakon's by broken heart. He is called 
 Hakon the Old, though one finds his age was but fifty-nine, 
 probably a loiigish life for a Norway king. Suorro's narrative 
 ceases when Snon-o himself was born ; that is to say, at the 
 threshold of King Sverrir ; of whose exploits and doubtful 
 birth it is guessed by some that Snorro willingly forbore to 
 speak in the hearing of such a Hakon. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 EPILOGUE. 
 
 Haarfagr's kindred lasted some three centuries in Norway ; 
 Sverrir ; s lasted into its third century there ; how long after 
 this, among the neighbouring kingships, I did not inquire. 
 For, by regal affinities, consanguinities, and unexpected 
 chances and changes, the three Scandinavia '.-in-H/ims fell
 
 EPILOGUE. 105 
 
 all peaceably together under Queen Margaret, of the Calmar 
 Union (A.D. 1397) ; and Norway, incorporated now with Den- 
 mark, needed no more kings. 
 
 The History of these Haarfagrs has awakened in me many 
 thoughts of Despotism and Democracy, arbitrary government 
 by one, and self-government (which means no government, or 
 anarchy) by all ; of Dictatorship with many faults, and Uni- 
 versal Suffrage with little possibility of any virtue. For the 
 contrast between Olaf Tryggveson and a Universal-Suffrage 
 Parliament or an 'Imperial' Copper Captain has, in these 
 nine centuries, grown to be very great. And the eternal 
 Providence that guides all this, and produces alike these en- 
 tities with their epochs, is not its course still through the 
 great deep ? Does not it still speak to us, if we have ears ? 
 Here, clothed in stormy enough passions and instincts, un- 
 conscious of any aim but their own satisfaction, is the blessed 
 beginning of Human Order, Regulation, and real Govern- 
 ment ; there, clothed in a highly different, but again suitable 
 garniture of passions, instincts, and equally unconscious as 
 to real aim, is the accursed-looking ending (temporary end- 
 ing) of Order, Regulation, and Government ; very dismal to 
 the sane onlooker for the time being ; not dismal to him 
 otherwise, his hope, too, being steadfast ! But. here, at any 
 rate, in this poor Norse theatre, one looks with interest on 
 the first transformation, so mysterious and abstruse, of human 
 Chaos into something of articulate Cosmos ; witnesses the 
 wild and strange birth-pangs of Human Society, and reflects 
 that without something similar (little as men expect such 
 now) no Cosmos of human society ever was got into exist- 
 ence, nor can ever again be. 
 
 The violences, fightings, crimes ah yes, these seldom fail, 
 and they are very lamentable. But always, too, among those 
 old populations there was one saving element ; the now want 
 of which, especially the unlamented want, transcends all lam- 
 entation. Here is one of these strange, piercing, winged- 
 words of Ruskiu, which has in it a terrible truth for us in 
 these epochs now come : 
 
 ' My friends, the follies of modern Liberalism, many and
 
 106 EARLY SINGS OF NORWAY. 
 
 ' great though they be, are practically summed in this denial 
 ' or neglect of the quality and intrinsic value of things. Its 
 1 rectangular beatitudes and spherical benevolences, the- 
 ' ology of universal indulgence, and jurisprudence which will 
 ' hang no rogues, mean, one and all of them, in the root, in- 
 1 capacity of discerning, or refusal to discern, worth and uu- 
 ' worth in anything, and least of all in man ; whereas Nature 
 ' and Heaven command you, at your peril, to discern worth 
 ' from unworth in everything, and most of all in man. Your 
 'main problem is that ancient and trite one, "Who is best 
 ' man ? " and the Fates forgive much, forgive the wildest, 
 ' fiercest, cruellest experiments, if fairly made for the deter- 
 ' mination of that. Theft and blood-guiltiness are not pleas- 
 ' ing in their sight ; yet the favouring powers of the spiritual 
 ' and material world will confirm to you your stolen goods, 
 ' and their noblest voices applaud the lifting of your spear, 
 ' and rehearse the sculpture of your shield, if only your rob- 
 ' bing and slaying have been in fair arbitrament of that ques- 
 'tion, "Who is best man?" But if you refuse such inquiry, 
 ' and maintain every man for his neighbour's match, if you 
 ' give vote to the simple and liberty to the vile, the powers of 
 ' those spiritual and material worlds in due time present you 
 ' inevitably with the same problem, soluble now only wrong 
 ' side upwards ; and your robbing and slaying must be done 
 ' then to find out, " Who is worst man ? " Which, in so wide 
 ' an order of merit, is, indeed, not easy ; but a complete 
 ( Tammany Ring, and lowest circle in the Inferno of Worst, 
 'you are sure to find and to be governed by.' ' 
 
 All readers will admit that there was something naturally 
 royal in these Haarfagr Kings. A wildly great kind of kin- 
 dred ; counts in it two Heroes of a high, or almost highest 
 type : the first two Olafs, Tryggveson and the Saint. And 
 the view of them, withal, as we chance to have it, I have often 
 thought, how essentially Homeric it was : indeed, what is 
 ' Homer ' himself but the Rhapsody of five centuries of Greek 
 Skalds and wandering Ballad-singers, done (i.e. 'stitched to- 
 1 Fora Clarigera, Letter XIV. pp. 8-10.
 
 EPILOGUE. 107 
 
 getber ') by somebody more musical than Snorro was ? Olaf 
 Tryggveson and Olaf Saint please me quite as well in their 
 prosaic form ; offering me the truth of them as if seen in their 
 real lineaments by some marvellous opening (through the art 
 of Snorro) across the black strata of the ages. Two high, 
 almost among the highest sons of Nature, seen as they verit- 
 ably were ; fairly comparable or superior to god-like Achilleus, 
 goddess-wounding Diomedes, much more to the two Atreidai, 
 Regulators of the Peoples. 
 
 I have also thought often what a Book might be made of 
 Snorro, did there but arise a man furnished with due literary 
 insight and indefatigable diligence ; who, faithfully acquaint- 
 ing himself with the topography, the monumental relics and 
 illustrative actualities of Norway, carefully scanning the best 
 testimonies as to place and time which that country can still 
 give him, carefully the best collateral records and chronolo- 
 gies of other countries, and who, himself possessing the high- 
 est faculty of a Poet, could, abridging, arranging, elucidating, 
 reduce Suorro to a polished Cosmic state, unweariedly purg- 
 ing away his much chaotic matter ! A modern ' highest kind 
 of Poet,' capable of unlimited slavish labour withal ; who, I 
 fear, is not soon to be expected in this world, or likely to find 
 his task in the Heimskringla if he did appear here.
 
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