EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY -

EARLY KINGS OFNORWAY

Thomas Carlyle

This public-domain text was scanned andproofed by Ron Burkey. It was subsequentlyconverted to LATEX using GutenMark soft-ware, and re-edited with lyx software. Re-port problems to [email protected]. Revi-sion B differs from the prior revision in that“–” is everywhere replaced with “—” and theformatting of the book has been made consis-tent with Carlyle’s Heroes and Hero Worship.

Revision BDate: 01/29/2008

Contents

CHAPTER I. Harald Haarfagr. 1

CHAPTER II. Eric Blood-axe and Brothers 9

CHAPTER III. Hakon the Good 13

CHAPTER IV. Harald Greyfell and Brothers 25

CHAPTER V. Hakon Jarl. 31

CHAPTER VI. Olaf Tryggveson. 41

CHAPTER VII. Reign of Olaf Tryggveson 49

CHAPTER VIII. Jarls Eric and Svein 75

CHAPTER IX. King Olaf the Thick-set’s VikingDays 83

CHAPTER X. Reign of King Olaf the Saint 95

CHAPTER XI. Magnus the Good and Others 131

CHAPTER XII. Olaf the Tranquil, MagnusBarefoot, and Sigurd the Crusader 149

CHAPTER XIII. Magnus the Blind, HaraldGylle, and Mutual Extinction of the Haarfa-grs 157

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CHAPTER XIV. Sverrir and Descendants, toHakon the Old 161

CHAPTER XV. Hakon the Old at Largs 165

CHAPTER XVI. Epilogue 169

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The Icelanders, in their long winter, hada great habit of writing; and were, and stillare, excellent in penmanship, says Dahlmann.It is to this fact, that any little history thereis of the Norse Kings and their old tragedies,crimes and heroisms, is almost all due. TheIcelanders, it seems, not only made beautifulletters on their paper or parchment, but werelaudably observant and desirous of accuracy;and have left us such a collection of narra-tives (Sagas, literally “Says”) as, for quantityand quality, is unexampled among rude na-tions. Snorro Sturleson’s History of the NorseKings is built out of these old Sagas; and hasin it a great deal of poetic fire, not a littlefaithful sagacity applied in sifting and adjust-ing these old Sagas; and, in a word, deserves,were it once well edited, furnished with accu-rate maps, chronological summaries, &c., tobe reckoned among the great history-books ofthe world. It is from these sources, greatlyaided by accurate, learned and unweariedDahlmann,1 the German Professor, that thefollowing rough notes of the early NorwayKings are hastily thrown together. In His-tories of England (Rapin’s excepted) next tonothing has been shown of the many andstrong threads of connection between Englishaffairs and Norse.

1J. G. Dahlmann, Geschichte von Dannemark, 3 vols.8vo. Hamburg, 1840-1843.

CHAPTER I.Harald Haarfagr.

Till about the Year of Grace 860 there wereno kings in Norway, nothing but numer-ous jarls,—essentially kinglets, each presid-ing over a kind of republican or parliamen-tary little territory; generally striving eachto be on some terms of human neighbor-hood with those about him, but,—in spite of“Fylke Things” (Folk Things, little parish par-liaments), and small combinations of these,which had gradually formed themselves,—often reduced to the unhappy state of quar-rel with them. Harald Haarfagr was the firstto put an end to this state of things, and be-come memorable and profitable to his coun-try by uniting it under one head and mak-ing a kingdom of it; which it has continuedto be ever since. His father, Halfdan theBlack, had already begun this rough but salu-tary process,—inspired by the cupidities andinstincts, by the faculties and opportunities,which the good genius of this world, benef-

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2 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY

icent often enough under savage forms, anddiligent at all times to diminish anarchy asthe world’s worst savagery, usually appointsin such cases,—conquest, hard fighting, fol-lowed by wise guidance of the conquered;—but it was Harald the Fairhaired, his son, whoconspicuously carried it on and completed it.Harald’s birth-year, death-year, and chronol-ogy in general, are known only by inferenceand computation; but, by the latest reckoning,he died about the year 933 of our era, a manof eighty-three.

The business of conquest lasted Haraldabout twelve years (A.D. 860-872?), in whichhe subdued also the vikings of the out-islands, Orkneys, Shetlands, Hebrides, andMan. Sixty more years were given him to con-solidate and regulate what he had conquered,which he did with great judgment, industryand success. His reign altogether is countedto have been of over seventy years.

The beginning of his great adventure wasof a romantic character.—youthful love for thebeautiful Gyda, a then glorious and famousyoung lady of those regions, whom the youngHarald aspired to marry. Gyda answered hisembassy and prayer in a distant, lofty man-ner: “Her it would not beseem to wed anyJarl or poor creature of that kind; let him doas Gorm of Denmark, Eric of Sweden, Egbertof England, and others had done,—subdueinto peace and regulation the confused, con-

CHAPTER I 3

tentious bits of jarls round him, and becomea king; then, perhaps, she might think of hisproposal: till then, not.” Harald was struckwith this proud answer, which rendered Gydatenfold more desirable to him. He vowed tolet his hair grow, never to cut or even to combit till this feat were done, and the peerlessGyda his own. He proceeded accordingly toconquer, in fierce battle, a Jarl or two ev-ery year, and, at the end of twelve years,had his unkempt (and almost unimaginable)head of hair clipt off,—Jarl Rognwald (Regi-nald) of More, the most valued and valuableof all his subject-jarls, being promoted to thissublime barber function;—after which KingHarald, with head thoroughly cleaned, andhair grown, or growing again to the luxuriantbeauty that had no equal in his day, broughthome his Gyda, and made her the brightestqueen in all the north. He had after her, insuccession, or perhaps even simultaneously insome cases, at least six other wives; and byGyda 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 tumultuous ambitionof his sons; but he managed his government,aided by Jarl Rognwald and others, in a large,quietly potent, and successful manner; and itlasted in this royal form till his death, aftersixty years of it.

These were the times of Norse coloniza-


tion; proud Norsemen flying into other lands,to freer scenes,—to Iceland, to the Faroe Is-lands, which were hitherto quite vacant (ten-anted only by some mournful hermit, IrishChristian fakir, or so); still more copiously tothe Orkney and Shetland Isles, the Hebridesand other countries where Norse squattersand settlers already were. Settlement of Ice-land, we say; settlement of the Faroe Islands,and, by far the notablest of all, settlement ofNormandy by Rolf the Ganger (A.D. 876?).2

Rolf, son of Rognwald,3 was lord of threelittle islets far north, near the Fjord of Folden,called the Three Vigten Islands; but his chiefmeans of living was that of sea robbery;which, or at least Rolf ’s conduct in which,Harald did not approve of. In the Courtof Harald, sea-robbery was strictly forbiddenas between Harald’s own countries, but asagainst foreign countries it continued to bethe one profession for a gentleman; thus, Iread, Harald’s own chief son, King Eric thatafterwards was, had been at sea in such em-ployments ever since his twelfth year. Rolf ’scrime, however, was that in coming homefrom one of these expeditions, his crew hav-ing fallen short of victual, Rolf landed with

2“Settlement,” dated 912, by Munch, Henault, &c.The Saxon Chronicle says (anno 876): “In this year Rolfoverran Normandy with his army, and he reigned fiftywinters.”

3Dahlmann, ii. 87.

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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 lit-tle while, he heard that King Harald was onfoot to inquire into and punish; whereuponRolf the Ganger speedily got into his shipsagain, got to the coast of France with his sea-robbers, got infeftment by the poor King ofFrance in the fruitful, shaggy desert which issince called Normandy, land of the Northmen;and there, gradually felling the forests, bank-ing the rivers, tilling the fields, became, dur-ing the next two centuries, Wilhelmus Con-quaestor, the man famous to England, andmomentous at this day, not to England alone,but to all speakers of the English tongue, nowspread from side to side of the world in awonderful degree. Tancred of Hauteville andhis Italian Normans, though important too,in Italy, are not worth naming in compari-son. This is a feracious earth, and the grain ofmustard-seed will grow to miraculous extentin some cases.

Harald’s chief helper, counsellor, and lieu-tenant was the above-mentioned Jarl Rogn-wald of More, who had the honor to cut Har-ald’s dreadful head of hair. This Rognwaldwas father of Turf-Einar, who first inventedpeat in the Orkneys, finding the wood allgone there; and is remembered to this day.Einar, being come to these islands by KingHarald’s permission, to see what he could do


in them,—islands inhabited by what miscel-lany of Picts, Scots, Norse squatters we donot know,—found the indispensable fuel allwasted. Turf-Einar too may be regarded asa benefactor to his kind. He was, it appears, abastard; and got no coddling from his father,who disliked him, partly perhaps, because “hewas ugly and blind of an eye,"—got no flatter-ing even on his conquest of the Orkneys andinvention of peat. Here is the parting speechhis father made to him on fitting him out witha “long-ship” (ship of war, “dragon-ship,” an-cient seventy-four), and sending him forth tomake a living for himself in the world: “Itwere best if thou never camest back, for I havesmall hope that thy people will have honor bythee; thy mother’s kin throughout is slavish.”

Harald Haarfagr had a good many sonsand daughters; the daughters he marriedmostly to jarls of due merit who were loyalto him; with the sons, as remarked above,he had a great deal of trouble. They wereambitious, stirring fellows, and grudged attheir finding so little promotion from a fa-ther so kind to his jarls; sea-robbery by nomeans an adequate career for the sons ofa great king, two of them, Halfdan Haaleg(Long-leg), and Gudrod Ljome (Gleam), jeal-ous of the favors won by the great Jarl Rogn-wald. surrounded him in his house one night,and burnt him and sixty men to death there.That was the end of Rognwald, the invalu-

CHAPTER I 7

able jarl, always true to Haarfagr; and dis-tinguished in world history by producing Rolfthe Ganger, author of the Norman Conquest ofEngland, and Turf-Einar, who invented peatin the Orkneys. Whether Rolf had left Norwayat this time there is no chronology to tell me.As to Rolf ’s surname, “Ganger,” there are var-ious hypotheses; the likeliest, perhaps, thatRolf was so weighty a man no horse (smallNorwegian horses, big ponies rather) couldcarry him, and that he usually walked, hav-ing a mighty stride withal, and great velocityon foot.

One of these murderers of Jarl Rognwaldquietly set himself in Rognwald’s place, theother making for Orkney to serve Turf-Einarin like fashion. Turf-Einar, taken by surprise,fled to the mainland; but returned, days orperhaps weeks after, ready for battle, foughtwith Halfdan, put his party to flight, and atnext morning’s light searched the island andslew all the men he found. As to HalfdanLong-leg himself, in fierce memory of his ownmurdered father, Turf-Einar “cut an eagle onhis back,” that is to say, hewed the ribs fromeach side of the spine and turned them outlike the wings of a spread-eagle: a mode ofNorse vengeance fashionable at that time inextremely aggravated cases!

Harald Haarfagr, in the mean time, haddescended upon the Rognwald scene, notin mild mood towards the new jarl there;


indignantly dismissed said jarl, and ap-pointed a brother of Rognwald (brother, notesDahlmann), though Rognwald had left othersons. Which done, Haarfagr sailed with allspeed to the Orkneys, there to avenge thatcutting of an eagle on the human back onTurf-Einar’s part. Turf-Einar did not resist;submissively met the angry Haarfagr, said heleft it all, what had been done, what provo-cation there had been, to Haarfagr’s own eq-uity and greatness of mind. MagnanimousHaarfagr inflicted a fine of sixty marks ingold, which was paid in ready money by Turf-Einar, and so the matter ended.

CHAPTER II. EricBlood-axe andBrothers.

In such violent courses Haarfagr’s sons, Iknow not how many of them, had come toan untimely end; only Eric, the accomplishedsea-rover, and three others remained to him.Among these four sons, rather impatient forproperty and authority of their own, KingHarald, in his old days, tried to part his king-dom in some eligible and equitable way, andretire from the constant press of business,now becoming burdensome to him. To eachof them he gave a kind of kingdom; Eric,his eldest son, to be head king, and the oth-ers to be feudatory under him, and pay acertain yearly contribution; an arrangementwhich did not answer well at all. Head-KingEric insisted on his tribute; quarrels aroseas to the payment, considerable fighting anddisturbance, bringing fierce destruction fromKing Eric upon many valiant but too stub-

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born Norse spirits, and among the rest uponall his three brothers, which got him fromthe Norse populations the surname of Blod-axe, “Eric Blood-axe,” his title in history. Oneof his brothers he had killed in battle beforehis old father’s life ended; this brother wasBjorn, a peaceable, improving, trading eco-nomic Under-king, whom the others mock-ingly called “Bjorn the Chapman.” The great-grandson of this Bjorn became extremely dis-tinguished by and by as Saint Olaf. Head-King Eric seems to have had a violent wife,too. She was thought to have poisoned one ofher other brothers-in-law. Eric Blood-axe hadby no means a gentle life of it in this world,trained to sea-robbery on the coasts of Eng-land, Scotland, Ireland and France, since histwelfth year.

Old King Fairhair, at the age of seventy,had another son, to whom was given the nameof Hakon. His mother was a slave in Fairhair’shouse; slave by ill-luck of war, though noblyenough born. A strange adventure connectsthis Hakon with England and King Athel-stan, who was then entering upon his greatcareer there. Short while after this Hakoncame into the world, there entered Fairhair’spalace, one evening as Fairhair sat Feasting,an English ambassador or messenger, bear-ing in his hand, as gift from King Athel-stan, a magnificent sword, with gold hilt andother fine trimmings, to the great Harald,

CHAPTER II 11

King of Norway. Harald took the sword, drewit, or was half drawing it, admiringly fromthe scabbard, when the English excellencybroke into a scornful laugh, “Ha, ha; thouart now the feudatory of my English king;thou hast accepted the sword from him, andart now his man!” (acceptance of a swordin that manner being the symbol of investi-ture in those days.) Harald looked a tri-fle flurried, it is probable; but held in hiswrath, and did no damage to the tricksy En-glishman. He kept the matter in his mind,however, and next summer little Hakon, hav-ing got his weaning done,—one of the pretti-est, healthiest little creatures,—Harald senthim off, under charge of “Hauk” (Hawk socalled), one of his Principal, warriors, with or-der, “Take him to England,” and instructionswhat to do with him there. And accordingly,one evening, Hauk, with thirty men escorting,strode into Athelstan’s high dwelling (wheresituated, how built, whether with logs likeHarald’s, I cannot specifically say), into Athel-stan’s high presence, and silently set the wildlittle cherub upon Athelstan’s knee. “Whatis this?” asked Athelstan, looking at the lit-tle cherub. “This is King Harald’s son, whoma serving-maid bore to him, and whom henow gives thee as foster-child!” IndignantAthelstan drew his sword, as if to do thegift a mischief; but Hauk said, “Thou hasttaken him on thy knee [common symbol of


adoption]; thou canst kill him if thou wilt;but thou dost not thereby kill all the sons ofHarald.” Athelstan straightway took milderthoughts; brought up, and carefully educatedHakon; from whom, and this singular adven-ture, came, before very long, the first tidingsof Christianity into Norway.

Harald Haarfagr, latterly withdrawn fromall kinds of business, died at the age of eighty-three—about A.D. 933, as is computed; nearlycontemporary in death with the first DanishKing, Gorm the Old, who had done a cor-responding feat in reducing Denmark underone head. Remarkable old men, these twofirst kings; and possessed of gifts for bring-ing Chaos a little nearer to the form of Cos-mos; possessed, in fact, of loyalties to Cosmos,that is to say, of authentic virtues in the sav-age state, such as have been needed in all so-cieties at their incipience in this world; a kindof “virtues” hugely in discredit at present, butnot unlikely to be needed again, to the aston-ishment of careless persons, before all is done!

CHAPTER III.Hakon the Good.

Eric Blood-axe, whose practical reign iscounted to have begun about A.D. 930, hadby this time, or within a year or so of thistime, pretty much extinguished all his brotherkings, and crushed down recalcitrant spirits,in his violent way; but had naturally becomeentirely unpopular in Norway, and filled itwith silent discontent and even rage againsthim. Hakon Fairhair’s last son, the littlefoster-child of Athelstan in England, who hadbeen baptized and carefully educated, wascome to his fourteenth or fifteenth year athis father’s death; a very shining youth, asAthelstan saw with just pleasure. So soonas the few preliminary preparations had beensettled, Hakon, furnished with a ship or twoby Athelstan, suddenly appeared in Norwaygot acknowledged by the Peasant Thing inTrondhjem “the news of which flew over Nor-way, like fire through dried grass,” says anold chronicler. So that Eric, with his Queen

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Gunhild, and seven small children, had torun; no other shift for Eric. They went to theOrkneys first of all, then to England, and he“got Northumberland as earldom,” I vaguelyhear, from Athelstan. But Eric soon died, andhis queen, with her children, went back to theOrkneys in search of refuge or help; to lit-tle purpose there or elsewhere. From Orkneyshe went to Denmark, where Harald Blue-tooth took her poor eldest boy as foster-child;but I fear did not very faithfully keep thatpromise. The Danes had been robbing exten-sively during the late tumults in Norway; thisthe Christian Hakon, now established there,paid in kind, and the two countries were atwar; so that Gunhild’s little boy was a wel-come card in the hand of Blue-tooth.

Hakon proved a brilliant and success-ful king; regulated many things, public lawamong others (Gule-Thing Law, Frost-ThingLaw: these are little codes of his acceptedby their respective Things, and had a salu-tary effect in their time); with prompt dex-terity he drove back the Blue-tooth foster-soninvasions every time they came; and on thewhole gained for himself the name of Hakonthe Good. These Danish invasions were a fre-quent source of trouble to him, but his great-est and continual trouble was that of extirpat-ing heathen idolatry from Norway, and intro-ducing the Christian Evangel in its stead. Histranscendent anxiety to achieve this salutary

CHAPTER III 15

enterprise was all along his grand difficultyand stumbling-block; the heathen oppositionto it being also rooted and great. Bishops andpriests from England Hakon had, preachingand baptizing what they could, but makingonly slow progress; much too slow for Hakon’szeal. On the other hand, every Yule-tide,when the chief heathen were assembled in hisown palace on their grand sacrificial festival,there was great pressure put upon Hakon, asto sprinkling with horse-blood, drinking Yule-beer, eating horse-flesh, and the other dis-tressing rites; the whole of which Hakon ab-horred, and with all his steadfastness stroveto reject utterly. Sigurd, Jarl of Lade (Trond-hjem), a liberal heathen, not openly a Chris-tian, was ever a wise counsellor and concilia-tor in such affairs; and proved of great helpto Hakon. Once, for example, there havingrisen at a Yule-feast, loud, almost stormfuldemand that Hakon, like a true man andbrother, should drink Yule-beer with them intheir sacred hightide, Sigurd persuaded himto comply, for peace’s sake, at least, in form.Hakon took the cup in his left hand (excellenthot beer), and with his right cut the sign ofthe 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?” answeredshifty Sigurd; “he makes the sign of Thor’shammer before drinking!” which quenchedthe matter for the time.


Horse-flesh, horse-broth, and the horse in-gredient generally, Hakon all but inexorablydeclined. By Sigurd’s pressing exhortationand entreaty, he did once take a kettle ofhorsebroth by the handle, with a good deal oflinen-quilt or towel interposed, and did openhis lips for what of steam could insinuate it-self. At another time he consented to a parti-cle of horse-liver, intending privately, I guess,to keep it outside the gullet, and smuggle itaway without swallowing; but farther thanthis not even Sigurd could persuade him togo. At the Things held in regard to this mat-ter Hakon’s success was always incomplete;now and then it was plain failure, and Hakonhad to draw back till a better time. Here isone specimen of the response he got on suchan occasion; curious specimen, withal, of an-tique parliamentary eloquence from an Anti-Christian Thing.

At a Thing of all the Fylkes of Trondhjem,Thing held at Froste in that region, KingHakon, with all the eloquence he had, signi-fied that it was imperatively necessary thatall Bonders and sub-Bonders should becomeChristians, and believe in one God, Christ theSon of Mary; renouncing entirely blood sac-rifices and heathen idols; should keep everyseventh day holy, abstain from labor that day,and even from food, devoting the day to fast-ing and sacred meditation. Whereupon, byway of universal answer, arose a confused uni-

CHAPTER III 17

versal murmur of entire dissent. “Take awayfrom us our old belief, and also our time forlabor!” murmured they in angry astonish-ment; “how can even the land be got tilled inthat way?” “We cannot work if we don’t getfood,” said the hand laborers and slaves. “Itlies in King Hakon’s blood,” remarked others;“his father and all his kindred were apt to bestingy about food, though liberal enough withmoney.” At length, one Osbjorn (or Bear ofthe Asen or Gods, what we now call Osborne),one Osbjorn of Medalhusin Gulathal, steptforward, and said, in a distinct manner, “WeBonders (peasant proprietors)thought, KingHakon, when thou heldest thy first Thing-day here in Trondhjem, and we took thee forour king, and received our hereditary landsfrom thee again that we had got heaven itself.But now we know not how it is, whether wehave won freedom, or whether thou intendestanew to make us slaves, with this wonderfulproposal that we should renounce our faith,which our fathers before us have held, and allour ancestors as well, first in the age of burialby burning, and now in that of earth burial;and yet these departed ones were much oursuperiors, and their faith, too, has broughtprosperity to us. Thee, at the same time, wehave loved so much that we raised thee tomanage all the laws of the land, and speakas their voice to us all. And even now it isour will and the vote of all Bonders to keep


that paction which thou gavest us here on theThing at Froste, and to maintain thee as kingso long as any of us Bonders who are hereupon the Thing has life left, provided thou,king, wilt go fairly to work, and demand of usonly such things as are not impossible. But ifthou wilt fix upon this thing with so great ob-stinacy, and employ force and power, in thatcase, we Bonders have taken the resolution,all of us, to fall away from thee, and to takefor ourselves another head, who will so be-have that we may enjoy in freedom the be-lief which is agreeable to us. Now shalt thou,king, choose one of these two courses beforethe Thing disperse.” “Whereupon,” adds theChronicle, “all the Bonders raised a mightyshout, ‘Yes, we will have it so, as has beensaid.”’ So that Jarl Sigurd had to intervene,and King Hakon to choose for the moment themilder branch of the alternative.4 At otherThings Hakon was more or less successful. Allhis days, by such methods as there were, hekept pressing forward with this great enter-prise; and on the whole did thoroughly shakeasunder the old edifice of heathendom, andfairly introduce some foundation for the newand better rule of faith and life among his peo-ple. Sigurd, Jarl of Lade, his wise counsellorin all these matters, is also a man worthy ofnotice.

Hakon’s arrangements against the contin-4Dahlmann, ii. 93.

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ual invasions of Eric’s sons, with Danish Blue-tooth backing them, were manifold, and for along time successful. He appointed, after con-sultation and consent in the various Things,so many war-ships, fully manned and ready, tobe furnished instantly on the King’s demandby each province or fjord; watch-fires, on fitplaces, from hill to hill all along the coast,were to be carefully set up, carefully main-tained in readiness, and kindled on any alarmof war. By such methods Blue-tooth and Co.’sinvasions were for a long while triumphantly,and even rapidly, one and all of them, beatenback, till at length they seemed as if intend-ing to cease altogether, and leave Hakon aloneof them. But such was not their issue afterall. The sons of Eric had only abated underconstant discouragement, had not finally leftoff from what seemed their one great feasibil-ity in life. Gunhild, their mother, was stillwith them: a most contriving, fierce-minded,irreconcilable woman, diligent and urgent onthem, in season and out of season; and as forKing Blue-tooth, he was at all times ready tohelp, with his good-will at least.

That of the alarm-fires on Hakon’s partwas found troublesome by his people; some-times it was even hurtful and provoking(lighting your alarm-fires and rousing thewhole coast and population, when it was noth-ing but some paltry viking with a couple ofships); in short, the alarm-signal system fell


into disuse, and good King Hakon himself,in the first place, paid the penalty. It iscounted, by the latest commentators, to havebeen about A.D. 961, sixteenth or seventeenthyear of Hakon’s pious, valiant, and worthyreign. Being at a feast one day, with manyguests, on the Island of Stord, sudden an-nouncement came to him that ships from thesouth were approaching in quantity, and evi-dently ships of war. This was the biggest ofall the Blue-tooth foster-son invasions; andit was fatal to Hakon the Good that night.Eyvind the Skaldaspillir (annihilator of allother Skalds), in his famed Hakon’s Song,gives account, and, still more pertinently, thealways practical Snorro. Danes in great mul-titude, six to one, as people afterwards com-puted, springing swiftly to land, and rankingthemselves; Hakon, nevertheless, at once de-ciding not to take to his ships and run, butto fight there, one to six; fighting, accord-ingly, in his most splendid manner, and atlast gloriously prevailing; routing and scatter-ing back to their ships and flight homewardthese six-to-one Danes. “During the strug-gle of the fight,” says Snorro, “he was veryconspicuous among other men; and while thesun shone, his bright gilded helmet glanced,and thereby many weapons were directed athim. One of his henchmen, Eyvind Finnson(i.e. Skaldaspillir, the poet), took a hat, andput it over the king’s helmet. Now, among the

CHAPTER III 21

hostile first leaders were two uncles of the Er-icsons, brothers of Gunhild, great championsboth; Skreya, the elder of them, on the dis-appearance of the glittering helmet, shoutedboastfully, ’Does the king of the Norsemenhide himself, then, or has he fled? Where nowis the golden helmet?’ And so saying, Skreya,and his brother Alf with him, pushed on likefools or madmen. The king said, ’Come onin that way, and you shall find the king ofthe Norsemen.”’ And in a short space of timebraggart Skreya did come up, swinging hissword, and made a cut at the king; but Thoralfthe Strong, an Icelander, who fought at theking’s side, dashed his shield so hard againstSkreya, that he tottered with the shock. Onthe same instant the king takes his sword“quernbiter” (able to cut querns or millstones)with both hands, and hews Skreya throughhelm and head, cleaving him down to theshoulders. Thoralf also slew Alf. That waswhat they got by such over-hasty search forthe king of the Norsemen.5

Snorro considers the fall of these twochampion uncles as the crisis of the fight;the Danish force being much disheartened bysuch a sight, and King Hakon now pressingon so hard that all men gave way before him,the battle on the Ericson part became a whirlof recoil; and in a few minutes more a torrentof mere flight and haste to get on board their

5Laing’s Snorro, i. 344.


ships, and put to sea again; in which opera-tion many of them were drowned, says Snorro;survivors making instant sail for Denmark inthat sad condition.

This seems to have been King Hakon’sfinest battle, and the most conspicuous of hisvictories, due not a little to his own grandqualities shown on the occasion. But, alas! itwas his last also. He was still zealously di-recting the chase of that mad Danish flight,or whirl of recoil towards their ships, whenan arrow, shot Most likely at a venture, hithim under the left armpit; and this proved hisdeath.

He was helped into his ship, and madesail for Alrekstad, where his chief residence inthose parts was; but had to stop at a smallerplace of his (which had been his mother’s, andwhere he himself was born)—a place calledHella (the Flat Rock), still known as “Hakon’sHella,” faint from loss of blood, and crusheddown as he had never before felt. Having noson and only one daughter, he appointed theseinvasive sons of Eric to be sent for, and if hedied to become king; but to “spare his friendsand kindred.” “If a longer life be granted me,”he said, “I will go out of this land to Christianmen, and do penance for what I have commit-ted against God. But if I die in the country ofthe heathen, let me have such burial as youyourselves think fittest.” These are his lastrecorded words. And in heathen fashion he

CHAPTER III 23

was buried, and besung by Eyvind and theSkalds, though himself a zealously Christianking. Hakon the Good; so one still finds himworthy of being called. The sorrow on Hakon’sdeath, Snorro tells us, was so great and uni-versal, “that he was lamented both by friendsand enemies; and they said that never againwould Norway see such a king.”

CHAPTER IV.Harald Greyfelland Brothers.

Eric’s sons, four or five of them, with a Haraldat the top, now at once got Norway in hand, allof it but Trondhjem, as king and under-kings;and made a severe time of it for those who hadbeen, or seemed to be, their enemies. Excel-lent Jarl Sigurd, always so useful to Hakonand his country, was killed by them; and theycame to repent that before very long. Theslain 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 Trond-hjemers accept as sovereign. “Death to him,then,” said the sons of Eric, but only in secret,till they had got their hands free and wereready; which was not yet for some years. Nay,Hakon, when actually attacked, made good re-sistance, and threatened to cause trouble. Nordid he by any means get his death from thesesons of Eric at this time, or till long afterwards

25


at all, from one of their kin, as it chanced. Onthe contrary, he fled to Denmark now, and byand by managed to come back, to their cost.

Among their other chief victims were twocousins of their own, Tryggve and Gudrod,who had been honest under-kings to the latehead-king, Hakon the Good; but were now be-come suspect, and had to fight for their lives,and lose them in a tragic manner. Tryggvehad a son, whom we shall hear of. Gudrod,son of worthy Bjorn the Chapman, was grand-father of Saint Olaf, whom all men have heardof,—who has a church in Southwark even, andanother in Old Jewry, to this hour. In allthese violences, Gunhild, widow of the lateking Eric, was understood to have a principalhand. She had come back to Norway with hersons; and naturally passed for the secret ad-viser and Maternal President in whatever ofviolence went on; always reckoned a fell, ve-hement, relentless personage where her owninterests were concerned. Probably as thingssettled, her influence on affairs grew less. Atleast one hopes so; and, in the Sagas, hearsless and less of her, and before long nothing.

Harald, the head-king in this Eric frater-nity, does not seem to have been a bad man,—the contrary indeed; but his position was un-towardly, full of difficulty and contradictions.Whatever Harald could accomplish for behoofof Christianity, or real benefit to Norway, inthese cross circumstances, he seems to have

CHAPTER IV 27

done in a modest and honest manner. Hegot the name of Greyfell from his people on avery trivial account, but seemingly with per-fect good humor on their part. Some Icelandtrader had brought a cargo of furs to Trond-hjem (Lade) for sale; sale being slacker thanthe Icelander wished, he presented a chosenspecimen, cloak, doublet, or whatever it was,to Harald; who wore it with acceptance inpublic, and rapidly brought disposal of the Ice-lander’s stock, and the surname of Greyfellto himself. His under-kings and he werecertainly not popular, though I almost thinkGreyfell himself, in absence of his mother andthe under-kings, might have been so. But herethey all were, and had wrought great trou-ble in Norway. “Too many of them,” said ev-erybody; “too many of these courts and courtpeople, eating up any substance that thereis.” For the seasons withal, two or three ofthem in succession, were bad for grass, muchmore for grain; no herring came either; verycleanness of teeth was like to come in EyvindSkaldaspillir’s opinion. This scarcity becameat last their share of the great Famine Of A.D.975, which desolated Western Europe (see thepoem in the Saxon Chronicle). And all this byEyvind Skaldaspillir, and the heathen Norsein general, was ascribed to anger of the hea-then gods. Discontent in Norway, and espe-cially in Eyvind Skaldaspillir, seems to havebeen very great.


Whereupon exile Hakon, Jarl Sigurd’s son,bestirs himself in Denmark, backed by oldKing Blue-tooth, and begins invading and en-croaching in a miscellaneous way; especiallyintriguing and contriving plots all round him.An unfathomably cunning kind of fellow, aswell as an audacious and strong-handed! In-triguing in Trondhjem, where he gets theunder-king, Greyfell’s brother, fallen uponand murdered; intriguing with Gold Harald, adistinguished cousin or nephew of King Blue-tooth’s, who had done fine viking work, andgained, such wealth that he got the epithet of“Gold,” and who now was infinitely desirous ofa share in Blue-tooth’s kingdom as the properfinish to these sea-rovings. He even venturedone day to make publicly a distinct proposalthat way to King Harald Blue-tooth himself;who flew into thunder and lightning at themere mention of it; so that none durst speakto him for several days afterwards. Of boththese Haralds Hakon was confidential friend;and needed all his skill to walk without im-mediate annihilation between such a pair ofdragons, and work out Norway for himselfwithal. In the end he found he must takesolidly to Blue-tooth’s side of the question; andthat they two must provide a recipe for GoldHarald and Norway both at once.

“It is as much as your life is worth to speakagain of sharing this Danish kingdom,” saidHakon very privately to Gold Harald; “but

CHAPTER IV 29

could not you, my golden friend, be contentwith Norway for a kingdom, if one helped youto 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!”

That was the recipe contrived for GoldHarald; recipe for King Greyfell goes into thesame vial, and is also ready.

Hitherto the Hakon-Blue-tooth distur-bances in Norway had amounted to but lit-tle. King Greyfell, a very active and valiantman, has constantly, without much difficulty,repelled these sporadic bits of troubles; butGreyfell, all the same, would willingly havepeace with dangerous old Blue-tooth (everanxious to get his clutches over Norway onany terms) if peace with him could be had.Blue-tooth, too, professes every willingness;inveigles Greyfell, he and Hakon do; to havea friendly meeting on the Danish borders, andnot only settle all these quarrels, but gener-ously settle Greyfell in certain fiefs which heclaimed in Denmark itself; and so swear ev-erlasting friendship. Greyfell joyfully com-plies, punctually appears at the appointedday in Lymfjord Sound, the appointed place.Whereupon Hakon gives signal to Gold Har-ald, “To Lymfjord with these nine ships ofyours, swift!” Gold Harald flies to Lym-fjord with his ships, challenges King Har-


ald Greyfell to land and fight; which the un-daunted Greyfell, though so far outnumbered,does; and, fighting his very best, perishesthere, he and almost all his people. Whichdone, Jarl Hakon, who is in readiness, attacksGold Harald, the victorious but the wearied;easily beats Gold Harald, takes him prisoner,and instantly hangs and ends him, to the hugejoy of King Blue-tooth and Hakon; who nowmake instant voyage to Norway; drive all thebrother under-kings into rapid flight to theOrkneys, to any readiest shelter; and so, un-der the patronage of Blue-tooth, Hakon, withthe title of Jarl, becomes ruler of Norway. Thisfoul treachery done on the brave and honestHarald Greyfell is by some dated about A.D.969, by Munch, 965, by others, computingout of Snorro only, A.D. 975. For there is al-ways an uncertainty in these Icelandic dates(say rather, rare and rude attempts at dat-ing, without even an “A.D.” or other fixed “yearone” to go upon in Iceland), though seldom, Ithink, so large a discrepancy as here.

CHAPTER V.Hakon Jarl.

Hakon Jarl, such the style he took, had en-gaged to pay some kind of tribute to KingBlue-tooth, “if he could;” but he never did payany, pleading always the necessity of his ownaffairs; with which excuse, joined to Hakon’sreadiness in things less important, King Blue-tooth managed to content himself, Hakon be-ing always his good neighbor, at least, andthe two mutually dependent. In Norway,Hakon, without the title of king, did in astrong-handed, steadfast, and at length, suc-cessful way, the office of one; governed Nor-way (some count) for above twenty years; and,both at home and abroad, had much consid-eration through most of that time; speciallyamongst the heathen orthodox, for Hakon Jarlhimself was a zealous heathen, fixed in hismind against these chimerical Christian in-novations and unsalutary changes of creed,and would have gladly trampled out all tracesof what the last two kings (for Greyfell, also,

31


was an English Christian after his sort) haddone in this respect. But he wisely dis-cerned that it was not possible, and that, forpeace’s sake, he must not even attempt it,but must strike preferably into “perfect tolera-tion,” and that of “every one getting to heavenor even to the other goal in his own way.”He himself, it is well known, repaired manyheathen temples (a great “church builder” inhis way!), manufactured many splendid idols,with much gilding and such artistic ornamentas there was,—in particular, one huge imageof Thor, not forgetting the hammer and ap-pendages, and such a collar (supposed of solidgold, which it was not quite, as we shall hearin time) round the neck of him as was neverseen in all the North. How he did his ownYule festivals, with what magnificent solem-nity, the horse-eatings, blood-sprinklings, andother sacred rites, need not be told. Some-thing of a “Ritualist,” one may perceive; per-haps had Scandinavian Puseyisms in him,and other desperate heathen notions. He wasuniversally believed to have gone into magic,for one thing, and to have dangerous poten-cies derived from the Devil himself. The darkheathen mind of him struggling vehementlyin that strange element, not altogether so un-like our own in some points.

For the rest, he was evidently, in practi-cal matters, a man of sharp, clear insight,of steadfast resolution, diligence, prompti-

CHAPTER V 33

tude; and managed his secular matters un-commonly well. Had sixteen Jarls under him,though himself only Hakon Jarl by title; andgot obedience from them stricter than anyking since Haarfagr had done. Add to whichthat the country had years excellent for grassand crop, and that the herrings came in ex-uberance; tokens, to the thinking mind, thatHakon Jarl was a favorite of Heaven.

His fight with the far-famed Jomsvikingswas his grandest exploit in public rumor.Jomsburg, a locality not now known, exceptthat it was near the mouth of the River Oder,denoted in those ages the impregnable cas-tle of a certain hotly corporate, or “Sea Rob-bery Association (limited),” which, for somegenerations, held the Baltic in terror, andplundered far beyond the Belt,—in the oceanitself, in Flanders and the opulent tradinghavens there,—above all, in opulent anar-chic England, which, for forty years fromabout this time, was the pirates’ Goshen; andyielded, regularly every summer, slaves, Da-negelt, and miscellaneous plunder, like noother country Jomsburg or the viking-worldhad ever known. Palnatoke, Bue, and theother quasi-heroic heads of this establishmentare still remembered in the northern parts.Palnatoke is the title of a tragedy by Oehlen-schlager, which had its run of immortality inCopenhagen some sixty or seventy years ago.

I judge the institution to have been in its


floweriest state, probably now in Hakon Jarl’stime. Hakon Jarl and these pirates, rob-bing Hakon’s subjects and merchants that fre-quented him, were naturally in quarrel; andfrequent fightings had fallen out, not gener-ally to the profit of the Jomsburgers, who atlast determined on revenge, and the rootingout of this obstructive Hakon Jarl. They as-sembled in force at the Cape of Stad,—in theFirda Fylke; and the fight was dreadful in theextreme, noise of it filling all the north forlong afterwards. Hakon, fighting like a lion,could scarcely hold his own,—Death or Vic-tory, the word on both sides; when suddenly,the heavens grew black, and there brokeout a terrific storm of thunder and hail, ap-palling to the human mind,—universe swal-lowed wholly in black night; only the momen-tary forked-blazes, the thunder-pealing as ofRagnarok, and the battering hail-torrents,hailstones about the size of an egg. Thor withhis hammer evidently acting; but in behalfof whom? The Jomsburgers in the hideousdarkness, broken only by flashing thunder-bolts, had a dismal apprehension that it wasprobably not on their behalf (Thor havinga sense of justice in him); and before thestorm ended, thirty-five of their seventy shipssheered away, leaving gallant Bue, with theother thirty-five, to follow as they liked, whoreproachfully hailed these fugitives, and con-tinued the now hopeless battle. Bue’s nose

CHAPTER V 35

and lips were smashed or cut away; Bue man-aged, half-articulately, to exclaim, “Ha! themaids (’mays’) of Funen will never kiss memore. Overboard, all ye Bue’s men!” And tak-ing his two sea-chests, with all the gold hehad gained in such life-struggle from of old,sprang overboard accordingly, and finishedthe affair. Hakon Jarl’s renown rose naturallyto the transcendent pitch after this exploit.His people, I suppose chiefly the Christianpart of them, whispered one to another, with ashudder, “That in the blackest of the thunder-storm, he had taken his youngest little boy,and made away with him; sacrificed him toThor or some devil, and gained his victoryby art-magic, or something worse.” Jarl Eric,Hakon’s eldest son, without suspicion of art-magic, but already a distinguished viking, be-came thrice distinguished by his style of sea-fighting in this battle; and awakened great ex-pectations in the viking public; of him we shallhear again.

The Jomsburgers, one might fancy, afterthis sad clap went visibly down in the world;but the fact is not altogether so. Old KingBlue-tooth was now dead, died of a wound gotin battle with his unnatural (so-called “nat-ural”) son and successor, Otto Svein of theForked Beard, afterwards king and conquerorof England for a little while; and seldom,perhaps never, had vikingism been in suchflower as now. This man’s name is Sven in


Swedish, Svend in German, and means boy orlad,—the English “swain.” It was at old “Fa-ther Bluetooth’s funeral-ale” (drunken burial-feast), that Svein, carousing with his Joms-burg chiefs and other choice spirits, gener-ally of the robber class, all risen into heightof highest robber enthusiasm, pledged thevow to one another; Svein that he would con-quer England (which, in a sense, he, afterlong struggling, did); and the Jomsburgersthat they would ruin and root out Hakon Jarl(which, as we have just seen, they could byno means do), and other guests other foolishthings which proved equally unfeasible. Sea-robber volunteers so especially abounding inthat time, one perceives how easily the Joms-burgers could recruit themselves, build or re-fit new robber fleets, man them with the pickof crews, and steer for opulent, fruitful Eng-land; where, under Ethelred the Unready, wassuch a field for profitable enterprise as theviking public never had before or since.

An idle question sometimes rises on me,—idle enough, for it never can be answered inthe affirmative or the negative, Whether itwas not these same refitted Jomsburgers whoappeared some while after this at Red HeadPoint, on the shore of Angus, and sustaineda new severe beating, in what the Scotchstill faintly remember as their “Battle of Lon-carty”? Beyond doubt a powerful Norse-piratearmament dropt anchor at the Red Head, to

CHAPTER V 37

the alarm of peaceable mortals, about thattime. It was thought and hoped to be on itsway for England, but it visibly hung on forseveral days, deliberating (as was thought)whether they would do this poorer coast thehonor to land on it before going farther. Didland, and vigorously plunder and burn south-westward as far as Perth; laid siege to Perth;but brought out King Kenneth on them, andproduced that “Battle of Loncarty” which stilldwells in vague memory among the Scots.Perhaps it might be the Jomsburgers; perhapsalso not; for there were many pirate associ-ations, lasting not from century to centurylike the Jomsburgers, but only for very lim-ited periods, or from year to year; indeed, itwas mainly by such that the splendid thief-harvest of England was reaped in this disas-trous time. No Scottish chronicler gives theleast of exact date to their famed victory ofLoncarty, only that it was achieved by Ken-neth III., which will mean some time betweenA.D. 975 and 994; and, by the order they putit in, probably soon after A.D. 975, or the be-ginning of this Kenneth’s reign. Buchanan’snarrative, carefully distilled from all the an-cient Scottish sources, is of admirable qual-ity for style and otherwise quiet, brief, withperfect clearness, perfect credibility even, ex-cept that semi-miraculous appendage of thePloughmen, Hay and Sons, always hangingto the tail of it; the grain of possible truth in


which can now never be extracted by man’sart!6 In brief, what we know is, fragmentsof ancient human bones and armor have oc-casionally been ploughed up in this locality,proof positive of ancient fighting here; and thefight fell out not long after Hakon’s beatingof the Jomsburgers at the Cape of Stad. Andin such dim glimmer of wavering twilight, thequestion whether these of Loncarty were re-fitted Jomsburgers or not, must be left hang-ing. Loncarty is now the biggest bleach-fieldin Queen Victoria’s dominions; no village orhamlet there, only the huge bleaching-houseand a beautiful field, some six or seven milesnorthwest of Perth, bordered by the beautifulTay river on the one side, and by its beauti-ful tributary Almond on the other; a Loncartyfitted either for bleaching linen, or for a bitof fair duel between nations, in those simpletimes.

Whether our refitted Jomsburgers had theleast thing to do with it is only matter offancy, but if it were they who here again got agood beating, fancy would be glad to find her-self fact. The old piratical kings of Denmarkhad been at the founding of Jomsburg, andto Svein of the Forked Beard it was still vi-tally important, but not so to the great Knut,or any king that followed; all of whom hadbetter business than mere thieving; and it

6G. Buchanani Opera Omnia, i. 103, 104 (CuranteRuddimano, Edinburgi, 1715).

CHAPTER V 39

was Magnus the Good, of Norway, a man ofstill higher anti-anarchic qualities, that anni-hilated it, about a century later.

Hakon Jarl, his chief labors in the worldbeing over, is said to have become very disso-lute in his elder days, especially in the mat-ter of women; the wretched old fool, led awayby idleness and fulness of bread, which toall of us are well said to be the parents ofmischief. Having absolute power, he got intothe habit of openly plundering men’s prettydaughters and wives from them, and, aftera few weeks, sending them back; greatly tothe rage of the fierce Norse heart, had therebeen any means of resisting or revenging. Itdid, after a little while, prove the ruin and de-struction of Hakon the Rich, as he was thencalled. It opened the door, namely, for entryof Olaf Tryggveson upon the scene,—a verymuch grander man; in regard to whom thewiles and traps of Hakon proved to be a recipe,not on Tryggveson, but on the wily Hakonhimself, as shall now be seen straightway.

CHAPTER VI. OlafTryggveson.

Hakon, in late times, had heard of a famousstirring person, victorious in various landsand seas, latterly united in sea-robbery withSvein, Prince Royal of Denmark, afterwardsKing Svein of the Double-beard ("Zvae Ski-aeg”, Twa Shag) or fork-beard, both of whomhad already done transcendent feats in theviking way during this copartnery. The fameof Svein, and this stirring personage, whosename was “Ole,” and, recently, their stupen-dous feats in plunder of England, siege ofLondon, and other wonders and splendors ofviking glory and success, had gone over allthe North, awakening the attention of Hakonand everybody there. The name of “Ole” wasenigmatic, mysterious, and even dangerous-looking to Hakon Jarl; who at length sent outa confidential spy to investigate this “Ole;” afeat which the confidential spy did completelyaccomplish,—by no means to Hakon’s profit!The mysterious “Ole” proved to be no other

41


than Olaf, son of Tryggve, destined to blowHakon Jarl suddenly into destruction, and be-come famous among the heroes of the Norseworld.

Of Olaf Tryggveson one always hopes theremight, one day, some real outline of a biogra-phy be written; fished from the abysses where(as usual) it welters deep in foul neighbor-hood for the present. Farther on we intenda few words more upon the matter. But inthis place all that concerns us in it limits itselfto the two following facts first, that Hakon’sconfidential spy “found Ole in Dublin;” pickedacquaintance with him, got him to confessthat he was actually Olaf, son of Tryggve (theTryggve, whom Blood-axe’s fierce widow andher sons had murdered); got him gradually toown that perhaps an expedition into Norwaymight have its chances; and finally that, un-der such a wise and loyal guidance as his (theconfidential spy’s, whose friendship for Tryg-gveson was so indubitable), he (Tryggveson)would actually try it upon Hakon Jarl, thedissolute old scoundrel. Fact second is, thatabout the time they two set sail from Dublinon their Norway expedition, Hakon Jarl re-moved to Trondhjem, then called Lade; in-tending to pass some months there.

Now just about the time when Tryggve-son, spy, and party had landed in Norway, andwere advancing upon Lade, with what sup-port from the public could be got, dissolute old

CHAPTER VI 43

Hakon Jarl had heard of one Gudrun, a Bon-der’s wife, unparalleled in beauty, who wascalled in those parts, “Sunbeam of the Grove”(so inexpressibly lovely); and sent off a cou-ple of thralls to bring her to him. “Never,” an-swered Gudrun; “never,” her indignant hus-band; in a tone dangerous and displeasing tothese Court thralls; who had to leave rapidly,but threatened to return in better strengthbefore long. Whereupon, instantly, the indig-nant Bonder and his Sunbeam of the Grovesent out their war-arrow, rousing all the coun-try into angry promptitude, and more thanone perhaps into greedy hope of revenge fortheir own injuries. The rest of Hakon’s historynow rushes on with extreme rapidity.

Sunbeam of the Grove, when next de-manded of her Bonder, has the whole neigh-borhood assembled in arms round her; ru-mor of Tryggveson is fast making it the wholecountry. Hakon’s insolent messengers are cutin pieces; Hakon finds he cannot fly undercover too soon. With a single slave he flies thatsame night;—but whitherward? Can think ofno safe place, except to some old mistress ofhis, who lives retired in that neighborhood,and has some pity or regard for the wickedold Hakon. Old mistress does receive him,pities him, will do all she can to protect andhide him. But how, by what uttermost stretchof female artifice hide him here; every onewill search here first of all! Old mistress,


by the slave’s help, extemporizes a cellar un-der the floor of her pig-house; sticks Hakonand slave into that, as the one safe seclu-sion she can contrive. Hakon and slave, be-grunted by the pigs above them, tortured bythe devils within and about them, passed twodays in circumstances more and more horri-ble. For they heard, through their light-slitand breathing-slit, the triumph of Tryggve-son proclaiming itself by Tryggveson’s ownlips, who had mounted a big boulder near byand was victoriously speaking to the people,winding up with a promise of honors and re-wards to whoever should bring him wicked oldHakon’s head. Wretched Hakon, justly sus-pecting his slave, tried to at least keep him-self awake. Slave did keep himself awaketill Hakon dozed or slept, then swiftly cut offHakon’s head, and plunged out with it to thepresence of Tryggveson. Tryggveson, detest-ing the traitor, useful as the treachery was,cut off the slave’s head too, had it hung upalong with Hakon’s on the pinnacle of theLade Gallows, where the populace pelted bothheads with stones and many curses, especiallythe more important of the two. “Hakon theBad” ever henceforth, instead of Hakon theRich.

This was the end of Hakon Jarl, the lastsupport of heathenry in Norway, among othercharacteristics he had: a stronghanded, hard-headed, very relentless, greedy and wicked

CHAPTER VI 45

being. He is reckoned to have ruled in Norway,or mainly ruled, either in the struggling ortriumphant state, for about thirty years (965-995?). He and his seemed to have formed, bychance rather than design, the chief opposi-tion which the Haarfagr posterity throughoutits whole course experienced in Norway. Suchthe cost to them of killing good Jarl Sigurd,in Greyfell’s time! For “curses, like chickens,”do sometimes visibly “come home to feed,” asthey always, either visibly or else invisibly,are punctually sure to do.

Hakon Jarl is considerably connected withthe Faroer Saga often mentioned there, andcomes out perfectly in character; an alto-gether worldly-wise man of the roughest type,not without a turn for practicality of kindnessto those who would really be of use to him. Histendencies to magic also are not forgotten.

Hakon left two sons, Eric and Svein, oftenalso mentioned in this Saga. On their father’sdeath they fled to Sweden, to Denmark, andwere busy stirring up troubles in those coun-tries against Olaf Tryggveson; till at length,by a favorable combination, under their aus-pices chiefly, they got his brief and noble reignput an end to. Nay, furthermore, Jarl Ericleft sons, especially an elder son, named alsoEric, who proved a sore affliction, and a con-tinual stone of stumbling to a new generationof Haarfagrs, and so continued the curse ofSigurd’s murder upon them.


Towards the end of this Hakon’s reign itwas that the discovery of America took place(985). Actual discovery, it appears, by Eric theRed, an Icelander; concerning which there hasbeen abundant investigation and discussionin our time. Ginnungagap (Roaring Abyss) isthought to be the mouth of Behring’s Straitsin Baffin’s Bay; Big Helloland, the coast fromCape Walsingham to near Newfoundland; Lit-tle Helloland, Newfoundland itself. Marklandwas Lower Canada, New Brunswick, andNova Scotia. Southward thence to Chesa-peake Bay was called Wine Land (wild grapesstill grow in Rhode Island, and more luxuri-antly further south). White Man’s Land, calledalso Great Ireland, is supposed to mean thetwo Carolinas, down to the Southern Capeof Florida. In Dahlmann’s opinion, the Irishthemselves might even pretend to have proba-bly been the first discoverers of America; theyhad evidently got to Iceland itself before theNorse exiles found it out. It appears to be cer-tain that, from the end of the tenth centuryto the early part of the fourteenth, there wasa dim knowledge of those distant shores ex-tant in the Norse mind, and even some strag-gling series of visits thither by roving Norse-men; though, as only danger, difficulty, andno profit resulted, the visits ceased, and thewhole matter sank into oblivion, and, but forthe Icelandic talent of writing in the long win-ter nights, would never have been heard of by

CHAPTER VI 47

posterity at all.

CHAPTER VII.Reign of OlafTryggveson.

Olaf Tryggveson (A.D. 995-1000) also makes agreat figure in the Faroer Saga, and recountsthere his early troubles, which were strangeand many. He is still reckoned a grand heroof the North, though his vates now is onlySnorro Sturleson of Iceland. Tryggveson hadindeed many adventures in the world. Hispoor mother, Astrid, was obliged to fly, on mur-der of her husband by Gunhild,—to fly for life,three months before he, her little Olaf, wasborn. She lay concealed in reedy islands, fledthrough trackless forests; reached her father’swith the little baby in her arms, and lay deep-hidden there, tended only by her father him-self; Gunhild’s pursuit being so incessant, andkeen as with sleuth-hounds. Poor Astrid hadto fly again, deviously to Sweden, to Esthland(Esthonia), to Russia. In Esthland she wassold as a slave, quite parted from her boy,—

49


who also was sold, and again sold; but did atlast fall in with a kinsman high in the Rus-sian service; did from him find redemptionand help, and so rose, in a distinguished man-ner, to manhood, victorious self-help, and re-covery of his kingdom at last. He even methis mother again, he as king of Norway, sheas one wonderfully lifted out of darkness intonew life and happiness still in store.

Grown to manhood, Tryggveson,—now be-come acquainted with his birth, and with his,alas, hopeless claims,—left Russia for the oneprofession open to him, that of sea-robbery;and did feats without number in that ques-tionable line in many seas and scenes,—inEngland latterly, and most conspicuously ofall. In one of his courses thither, after longlabors in the Hebrides, Man, Wales, and downthe western shores to the very Land’s Endand farther, he paused at the Scilly Islandsfor a little while. He was told of a wonderfulChristian hermit living strangely in these sea-solitudes; had the curiosity to seek him out,examine, question, and discourse with him;and, after some reflection, accepted Christianbaptism from the venerable man. In Snorrothe story is involved in miracle, rumor, andfable; but the fact itself seems certain, and isvery interesting; the great, wild, noble soul offierce Olaf opening to this wonderful gospel oftidings from beyond the world, tidings whichinfinitely transcended all else he had ever

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heard or dreamt of! It seems certain he wasbaptized here; date not fixable; shortly beforepoor heart-broken Dunstan’s death, or shortlyafter; most English churches, monasteries es-pecially, lying burnt, under continual visita-tion of the Danes. Olaf such baptism notwith-standing, did not quit his viking profession;indeed, what other was there for him in theworld as yet?

We mentioned his occasional copartnerieswith Svein of the Double-beard, now becomeKing of Denmark, but the greatest of these,and the alone interesting at this time, is theirjoint invasion of England, and Tryggveson’sexploits and fortunes there some years af-ter that adventure of baptism in the ScillyIsles. Svein and he “were above a year in Eng-land together,” this time: they steered up theThames with three hundred ships and manyfighters; siege, or at least furious assault, ofLondon was their first or main enterprise, butit did not succeed. The Saxon Chronicle givesdate to it, A.D. 994, and names expressly, asSvein’s co-partner, “Olaus, king of Norway,"—which he was as yet far from being; but in re-gard to the Year of Grace the Saxon Chronicleis to be held indisputable, and, indeed, has thefield to itself in this matter. Famed Olaf Tryg-gveson, seen visibly at the siege of London,year 994, it throws a kind of momentary lightto us over that disastrous whirlpool of mis-eries and confusions, all dark and painful to


the fancy otherwise! This big voyage and fu-rious siege of London is Svein Double-beard’sfirst real attempt to fulfil that vow of hisat Father Blue-tooth’s “funeral ale,” and con-quer England,—which it is a pity he could notyet do. Had London now fallen to him, itis pretty evident all England must have fol-lowed, and poor England, with Svein as kingover it, been delivered from immeasurablewoes, which had to last some two-and-twentyyears farther, before this result could be ar-rived at. But finding London impregnablefor the moment (no ship able to get athwartthe bridge, and many Danes perishing in theattempt to do it by swimming), Svein andOlaf turned to other enterprises; all Englandin a manner lying open to them, turn whichway they liked. They burnt and plunderedover Kent, over Hampshire, Sussex; theystormed far and wide; world lying all beforethem where to choose. Wretched Ethelred,as the one invention he could fall upon, of-fered them Danegelt (16,000 pounds of silverthis year, but it rose in other years as highas 48,000 pounds); the desperate Ethelred,a clear method of quenching fire by pouringoil on it! Svein and Olaf accepted; withdrewto Southampton,—Olaf at least did,—till themoney was got ready. Strange to think of,fierce Svein of the Double-beard, and conquestof England by him; this had at last become theone salutary result which remained for that

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distracted, down-trodden, now utterly chaoticand anarchic country. A conquering Svein,followed by an ably and earnestly adminis-trative, as well as conquering, Knut (whomDahlmann compares to Charlemagne), werethus by the mysterious destinies appointedthe effective saviors of England.

Tryggveson, on this occasion, was a goodwhile at Southampton; and roamed exten-sively about, easily victorious over everything,if resistance were attempted, but finding lit-tle or none; and acting now in a peaceableor even friendly capacity. In the Southamp-ton country he came in contact with the thenBishop of Winchester, afterwards Archbishopof Canterbury, excellent Elphegus, still dimlydecipherable to us as a man of great natu-ral discernment, piety, and inborn veracity; ahero-soul, probably of real brotherhood withOlaf ’s own. He even made court visits toKing Ethelred; one visit to him at Andoverof a very serious nature. By Elphegus, as wecan discover, he was introduced into the realdepths of the Christian faith. Elphegus, withdue solemnity of apparatus, in presence of theking, at Andover, baptized Olaf anew, and tohim Olaf engaged that he would never plun-der in England any more; which promise, too,he kept. In fact, not long after, Svein’s con-quest 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 lovewith him,—see Snorro for this fine romanticfact!) mainly resided in our island for two orthree years, or else in Dublin, in the precinctsof 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 Lif-fey that his squadron sailed, through the He-brides, through the Orkneys, plundering andbaptizing in their strange way, towards suchsuccess as we have seen.

Tryggveson made a stout, and, in effect,victorious and glorious struggle for himself asking. Daily and hourly vigilant to do so, of-ten enough by soft and even merry methods,for he was a witty, jocund man, and had afine ringing laugh in him, and clear pregnantwords ever ready,—or if soft methods wouldnot serve, then by hard and even hardest heput down a great deal of miscellaneous anar-chy in Norway; was especially busy againstheathenism (devil-worship and its rites): this,indeed, may be called the focus and heart ofall his royal endeavor in Norway, and of all thetroubles he now had with his people there. Forthis was a serious, vital, all-comprehendingmatter; devil-worship, a thing not to be tol-erated one moment longer than you could byany method help! Olaf ’s success was inter-mittent, of varying complexion; but his effort,swift or slow, was strong and continual; andon the whole he did succeed. Take a sample or

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two of that wonderful conversion process:—At one of his first Things he found the

Bonders all assembled in arms; resolute tothe death seemingly, against his proposal andhim. Tryggveson said little; waited impas-sive, “What your reasons are, good men?” Onezealous Bonder started up in passionate par-liamentary eloquence; but after a sentence ortwo, broke down; one, and then another, andstill another, and remained all three staringin open-mouthed silence there! The peasant-proprietors accepted the phenomenon as lu-dicrous, perhaps partly as miraculous withal,and consented to baptism this time.

On another occasion of a Thing, whichhad assembled near some heathen temple tomeet him,—temple where Hakon Jarl haddone much repairing, and set up many idolfigures and sumptuous ornaments, regardlessof expense, especially a very big and splen-did Thor, with massive gold collar round theneck of him, not the like of it in Norway,—King Olaf Tryggveson was clamorously in-vited by the Bonders to step in there, en-lighten his eyes, and partake of the sacredrites. Instead of which he rushed into the tem-ple with his armed men; smashed down, withhis own battle-axe, the god Thor, prostrate onthe ground at one stroke, to set an example;and, in a few minutes, had the whole HakonPantheon wrecked; packing up meanwhile allthe gold and preciosities accumulated there


(not forgetting Thor’s illustrious gold collar, ofwhich we shall hear again), and victoriouslytook the plunder home with him for his ownroyal uses and behoof of the state. In othercases, though a friend to strong measures, hehad to hold in, and await the favorable mo-ment. Thus once, in beginning a parliamen-tary address, so soon as he came to touch uponChristianity, the Bonders rose in murmurs, invociferations and jingling of arms, which quitedrowned the royal voice; declared, they hadtaken arms against king Hakon the Good tocompel him to desist from his Christian pro-posals; and they did not think King Olaf ahigher man than him (Hakon the Good). Theking then said, “He purposed coming to themnext Yule to their great sacrificial feast, to seefor himself what their customs were,” whichpacified the Bonders for this time. The ap-pointed place of meeting was again a Hakon-Jarl Temple, not yet done to ruin; chief shrinein those Trondhjem parts, I believe : thereshould Tryggveson appear at Yule. Well, butbefore Yule came, Tryggveson made a greatbanquet in his palace at Trondhjem, and in-vited far and wide, all manner of importantpersons out of the district as guests there.Banquet hardly done, Tryggveson gave someslight signal, upon which armed men strodein, seized eleven of these principal persons,and the king said: “Since he himself was tobecome a heathen again, and do sacrifice, it

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was his purpose to do it in the highest form,namely, that of Human Sacrifice; and thistime not of slaves and malefactors, but of thebest men in the country!” In which stringentcircumstances the eleven seized persons, andcompany at large, gave unanimous consent tobaptism; straightway received the same, andabjured their idols; but were not permittedto go home till they had left, in sons, broth-ers, and other precious relatives, sufficienthostages in the king’s hands.

By unwearied industry of this and betterkinds, Tryggveson had trampled down idol-atry, so far as form went,—how far in sub-stance may be greatly doubted. But it is tobe remembered withal, that always on theback of these compulsory adventures therefollowed English bishops, priests and preach-ers; whereby to the open-minded, conviction,to all degrees of it, was attainable, while si-lence and passivity became the duty or neces-sity of the unconvinced party.

In about two years Norway was all goneover with a rough harrow of conversion. Hea-thenism at least constrained to be silent andoutwardly conformable. Tryggveson, nextturned his attention to Iceland, sent oneThangbrand, priest from Saxony, of wonderfulqualities, military as well as theological, to tryand convert Iceland. Thangbrand made a fewconverts; for Olaf had already many estimableIceland friends, whom he liked much, and was


much liked by; and conversion was the readyroad to his favor. Thangbrand, I find, lodgedwith Hall of Sida (familiar acquaintance of“Burnt Njal,” whose Saga has its admirersamong us even now). Thangbrand convertedHall and one or two other leading men,; butin general he was reckoned quarrelsome andblusterous rather than eloquent and piouslyconvincing. Two skalds of repute made bitinglampoons upon Thangbrand, whom Thang-brand, by two opportunities that offered, cutdown and did to death because of their skaldicquality. Another he killed with his own hand,I know not for what reason. In brief, afterabout a year, Thangbrand returned to Nor-way and king Olaf; declaring the Icelandersto be a perverse, satirical, and inconvertiblepeople, having himself, the record says, “beenthe death of three men there.” King Olaf wasin high rage at this result; but was persuadedby the Icelanders about him to try farther, andby a wilder instrument. He accordingly choseone Thormod, a pious, patient, and kindlyman, who, within the next year or so, didactually accomplish the matter; namely, getChristianity, by open vote, declared at Thing-valla by the general Thing of Iceland there;the roar of a big thunder-clap at the right mo-ment rather helping the conclusion, if I rec-ollect. Whereupon Olaf ’s joy was no doubtgreat.

One general result of these successful op-

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erations was the discontent, to all manner ofdegrees, on the part of many Norse individu-als, against this glorious and victorious, butperemptory and terrible king of theirs. Tryg-gveson, I fancy, did not much regard all that;a man of joyful, cheery temper, habitually con-temptuous of danger. Another trivial mis-fortune that befell in these conversion oper-ations, and became important to him, he didnot even know of, and would have much de-spised if he had. It was this: Sigrid, queendowager of Sweden, thought to be amongstthe most shining women of the world, was alsoknown for one of the most imperious, revenge-ful, and relentless, and had got for herself thename of Sigrid the Proud. In her high wid-owhood she had naturally many wooers; buttreated them in a manner unexampled. Twoof her suitors, a simultaneous Two, were, KingHarald Graenske (a cousin of King Tryggve-son’s, and kind of king in some district, bysufferance of the late Hakon’s),—this lucklessGraenske and the then Russian Sovereign aswell, name not worth mentioning, were zeal-ous suitors of Queen Dowager Sigrid, andwere perversely slow to accept the negative,which in her heart was inexorable for both,though the expression of it could not be quiteso emphatic. By ill-luck for them they cameonce,—from the far West, Graenske; from thefar East, the Russian;—and arrived both to-gether at Sigrid’s court, to prosecute their im-


portunate, and to her odious and tiresomesuit; much, how very much, to her impatienceand disdain. She lodged them both in someold mansion, which she had contiguous, andgot compendiously furnished for them; andthere, I know not whether on the first or onthe second, or on what following night, thisunparalleled Queen Sigrid had the house sur-rounded, set on fire, and the two suitors andtheir people burnt to ashes! No more of botherfrom these two at least! This appears to be afact; and it could not be unknown to Tryggve-son.

In spite of which, however, there went fromTryggveson, who was now a widower, someincipient marriage proposals to this proudwidow; by whom they were favorably received;as from the brightest man in all the world,they might seem worth being. Now, in one ofthese anti-heathen onslaughts of King Olaf ’son the idol temples of Hakon—(I think it wasthat case where Olaf ’s own battle-axe struckdown the monstrous refulgent Thor, and con-quered an immense gold ring from the neck ofhim, or from the door of his temple),—a hugegold ring, at any rate, had come into Olaf ’shands; and this he bethought him might be apretty present to Queen Sigrid, the now favor-able, though the proud. Sigrid received thering with joy; fancied what a collar it wouldmake for her own fair neck; but noticed thather two goldsmiths, weighing it on their fin-

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gers, exchanged a glance. “What is that?” ex-claimed Queen Sigrid. “Nothing,” answeredthey, or endeavored to answer, dreading mis-chief. But Sigrid compelled them to breakopen the ring; and there was found, all alongthe inside of it, an occult ring of copper, nota heart of gold at all! “Ha,” said the proudQueen, flinging it away, “he that could deceivein this matter can deceive in many others!”And was in hot wrath with Olaf; though, bydegrees, again she took milder thoughts.

Milder thoughts, we say; and consentedto a meeting next autumn, at some half-waystation, where their great business might bebrought to a happy settlement and betroth-ment. Both Olaf Tryggveson and the highdowager appear to have been tolerably of will-ing mind at this meeting; but Olaf inter-posed, what was always one condition withhim, “Thou must consent to baptism, and giveup thy idol-gods.” “They are the gods of allmy forefathers,” answered the lady, “choosethou what gods thou pleasest, but leave memine.” Whereupon an altercation; and Tryg-gveson, as was his wont, towered up into shin-ing wrath, and exclaimed at last, “Why shouldI care about thee then, old faded heathen crea-ture?” And impatiently wagging his glove, hither, or slightly switched her, on the face withit, and contemptuously turning away, walkedout of the adventure. “This is a feat that maycost thee dear one day,” said Sigrid. And in the


end it came to do so, little as the magnificentOlaf deigned to think of it at the moment.

One of the last scuffles I remember ofOlaf ’s having with his refractory heathens,was at a Thing in Hordaland or Rogaland,far in the North, where the chief oppositionhero was one Jaernskaegg ("ironbeard”) Scot-tice ("Airn-shag,” as it were!). Here againwas a grand heathen temple, Hakon Jarl’sbuilding, with a splendid Thor in it and muchidol furniture. The king stated what was hisconstant wish here as elsewhere, but had nosooner entered upon the subject of Christian-ity than universal murmur, rising into clan-gor and violent dissent, interrupted him, andIronbeard took up the discourse in reply. Iron-beard did not break down; on the contrary, he,with great brevity, emphasis, and clearness,signified “that the proposal to reject their oldgods was in the highest degree unacceptableto this Thing; that it was contrary to bargain,withal; so that if it were insisted on, theywould have to fight with the king about it; andin fact were now ready to do so.” In reply tothis, Olaf, without word uttered, but merelywith some signal to the trusty armed men hehad with him, rushed off to the temple closeat hand; burst into it, shutting the door be-hind him; smashed Thor and Co. to destruc-tion; then reappearing victorious, found muchconfusion outside, and, in particular, whatwas a most important item, the rugged Iron-

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beard done to death by Olaf ’s men in the in-terim. Which entirely disheartened the Thingfrom fighting at that moment; having now noleader who dared to head them in so danger-ous an enterprise. So that every one departedto digest his rage in silence as he could.

Matters having cooled for a week or two,there was another Thing held; in which KingOlaf testified regret for the quarrel that hadfallen out, readiness to pay what mulct wasdue by law for that unlucky homicide of Iron-beard by his people; and, withal, to take thefair daughter of Ironbeard to wife, if all wouldcomply and be friends with him in other mat-ters; which was the course resolved on as mostconvenient: accept baptism, we; marry Jaern-skaegg’s daughter, you. This bargain held onboth sides. The wedding, too, was celebrated,but that took rather a strange turn. On themorning of the bride-night, Olaf, who had notbeen sleeping, though his fair partner thoughthe had, opened his eyes, and saw, with as-tonishment, the fair partner aiming a longknife ready to strike home upon him! Whichat once ended their wedded life; poor Demoi-selle Ironbeard immediately bundling off withher attendants home again; King Olaf into theapartment of his servants, mentioning therewhat had happened, and forbidding any ofthem to follow her.

Olaf Tryggveson, though his kingdom wasthe smallest of the Norse Three, had risen to


a renown over all the Norse world, which nei-ther he of Denmark nor he of Sweden couldpretend to rival. A magnificent, far-shiningman; more expert in all “bodily exercises” asthe Norse call them, than any man had everbeen before him, or after was. Could keep fivedaggers in the air, always catching the properfifth by its handle, and sending it aloft again;could shoot supremely, throw a javelin witheither hand; and, in fact, in battle usuallythrow two together. These, with swimming,climbing, leaping, were the then admirableFine Arts of the North; in all which Tryggve-son appears to have been the Raphael andthe Michael Angelo at once. Essentially defin-able, too, if we look well into him, as a wildbit of real heroism, in such rude guise andenvironment; a high, true, and great humansoul. A jovial burst of laughter in him, withal;a bright, airy, wise way of speech; dressedbeautifully and with care; a man admired andloved exceedingly by those he liked; dreadedas death by those he did not like. “Hardly anyking,” says Snorro, “was ever so well obeyed;by one class out of zeal and love, by the restout of dread.” His glorious course, however,was not to last long.

King Svein of the Double-Beard had notyet completed his conquest of England,—byno means yet, some thirteen horrid years ofthat still before him!—when, over in Den-mark, he found that complaints against him

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and intricacies had arisen, on the part prin-cipally of one Burislav, King of the Wends(far up the Baltic), and in a less degree withthe King of Sweden and other minor individ-uals. Svein earnestly applied himself to set-tle these, and have his hands free. Burislav,an aged heathen gentleman, proved reason-able and conciliatory; so, too, the King of Swe-den, and Dowager Queen Sigrid, his man-aging mother. Bargain in both these casesgot sealed and crowned by marriage. Svein,who had become a widower lately, now wed-ded Sigrid; and might think, possibly enough,he had got a proud bargain, though a hea-then one. Burislav also insisted on marriagewith Princess Thyri, the Double-Beard’s sis-ter. Thyri, inexpressibly disinclined to wedan aged heathen of that stamp, pleaded hardwith her brother; but the Double-Bearded wasinexorable; Thyri’s wailings and entreatieswent for nothing. With some guardian foster-brother, and a serving-maid or two, she hadto go on this hated journey. Old Burislav, atsight of her, blazed out into marriage-feast ofsupreme magnificence, and was charmed tosee her; but Thyri would not join the marriageparty; refused to eat with it or sit with it at all.Day after day, for six days, flatly refused; andafter nightfall of the sixth, glided out with herfoster-brother into the woods, into by-pathsand inconceivable wanderings; and, in effect,got home to Denmark. Brother Svein was not


for the moment there; probably enough goneto England again. But Thyri knew too wellhe would not allow her to stay here, or any-where that he could help, except with the oldheathen she had just fled from.

Thyri, looking round the world, saw nolikely road for her, but to Olaf Tryggvesonin Norway; to beg protection from the mostheroic man she knew of in the world. Olaf,except by renown, was not known to her; butby renown he well was. Olaf, at sight of her,promised protection and asylum against allmortals. Nay, in discoursing with Thyri Olafperceived more and more clearly what a finehandsome being, soul and body, Thyri was;and in a short space of time winded up byproposing marriage to Thyri; who, humbly,and we may fancy with what secret joy, con-sented to say yes, and become Queen of Nor-way. In the due months they had a little son,Harald; who, it is credibly recorded, was thejoy of both his parents; but who, to their in-expressible sorrow, in about a year died, andvanished from them. This, and one other factnow to be mentioned, is all the wedded historywe have of Thyri.

The other fact is, that Thyri had, by inher-itance or covenant, not depending on her mar-riage with old Burislav, considerable proper-ties in Wendland; which, she often reflected,might be not a little behooveful to her here inNorway, where her civil-list was probably but

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straitened. She spoke of this to her husband;but her husband would take no hold, merelymade her gifts, and said, “Pooh, pooh, can’twe live without old Burislav and his Wend-land properties?” So that the lady sank intoever deeper anxiety and eagerness about thisWendland object; took to weeping; sat weep-ing whole days; and when Olaf asked, “Whatails thee, then?” would answer, or did answeronce, “What a different man my father Har-ald Gormson was [vulgarly called Blue-tooth],compared with some that are now kings! Forno King Svein in the world would HaraldGormson have given up his own or his wife’sjust rights!” Whereupon Tryggveson startedup, exclaiming in some heat, “Of thy brotherSvein I never was afraid; if Svein and I meetin contest, it will not be Svein, I believe, thatconquers;” and went off in a towering fume.Consented, however, at last, had to consent, toget his fine fleet equipped and armed, and de-cide to sail with it to Wendland to have speechand settlement with King Burislav.

Tryggveson had already ships and naviesthat were the wonder of the North. Especiallyin building war ships, the Crane, the Serpent,last of all the Long Serpent,7—he had, for size,for outward beauty, and inward perfection ofequipment, transcended all example.

This new sea expedition became an object7His Long Serpent, judged by some to be of the size

of a frigate of forty-five guns (Laing).


of attention to all neighbors; especially QueenSigrid the Proud and Svein Double-Beard, hernow king, were attentive to it.

“This insolent Tryggveson,” Queen Sigridwould often say, and had long been saying, toher Svein, “to marry thy sister without leavehad or asked of thee; and now flaunting forthhis war navies, as if he, king only of paltryNorway, were the big hero of the North! Whydo you suffer it, you kings really great?”

By such persuasions and reiterations,King Svein of Denmark, King Olaf of Sweden,and Jarl Eric, now a great man there, grownrich by prosperous sea robbery and other goodmanagement, were brought to take the matterup, and combine strenuously for destructionof King Olaf Tryggveson on this grand Wend-land expedition of his. Fleets and forces werewith best diligence got ready; and, withal, acertain Jarl Sigwald, of Jomsburg, chieftainof the Jomsvikings, a powerful, plausible, andcunning man, was appointed to find meansof joining himself to Tryggveson’s grand voy-age, of getting into Tryggveson’s confidence,and keeping Svein Double-Beard, Eric, andthe Swedish King aware of all his movements.

King Olaf Tryggveson, unacquainted withall this, sailed away in summer, with hissplendid fleet; went through the Belts withprosperous winds, under bright skies, to theadmiration of both shores. Such a fleet, withits shining Serpents, long and short, and

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perfection of equipment and appearance, theBaltic never saw before. Jarl Sigwald joinedwith new ships by the way: “Had,” he too,“a visit to King Burislav to pay; how couldhe ever do it in better company?” and stu-diously and skilfully ingratiated himself withKing Olaf. Old Burislav, when they arrived,proved altogether courteous, handsome, andamenable; agreed at once to Olaf ’s claims forhis now queen, did the rites of hospitality witha generous plenitude to Olaf; who cheerily re-newed acquaintance with that country, knownto him in early days (the cradle of his for-tunes in the viking line), and found old friendsthere still surviving, joyful to meet him again.Jarl Sigwald encouraged these delays, KingSvein and Co. not being yet quite ready. “Getready!” Sigwald directed them, and they dili-gently did. Olaf ’s men, their business nowdone, were impatient to be home; and grudgedevery day of loitering there; but, till Sigwaldpleased, such his power of flattering and ca-joling Tryggveson, they could not get away.

At length, Sigwald’s secret messengers re-porting all ready on the part of Svein and Co.,Olaf took farewell of Burislav and Wendland,and all gladly sailed away. Svein, Eric, andthe Swedish king, with their combined fleets,lay in wait behind some cape in a safe littlebay of some island, then called Svolde, butnot in our time to be found; the Baltic tu-mults in the fourteenth century having swal-


lowed it, as some think, and leaving us uncer-tain whether it was in the neighborhood of Ru-gen Island or in the Sound of Elsinore. Therelay Svein, Eric, and Co. waiting till Tryggve-son and his fleet came up, Sigwald’s spy mes-sengers daily reporting what progress he andit had made. At length, one bright summermorning, the fleet made appearance, sailingin loose order, Sigwald, as one acquaintedwith the shoal places, steering ahead, andshowing them the way.

Snorro rises into one of his pictorial fits,seized with enthusiasm at the thought of sucha fleet, and reports to us largely in what orderTryggveson’s winged Coursers of the Deep,in long series, for perhaps an hour or more,came on, and what the three potentates, fromtheir knoll of vantage, said of each as it hovein sight, Svein thrice over guessed this andthe other noble vessel to be the Long Ser-pent; Eric, always correcting him, “No, that isnot the Long Serpent yet” (and aside always),“Nor shall you be lord of it, king, when it doescome.” The Long Serpent itself did make ap-pearance. Eric, Svein, and the Swedish kinghurried on board, and pushed out of theirhiding-place into the open sea. TreacherousSigwald, at the beginning of all this, had sud-denly doubled that cape of theirs, and struckinto the bay out of sight, leaving the foremostTryggveson ships astonished, and uncertainwhat to do, if it were not simply to strike sail

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and wait till Olaf himself with the Long Ser-pent arrived.

Olaf ’s chief captains, seeing the enemy’shuge fleet come out, and how the matter lay,strongly advised King Olaf to elude this strokeof treachery, and, with all sail, hold on hiscourse, 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 men of mine think of flight. Inever fled from battle. Let God dispose of mylife; but flight I will never take.” And so thebattle arrangements immediately began, andthe battle with all fury went loose; and lastedhour after hour, till almost sunset, if I wellrecollect. “Olaf stood on the Serpent’s quarter-deck,” says Snorro, “high over the others. Hehad a gilt shield and a helmet inlaid withgold; over his armor he had a short red coat,and was easily distinguished from other men.”Snorro’s account of the battle is altogetheranimated, graphic, and so minute that anti-quaries gather from it, if so disposed (whichwe but little are), what the methods of Norsesea-fighting were; their shooting of arrows,casting of javelins, pitching of big stones, ul-timately boarding, and mutual clashing andsmashing, which it would not avail us to speakof here. Olaf stood conspicuous all day, throw-ing javelins, of deadly aim, with both handsat once; encouraging, fighting and command-ing like a highest sea-king.


The Danish fleet, the Swedish fleet, were,both of them, quickly dealt with, and succes-sively withdrew out of shot-range. And thenJarl Eric came up, and fiercely grappled withthe Long Serpent, or, rather, with her sur-rounding comrades; and gradually, as theywere beaten empty of men, with the LongSerpent herself. The fight grew ever fiercer,more furious. Eric was supplied with newmen from the Swedes and Danes; Olaf hadno such resource, except from the crews ofhis own beaten ships, and at length this alsofailed him; all his ships, except the Long Ser-pent, being beaten and emptied. Olaf foughton unyielding. Eric twice boarded him, wastwice repulsed. Olaf kept his quarterdeck; un-conquerable, though left now more and morehopeless, fatally short of help. A tall youngman, called Einar Tamberskelver, very cele-brated and important afterwards in Norway,and already the best archer known, kept busywith his bow. Twice he nearly shot Jarl Ericin his ship. “Shoot me that man,” said JarlEric to a bowman near him; and, just asTamberskelver was drawing his bow the thirdtime, an arrow hit it in the middle and broke itin two. “What is this that has broken?” askedKing Olaf. “Norway from thy hand, king,”answered Tamberskelver. Tryggveson’s men,he observed with surprise, were striking vi-olently on Eric’s; but to no purpose: nobodyfell. “How is this?” asked Tryggveson. “Our

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swords are notched and blunted, king; they donot cut.” Olaf stept down to his arm-chest; de-livered out new swords; and it was observedas he did it, blood ran trickling from his wrist;but none knew where the wound was. Ericboarded a third time. Olaf, left with hardlymore than one man, sprang overboard (onesees that red coat of his still glancing in theevening sun), and sank in the deep waters tohis long rest.

Rumor ran among his people that he stillwas not dead; grounding on some movementby the ships of that traitorous Sigwald, theyfancied Olaf had dived beneath the keels of hisenemies, and got away with Sigwald, as Sig-wald himself evidently did. “Much was hoped,supposed, spoken,” says one old mourningSkald; “but the truth was, Olaf Tryggvesonwas never seen in Norseland more.” Strangelyhe remains still a shining figure to us; thewildly beautifulest man, in body and in soul,that one has ever heard of in the North.

CHAPTER VIII.Jarls Eric andSvein.

Jarl Eric, splendent with this victory, not tospeak of that over the Jomsburgers with hisfather long ago, was now made Governor ofNorway: Governor or quasi-sovereign, withhis brother, Jarl. Svein, as partner, who, how-ever, took but little hand in governing;—and,under the patronage of Svein Double-Beardand the then Swedish king (Olaf his name,Sigrid the Proud, his mother’s), administeredit, they say, with skill and prudence for abovefourteen years. Tryggveson’s death is under-stood and laboriously computed to have hap-pened in the year 1000; but there is no exactchronology in these things, but a continual un-certain guessing after such; so that one eyein History as regards them is as if put out;—neither indeed have I yet had the luck to findany decipherable and intelligible map of Nor-way: so that the other eye of History is much

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blinded withal, and her path through thosewild regions and epochs is an extremely dimand chaotic one. An evil that much demandsremedying, and especially wants some firstattempt at remedying, by inquirers into En-glish History; the whole period from Egbert,the first Saxon King of England, on to Edwardthe Confessor, the last, being everywhere com-pletely interwoven with that of their mysteri-ous, continually invasive “Danes,” as they callthem, and inextricably unintelligible till thesealso get to be a little understood, and cease tobe utterly dark, hideous, and mythical to usas they now are.

King Olaf Tryggveson is the first Norse-man who is expressly mentioned to have beenin England by our English History books, newor old; and of him it is merely said that hehad an interview with King Ethelred ii. atAndover, of a pacific and friendly nature,—though it is absurdly added that the nobleOlaf was converted to Christianity by that ex-tremely stupid Royal Person. Greater con-trast in an interview than in this at Andover,between heroic Olaf Tryggveson and Ethelredthe forever Unready, was not perhaps seenin the terrestrial Planet that day. Olaf or“Olaus,” or “Anlaf,” as they name him, did “en-gage on oath to Ethelred not to invade Eng-land any more,” and kept his promise, theyfarther say. Essentially a truth, as we al-ready know, though the circumstances were

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all different; and the promise was to a de-vout High Priest, not to a crowned Blockheadand cowardly Do-nothing. One other “Olaus” Ifind mentioned in our Books, two or three cen-turies before, at a time when there existed nosuch individual; not to speak of several An-lafs, who sometimes seem to mean Olaf andstill oftener to mean nobody possible. Whichoccasions not a little obscurity in our earlyHistory, says the learned Selden. A thing re-mediable, too, in which, if any Englishman ofdue genius (or even capacity for standing la-bor), who understood the Icelandic and Anglo-Saxon languages, would engage in it, he mightdo a great deal of good, and bring the mat-ter into a comparatively lucid state. Vainaspirations,—or perhaps not altogether vain.

At the time of Olaf Tryggveson’s death,and indeed long before, King Svein Double-Beard had always for chief enterprise the Con-quest of England, and followed it by fits withextreme violence and impetus; often advanc-ing largely towards a successful conclusion;but never, for thirteen years yet, getting itconcluded. He possessed long since all Eng-land north of Watling Street. That is to say,Northumberland, East Anglia (naturally fullof Danish settlers by this time), were fixedlyhis; Mercia, his oftener than not; Wessex it-self, with all the coasts, he was free to visit,and to burn and rob in at discretion. Thereor elsewhere, Ethelred the Unready had no


battle in him whatever; and, for a forty yearsafter the beginning of his reign, England ex-celled in anarchic stupidity, murderous dev-astation, utter misery, platitude, and sluggishcontemptibility, all the countries one has readof. Apparently a very opulent country, too;a ready skill in such arts and fine arts asthere were; Svein’s very ships, they say, hadtheir gold dragons, top-mast pennons, andother metallic splendors generally wroughtfor them in England. “Unexampled prosper-ity” in the manufacture way not unknownthere, it would seem! But co-existing withsuch spiritual bankruptcy as was also unex-ampled, one would hope. Read Lupus (Wulfs-tan), Archbishop of York’s amazing Sermon onthe subject,8 addressed to contemporary audi-ences; setting forth such a state of things,—sons selling their fathers, mothers, and sis-ters as Slaves to the Danish robber; them-selves living in debauchery, blusterous glut-tony, and depravity; the details of which arewell-nigh incredible, though clearly stated asthings generally known,—the humor of thesepoor wretches sunk to a state of what wemay call greasy desperation, “Let us eat anddrink, for to-morrow we die.” The manner inwhich they treated their own English nuns, ifyoung, good-looking, and captive to the Danes;

8This sermon was printed by Hearne; and is givenalso by Langebek in his excellent Collection, RerumDanicarum Scriptores Medii Æri. Hafniae. 1772-1834.

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buying them on a kind of brutish or subter-brutish “Greatest Happiness Principle” (forthe moment), and by a Joint-Stock arrange-ment, far transcends all human speech orimagination, and awakens in one the momen-tary red-hot thought, The Danes have servedyou 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, al-ways ignorant, and blockheads, were in thehabit, when expressly commanded to fight, oftaking physic, and declaring that nature wasincapable of castor-oil and battle both at once.This ought to be explained a little to the mod-ern English and their War-Secretaries, whoundertake the conduct of armies. The unde-niable fact is, defeat on defeat was the con-stant fate of the English; during these fortyyears not one battle in which they were notbeaten. No gleam of victory or real resistancetill the noble Edmund Ironside (whom it isalways strange to me how such an Ethelredcould produce for son) made his appearanceand ran his brief course, like a great and far-seen meteor, soon extinguished without re-sult. No remedy for England in that basetime, but yearly asking the victorious, plun-dering, burning and murdering Danes, “Howmuch money will you take to go away?” Thirtythousand pounds in silver, which the annualDanegelt soon rose to, continued to be about


the average yearly sum, though generally onthe increasing hand; in the last year I think ithad risen to seventy-two thousand pounds insilver, raised yearly by a tax (Income-tax of itskind, rudely levied), the worst of all remedies,good for the day only. Nay, there was one rem-edy still worse, which the miserable Ethelredonce tried: that of massacring “all the Danessettled in England” (practically, of a few thou-sands or hundreds of them), by treachery anda kind of Sicilian Vespers. Which issued, assuch things usually do, in terrible monition toyou not to try the like again! Issued, namely,in redoubled fury on the Danish part; newfiercer invasion by Svein’s Jarl Thorkel; thenby Svein himself; which latter drove the mis-erable Ethelred, with wife and family, intoNormandy, to wife’s brother, the then Dukethere; and ended that miserable struggle bySvein’s becoming King of England himself. Ofthis disgraceful massacre, which it would ap-pear has been immensely exaggerated in theEnglish books, we can happily give the exactdate (A.D. 1002); and also of Svein’s victoriousaccession (A.D. 1013),9—pretty much the onlybenefit one gets out of contemplating such aset of objects.

King Svein’s first act was to levy a terri-bly increased Income-Tax for the payment ofhis army. Svein was levying it with a strong-

9Kennet, i. 67; Rapin, i. 119, 121 (from the SaxonChronicle both).

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handed diligence, but had not yet done levy-ing it, when, at Gainsborough one night, hesuddenly died; smitten dead, once used tobe said, by St. Edmund, whilom murderedKing of the East Angles; who could not bearto see his shrine and monastery of St. Ed-mundsbury plundered by the Tyrant’s tax-collectors, as they were on the point of being.In all ways impossible, however,—Edmund’sown death did not occur till two years afterSvein’s. Svein’s death, by whatever cause, be-fell 1014; his fleet, then lying in the Hum-ber; and only Knut,10 his eldest son (hardlyyet eighteen, count some), in charge of it; who,on short counsel, and arrangement about thisquestionable kingdom of his, lifted anchor;made for Sandwich, a safer station at the mo-ment; “cut off the feet and noses” (one shud-ders, and hopes not, there being some discrep-ancy about it!) of his numerous hostages thathad been delivered to King Svein; set themashore;—and made for Denmark, his naturalstorehouse and stronghold, as the hopefulestfirst thing he could do.

Knut soon returned from Denmark, withincrease of force sufficient for the Englishproblem; which latter he now ended in a victo-rious, and essentially, for himself and chaoticEngland, beneficent manner. Became widelyknown by and by, there and elsewhere, as

10Knut born A.D. 988 according to Munch’s calcula-tion (ii. 126).


Knut the Great; and is thought by judges ofour day to have really merited that title. Amost nimble, sharp-striking, clear-thinking,prudent and effective man, who regulated thisdismembered and distracted England in itsChurch matters, in its State matters, like areal King. Had a Standing Army (House Car-les), who were well paid, well drilled and dis-ciplined, capable of instantly quenching in-surrection or breakage of the peace; and pi-ously endeavored (with a signal earnestness,and even devoutness, if we look well) to dojustice to all men, and to make all men restsatisfied with justice. In a word, he success-fully strapped up, by every true method andregulation, this miserable, dislocated, and dis-severed mass of bleeding Anarchy into some-thing worthy to be called an England again;—only that he died too soon, and a second “Con-queror” of us, still weightier of structure, andunder improved auspices, became possible,and was needed here! To appearance, Knuthimself was capable of being a Charlemagneof England and the North (as has been al-ready said or quoted), had he only lived twiceas long as he did. But his whole sum of yearsseems not to have exceeded forty. His fatherSvein of the Forkbeard is reckoned to havebeen fifty to sixty when St. Edmund finishedhim at Gainsborough. We now return to Nor-way, ashamed of this long circuit which hasbeen a truancy more or less.

CHAPTER IX. KingOlaf the Thick-set’sViking Days.

King Harald Graenske, who, with anotherfrom Russia accidentally lodging beside him,got burned to death in Sweden, courtingthat unspeakable Sigrid the Proud,—wasthird cousin or so to Tryggve, father of ourheroic Olaf. Accurately counted, he is great-grandson of Bjorn the Chapman, first ofHaarfagr’s sons whom Eric Bloodaxe madeaway with. His little “kingdom,” as hecalled it, was a district named the Greenland(Graeneland); he himself was one of those lit-tle Haarfagr kinglets whom Hakon Jarl, muchmore Olaf Tryggveson, was content to leavereigning, since they would keep the peacewith him. Harald had a loving wife of hisown, Aasta the name of her, soon expectingthe birth of her and his pretty babe, namedOlaf,—at the time he went on that deplorableSwedish adventure, the foolish, fated crea-

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ture, and ended self and kingdom altogether.Aasta was greatly shocked; composed her-self however; married a new husband, Sig-urd Syr, a kinglet, and a great-grandson ofHarald Fairhair, a man of great wealth, pru-dence, and influence in those countries; inwhose house, as favorite and well-belovedstepson, 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 earli-est basis, in Norse accomplishments and arts.New children came, one or two; but Olaf, fromhis mother, seems always to have known thathe was the distinguished and royal articlethere. One day his Foster-father, hurrying toleave home on business, hastily bade Olaf, noother being by, saddle his horse for him. Olafwent out with the saddle, chose the biggest he-goat about, saddled that, and brought it to thedoor by way of horse. Old Sigurd, a most graveman, grinned sardonically at the sight. “Hah,I see thou hast no mind to take commandsfrom me; thou art of too high a humor to takecommands.” To which, says Snorro, Boy Olafanswered little except by laughing, till Sig-urd saddled for himself, and rode away. Hismother Aasta appears to have been a thought-ful, prudent woman, though always with afierce royalism at the bottom of her memory,and a secret implacability on that head.

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At the age of twelve Olaf went to sea;furnished with a little fleet, and skilful sea-counsellor, expert old Rane, by his Foster-father, and set out to push his fortune in theworld. Rane was a steersman and counsel-lor in these incipient times; but the crew al-ways called Olaf “King,” though at first, asSnorro thinks, except it were in the hour ofbattle, he merely pulled an oar. He cruisedand fought in this capacity on many seas andshores; passed several years, perhaps till theage of nineteen or twenty, in this wild elementand way of life; fighting always in a gloriousand distinguished manner. In the hour of bat-tle, diligent enough “to amass property,” asthe Vikings termed it; and in the long daysand nights of sailing, given over, it is likely,to his own thoughts and the unfathomabledialogue with the ever-moaning Sea; not theworst High School a man could have, and in-deed infinitely preferable to the most that aregoing even now, for a high and deep youngsoul.

His first distinguished expedition was toSweden: natural to go thither first, to avengehis poor father’s death, were it nothing more.Which he did, the Skalds say, in a distin-guished manner; making victorious and hand-some battle for himself, in entering Mae-lare Lake; and in getting out of it again,after being frozen there all winter, showingstill more surprising, almost miraculous con-


trivance and dexterity. This was the firstof his glorious victories, of which the Skaldsreckon up some fourteen or thirteen veryglorious indeed, mostly in the Western andSouthern countries, most of all in England; tillthe name of Olaf Haraldson became quite fa-mous in the Viking and strategic world. Heseems really to have learned the secrets of histrade, and to have been, then and afterwards,for vigilance, contrivance, valor, and prompti-tude of execution, a superior fighter. Severalexploits recorded of him betoken, in simpleforms, what may be called a military genius.

The principal, and to us the alone inter-esting, of his exploits seem to have lain inEngland, and, what is further notable, al-ways on the anti-Svein side. English booksdo not mention him at all that I can find;but it is fairly credible that, as the Norserecords 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, watch-ing, sailing, and sieging for this miserableking and Edmund Ironside, his son. Snorrosays expressly, London, the impregnable city,had to be besieged again for Ethelred’s be-hoof (in the interval between Svein’s deathand young Knut’s getting back from Den-mark), and that our Olaf Haraldson was thegreat engineer and victorious captor of Lon-don on that singular occasion,—London cap-tured for the first time. The Bridge, as usual,

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Snorro says, offered almost insuperable ob-stacles. But the engineering genius of Olafcontrived huge “platforms of wainscoting [oldwalls of wooden houses, in fact], bound to-gether by withes;” these, carried steadily aloftabove the ships, will (thinks Olaf) consider-ably secure them and us from the destructivemissiles, big boulder stones, and other, mis-chief profusely showered down on us, till weget under the Bridge with axes and cables,and do some good upon it. Olaf ’s plan wastried; most of the other ships, in spite of theirwainscoting and withes, recoiled on reachingthe Bridge, so destructive were the boulderand other missile showers. But Olaf ’s shipsand self got actually under the Bridge; fixedall manner of cables there; and then, with theriver current in their favor, and the frightenedships rallying to help in this safer part of theenterprise, tore out the important piles andprops, and fairly broke the poor Bridge, whollyor partly, down into the river, and its Danishdefenders into immediate surrender. That isSnorro’s account.

On a previous occasion, Olaf had been deepin a hopeful combination with Ethelred’s twoyounger sons, Alfred and Edward, afterwardsKing Edward the Confessor: That they twoshould sally out from Normandy in strongforce, unite with Olaf in ditto, and, landing onthe Thames, do something effectual for them-selves. But impediments, bad weather or the


like, disheartened the poor Princes, and itcame to nothing. Olaf was much in Normandy,what they then called Walland; a man held inhonor by those Norman Dukes.

What amount of “property” he hadamassed I do not know, but could prove,were it necessary, that he had acquired sometactical or even strategic faculty and realtalent for war. At Lymfjord, in Jutland, butsome years after this (A.D. 1027), he hada sea-battle with the great Knut himself,—ships combined with flood-gates, with roaring,artificial deluges; right well managed by KingOlaf; which were within a hair’s-breadth ofdestroying Knut, now become a King andGreat; and did in effect send him instantlyrunning. But of this more particularly by andby.

What still more surprises me is the mys-tery, where Olaf, in this wandering, fighting,sea-roving life, acquired his deeply religiousfeeling, his intense adherence to the Chris-tian Faith. I suppose it had been in England,where many pious persons, priestly and other,were still to be met with, that Olaf had gath-ered these doctrines; and that in those his un-fathomable dialogues with the ever-moaningOcean, they had struck root downwards in thesoul of him, and borne fruit upwards to thedegree so conspicuous afterwards. It is cer-tain he became a deeply pious man duringthese long Viking cruises; and directed all his

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strength, when strength and authority werelent him, to establishing the Christian reli-gion in his country, and suppressing and abol-ishing 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 Knutgained his last victory, at Ashdon, in Es-sex, where the earth pyramids and antiquechurch near by still testify the thankful pietyof Knut,—or, at lowest his joy at having woninstead of lost and perished, as he was neardoing there. And it was still this same yearwhen the noble Edmund Ironside, after forcedpartition-treaty “in the Isle of Alney,” gotscandalously murdered, and Knut became in-disputable sole King of England, and deci-sively settled himself to his work of govern-ing there. In the year before either of whichevents, while all still hung uncertain for Knut,and even Eric Jarl of Norway had to be sum-moned in aid of him, in that year 1015, asone might naturally guess and as all Icelandichints and indications lead us to date the thing,Olaf had decided to give up Vikingism inall its forms; to return to Norway, and trywhether he could not assert the place and ca-reer that belonged to him there. Jarl Eric hadvanished with all his war forces towards Eng-land, leaving only a boy, Hakon, as succes-sor, and Svein, his own brother,—a quiet man,who had always avoided war. Olaf landed in


Norway without obstacle; but decided to bequiet till he had himself examined and con-sulted friends.

His reception by his mother Aasta was ofthe kindest and proudest, and is lovingly de-scribed by Snorro. A pretty idyllic, or epicpiece, of Norse Homeric type: How Aasta,hearing of her son’s advent, set all her maidsand menials to work at the top of theirspeed; despatched a runner to the harvest-field, where her husband Sigurd was, to warnhim to come home and dress. How Sigurd wasstanding among his harvest folk, reapers andbinders; and what he had on,—broad slouchhat, with veil (against the midges), blue kirtle,hose of I forget what color, with laced boots;and in his hand a stick with silver head andditto ring upon it;—a personable old gentle-man, of the eleventh century, in those parts.Sigurd was cautious, prudentially cunctatory,though heartily friendly in his counsel to Olafas to the King question. Aasta had a Spartantone in her wild maternal heart; and assuresOlaf that she, with a half-reproachful glanceat Sigurd, will stand by him to the death inthis his just and noble enterprise. Sigurdpromises to consult farther in his neighbor-hood, and to correspond by messages; the re-sult is, Olaf resolutely pushing forward him-self, resolves to call a Thing, and openly claimhis kingship there. The Thing itself was will-ing enough: opposition parties do here and

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there bestir themselves; but Olaf is alwaysswifter than they. Five kinglets somewhere inthe Uplands,11—all descendants of Haarfagr;but averse to break the peace, which JarlEric and Hakon Jarl both have always will-ingly allowed to peaceable people,—seem tobe the main opposition party. These five takethe field against Olaf with what force theyhave; Olaf, one night, by beautiful celerityand strategic practice which a Friedrich ora Turenne might have approved, surroundsthese Five; and when morning breaks, thereis nothing for them but either death, or elseinstant surrender, and swearing of fealty toKing Olaf. Which latter branch of the alterna-tive they gladly accept, the whole five of them,and go home again.

This was a beautiful bit of war-practiceby King Olaf on land. By another strokestill more compendious at sea, he had alreadysettled poor young Hakon, and made himpeaceable for a long while. Olaf by diligentquest and spy-messaging, had ascertainedthat Hakon, just returning from Denmarkand farewell to Papa and Knut, both now un-der way for England, was coasting north to-wards Trondhjem; and intended on or aboutsuch a day to land in such and such a fjord to-wards the end of this Trondhjem voyage. Olafat once mans two big ships, steers through

11Snorro, Laing’s Translation, ii. p. 31 et seq., willminutely specify.


the narrow mouth of the said fjord, moors oneship on the north shore, another on the south;fixes a strong cable, well sunk under water, tothe capstans of these two; and in all quietnesswaits for Hakon. Before many hours, Hakon’sroyal or quasi-royal barge steers gaily intothis fjord; is a little surprised, perhaps, to seewithin the jaws of it two big ships at anchor,but steers gallantly along, nothing doubting.Olaf with a signal of “All hands,” works histwo capstans; has the cable up high enoughat the right moment, catches with it the keelof poor Hakon’s barge, upsets it, empties itwholly into the sea. Wholly into the sea; savesHakon, however, and his people from drown-ing, and brings them on board. His dialoguewith poor young Hakon, especially poor youngHakon’s responses, is very pretty. Shall I giveit, out of Snorro, and let the reader take it foras authentic as he can? It is at least the trueimage of it in authentic Snorro’s head, littlemore than two centuries later.

“Jarl Hakon was led up to the king’s ship.He was the handsomest man that could beseen. He had long hair as fine as silk, boundabout his head with a gold ornament. Whenhe sat down in the forehold the king said tohim:

King. “’It is not false, what is said of yourfamily, that ye are handsome people to look at;but now your luck has deserted you.’

Hakon. “’It has always been the case that

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success is changeable; and there is no luck inthe matter. It has gone with your family aswith mine to have by turns the better lot. I amlittle beyond childhood in years; and at anyrate we could not have defended ourselves, aswe did not expect any attack on the way. Itmay turn out better with us another time.’

King. “’Dost thou not apprehend that thouart in such a condition that, hereafter, therecan be neither victory nor defeat for thee?’

Hakon. “’That is what only thou canst de-termine, King, according to thy pleasure.’

King. “’What wilt thou give me, Jarl, if, forthis 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; andtake an oath that thou wilt never go into bat-tle against me.’"12

Jarl Hakon accepted the generous terms;went to England and King Knut, and kepthis bargain for a good few years; though hewas at last driven, by pressure of King Knut,to violate it,—little to his profit, as we shallsee. One victorious naval battle with JarlSvein, Hakon’s uncle, and his adherents, whofled to Sweden, after his beating,—battle notdifficult to a skilful, hard-hitting king,—waspretty much all the actual fighting Olaf hadto do in this enterprise. He various timesmet angry Bonders and refractory Things

12Snorro, ii. pp. 24, 25.


with arms in their hand; but by skilful, firmmanagement,—perfectly patient, but also per-fectly ready to be active,—he mostly managedwithout coming to strokes; and was univer-sally recognized by Norway as its real king.A promising young man, and fit to be a king,thinks Snorro. Only of middle stature, almostrather shortish; but firm-standing, and stout-built; so that they got to call him Olaf theThick (meaning Olaf the Thick-set, or Stout-built), though his final epithet among themwas infinitely higher. For the rest, “a comely,earnest, prepossessing look; beautiful yellowhair in quantity; broad, honest face, of a com-plexion pure as snow and rose;” and finally (orfirstly) “the brightest eyes in the world; suchthat, in his anger, no man could stand them.”He had a heavy task ahead, and needed all hisqualities and fine gifts to get it done.

CHAPTER X. Reignof King Olaf theSaint.

The late two Jarls, now gone about theirbusiness, had both been baptized, and calledthemselves Christians. But during their gov-ernment they did nothing in the conversionway; left every man to choose his own Godor Gods; so that some had actually two, theChristian God by land, and at sea Thor,whom they considered safer in that element.And in effect the mass of the people hadfallen back into a sluggish heathenism or half-heathenism, the life-labor of Olaf Tryggvesonlying ruinous or almost quite overset. Thenew Olaf, son of Harald, set himself with allhis strength to mend such a state of mat-ters; and stood by his enterprise to the end,as the one highest interest, including all oth-ers, for his People and him. His method wasby no means soft; on the contrary, it washard, rapid, severe,—somewhat on the model

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of Tryggveson’s, though with more of bish-oping and preaching superadded. Yet stillthere was a great deal of mauling, vigorouspunishing, and an entire intolerance of thesetwo things: Heathenism and Sea-robbery, atleast of Sea-robbery in the old style; whetherin the style we moderns still practise, andcall privateering, I do not quite know. ButVikingism proper had to cease in Norway; stillmore, Heathenism, under penalties too severeto he borne; death, mutilation of limb, not tomention forfeiture and less rigorous coercion.Olaf was inexorable against violation of thelaw. “Too severe,” cried many; to whom oneanswers, “Perhaps in part yes, perhaps alsoin great part no; depends altogether on theprevious question, How far the law was theeternal one of God Almighty in the universe,How far the law merely of Olaf (destitute ofright inspiration) left to his own passions andwhims?”

Many were the jangles Olaf had with therefractory Heathen Things and Ironbeardsof a new generation: very curious to see.Scarcely ever did it come to fighting betweenKing and Thing, though often enough nearit; but the Thing discerning, as it usually didin time, that the King was stronger in men,seemed to say unanimously to itself, “We havelost, then; baptize us, we must burn our oldgods and conform.” One new feature we doslightly discern: here and there a touch of

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theological argument on the heathen side. Atone wild Thing, far up in the Dovrefjeld, of avery heathen temper, there was much of that;not to be quenched by King Olaf at the mo-ment; so that it had to be adjourned till themorrow, and again till the next day. Here aresome traits of it, much abridged from Snorro(who gives a highly punctual account), whichvividly represent Olaf ’s posture and mannerof proceeding in such intricacies.

The chief Ironbeard on this occasion wasone 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 conflagra-tion, is reported, on looking down into the val-ley and the beautiful village of Loar standingthere, to have said wistfully, “What a pity itis that so beautiful a village should be burnt!”Olaf sent out his message-token all the, same,however, and met Gudbrand and an immenseassemblage, whose humor towards him wasuncompliant to a high degree indeed. Judgeby this preliminary speech of Gudbrand to hisThing-people, while Olaf was not yet arrived,but only advancing, hardly got to Breeden onthe other side of the hill: “A man has come toLoar who is called Olaf,” said Gudbrand, “andwill force upon us another faith than we hadbefore, and will break in pieces all our Gods.He says he has a much greater and more pow-


erful God; and it is wonderful that the earthdoes not burst asunder under him, or that ourGod lets him go about unpunished when hedares to talk such things. I know this for cer-tain, that if we carry Thor, who has alwaysstood by us, out of our Temple that is standingupon this farm, Olaf ’s God will melt away, andhe and his men be made nothing as soon asThor looks upon them.” Whereupon the Bon-ders all shouted as one man, “Yea!”

Which tremendous message they even for-warded to Olaf, by Gudbrand’s younger son atthe head of 700 armed men; but did not terrifyOlaf with it, who, on the contrary, drew up histroops, rode himself at the head of them, andbegan a speech to the Bonders, in which heinvited them to adopt Christianity, as the onetrue faith for mortals.

Far from consenting to this, the Bondersraised a general shout, smiting at the sametime their shields with their weapons; butOlaf ’s men advancing on them swiftly, andflinging spears, they turned and ran, leavingGudbrand’s son behind, a prisoner, to whomOlaf 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 hisfather not to face Olaf; but Gudbrand angrilyreplies: “Ha, coward! I see thou, too, art takenby the folly that man is going about with;”and is resolved to fight. That night, however,Gudbrand has a most remarkable Dream, or

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Vision: a Man surrounded by light, bringinggreat terror with him, who warns Gudbrandagainst doing battle with Olaf. “If thou dost,thou and all thy people will fall; wolves willdrag away thee and thine; ravens will tearthee in stripes!” And lo, in telling this toThord Potbelly, a sturdy neighbor of his andhenchman in the Thing, it is found that toThord also has come the self same terrible Ap-parition! Better propose truce to Olaf (whoseems to have these dreadful Ghostly Pow-ers on his side), and the holding of a Thing,to discuss matters between us. Thing assem-bles, on a day of heavy rain. Being all seated,uprises King Olaf, and informs them: “Thepeople of Lesso, Loar, and Vaage, have ac-cepted Christianity, and broken down theiridol-houses: they believe now in the True God,who has made heaven and earth, and knowsall things;” and sits down again without morewords.

“Gudbrand replies, ’We know nothingabout him of whom thou speakest. Dost thoucall him God, whom neither thou nor any oneelse can see? But we have a God who can beseen every day, although he is not out to-daybecause the weather is wet; and he will ap-pear to thee terrible and very grand; and Iexpect that fear will mix with thy very bloodwhen he comes into the Thing. But since thousayest thy God is so great, let him make itso 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 ahostage; but he gave them a man as hostagein exchange. In the evening the king askedGudbrand’s son What their God was like? Hereplied that he bore the likeness of Thor; hada hammer in his hand; was of great size, buthollow within; and had a high stand, uponwhich he stood when he was out. ’Neithergold nor silver are wanting about him, andevery day he receives four cakes of bread,besides meat.’ They then went to bed; butthe king watched all night in prayer. Whenday dawned the king went to mass; then totable, and from thence to the Thing. Theweather was such as Gudbrand desired. Nowthe Bishop stood up in his choir-robes, withbishop’s coif on his head, and bishop’s crosierin his hand. He spoke to the Bonders of thetrue faith, told the many wonderful acts ofGod, and concluded his speech well.

“Thord Potbelly replies, ’Many things weare told of by this learned man with the staffin his hand, crooked at the top like a ram’shorn. But since you say, comrades, that yourGod is so powerful, and can do so many won-ders, tell him to make it clear sunshine to-morrow forenoon, and then we shall meet hereagain, and do one of two things,—either agreewith you about this business, or fight you.’And they separated for the day.”

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Overnight the king instructed Kolbein theStrong, an immense fellow, the same whokilled Gunhild’s two brothers, that he, Kol-bein, must stand next him to-morrow; peo-ple must go down to where the ships of theBonders lay, and punctually bore holes in ev-ery one of them; item, to the farms wheretheir horses wore, and punctually unhalterthe whole of them, and let them loose: allwhich was done. Snorro continues:—

“Now the king was in prayer all night, be-seeching God of his goodness and mercy to re-lease him from evil. When mass was ended,and morning was gray, the king went to theThing. When he came thither, some Bondershad already arrived, and they saw a greatcrowd coming along, and bearing among thema huge man’s image, glancing with gold andsilver. When the Bonders who were at theThing saw it, they started up, and bowedthemselves 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, andon the other the King and his people.

“Then Dale Gudbrand stood up and said,’Where now, king, is thy God? I think he willnow carry his head lower; and neither thou,nor the man with the horn, sitting beside theethere, whom thou callest Bishop, are so boldto-day as on the former days. For now ourGod, who rules over all, is come, and lookson you with an angry eye; and now I see well


enough that you are terrified, and scarcelydare raise your eyes. Throw away now allyour opposition, and believe in the God whohas your fate wholly in his hands.’

“The king now whispers to Kolbein theStrong, without the Bonders perceiving it, ’Ifit come so in the course of my speech that theBonders look another way than towards theiridol, strike him as hard as thou canst with thyclub.’

“The king then stood up and spoke. ’Muchhast thou talked to us this morning, andgreatly hast thou wondered that thou canstnot see our God; but we expect that he willsoon come to us. Thou wouldst frighten uswith thy God, who is both blind and deaf, andcannot even move about without being car-ried; but now I expect it will be but a shorttime before he meets his fate: for turn youreyes towards the east,—behold our God ad-vancing in great light.’

“The sun was rising, and all turned tolook. At that moment Kolbein gave theirGod a stroke, so that he quite burst asunder;and there ran out of him mice as big almostas cats, and reptiles and adders. The Bon-ders were so terrified that some fled to theirships; but when they sprang out upon themthe ships filled with water, and could not getaway. Others ran to their horses, but couldnot find them. The king then ordered the Bon-ders to be called together, saying he wanted to

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speak with them; on which the Bonders cameback, and the Thing was again seated.

“The king rose up and said, ’I do not un-derstand what your noise and running mean.You yourselves see what your God can do,—the idol you adorned with gold and silver, andbrought meat and provisions to. You see nowthat the protecting powers, who used and gotgood of all that, were the mice and adders,the reptiles and lizards; and surely they do illwho trust to such, and will not abandon thisfolly. Take now your gold and ornaments thatare lying strewed on the grass, and give themto your wives and daughters, but never hangthem hereafter upon stocks and stones. Hereare two conditions between us to choose upon:either accept Christianity, or fight this veryday, and the victory be to them to whom theGod we worship gives it.’

“Then Dale Gudbrand stood up and said,’We have sustained great damage upon ourGod; but since he will not help us, we will be-lieve in the God whom thou believest in.’

“Then all received Christianity. TheBishop baptized Gudbrand and his son. KingOlaf and Bishop Sigurd left behind themteachers; and they who met as enemies partedas friends. And afterwards Gudbrand built achurch in the valley."13

Olaf was by no means an unmercifulman,—much the reverse where he saw good

13Snorro, ii. pp. 156-161.


cause. There was a wicked old KingRaerik, for example, one of those five kingletswhom, with their bits of armaments, Olafby stratagem had surrounded one night, andat once bagged and subjected when morningrose, all of them consenting; all of them ex-cept this Raerik, whom Olaf, as the readiestsure course, took home with him; blinded, andkept in his own house; finding there was no al-ternative but that or death to the obstinate olddog, who was a kind of distant cousin withal,and could not conscientiously be killed. Stone-blind old Raerik was not always in murder-ous humor. Indeed, for most part he wore aplacid, conciliatory aspect, and said shrewdamusing things; but had thrice over tried,with amazing cunning of contrivance, thoughstone-blind, to thrust a dagger into Olaf andthe last time had all but succeeded. So that,as Olaf still refused to have him killed, it hadbecome a problem what was to be done withhim. Olaf ’s good humor, as well as his quiet,ready sense and practicality, are manifestedin his final settlement of this Raerik problem.Olaf ’s laugh, I can perceive, was not so loud asTryggveson’s but equally hearty, coming fromthe bright mind of him!

Besides blind Raerik, Olaf had in hishousehold one Thorarin, an Icelander; a re-markably ugly man, says Snorro, but a far-travelled, shrewdly observant, loyal-minded,and good-humored person, whom Olaf liked

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to talk with. “Remarkably ugly,” says Snorro,“especially in his hands and feet, which werelarge and ill-shaped to a degree.” One morn-ing Thorarin, who, with other trusted ones,slept in Olaf ’s apartment, was lazily dozingand yawning, and had stretched one of his feetout of the bed before the king awoke. The footwas still there when Olaf did open his brighteyes, which instantly lighted on this foot.

“Well, here is a foot,” says Olaf, gayly,“which one seldom sees the match of; I durstventure there is not another so ugly in thiscity of Nidaros.”

“Hah, king!” said Thorarin, “there are fewthings one cannot match if one seek long andtake pains. I would bet, with thy permission,King, to find an uglier.”

“Done!” cried Olaf. Upon which Thorarinstretched out the other foot.

“A still uglier,” cried he; “for it has lost thelittle toe.”

“Ho, ho!” said Olaf; “but it is I who havegained the bet. The less of an ugly thing theless 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 va-

cant seats henceforth at Olaf ’s table. LeifEricson, son of Eric discoverer of America,


quietly managed Raerik henceforth; sent himto Iceland,—I think to father Eric himself;certainly to some safe hand there, in whosehouse, or in some still quieter neighboringlodging, at his own choice, old Raerik spentthe last three years of his life in a perfectlyquiescent manner.

Olaf ’s struggles in the matter of religionhad actually settled that question in Norway.By these rough methods of his, whatever wemay think of them, Heathenism had got it-self smashed dead; and was no more heard ofin that country. Olaf himself was evidently ahighly devout and pious man;—whosoever isborn with Olaf ’s temper now will still find, asOlaf did, new and infinite field for it! Chris-tianity in Norway had the like fertility as inother countries; or even rose to a higher, andwhat Dahlmann thinks, exuberant pitch, inthe course of the two centuries which followedthat of Olaf. Him all testimony represents tous as a most righteous no less than most reli-gious king. Continually vigilant, just, and rig-orous was Olaf ’s administration of the laws;repression of robbery, punishment of injus-tice, stern repayment of evil-doers, whereverhe could lay hold of them.

Among the Bonder or opulent class, andindeed everywhere, for the poor too can besinners and need punishment, Olaf had, bythis course of conduct, naturally made ene-mies. His severity so visible to all, and the

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justice and infinite beneficence of it so invis-ible except to a very few. But, at any rate,his reign for the first ten years was victori-ous; and might have been so to the end, had itnot been intersected, and interfered with, byKing Knut in his far bigger orbit and currentof affairs and interests. Knut’s English affairsand Danish being all settled to his mind, heseems, especially after that year of pilgrim-age to Rome, and association with the Pon-tiffs and Kaisers of the world on that occasion,to have turned his more particular attentionupon Norway, and the claims he himself hadthere. Jarl Hakon, too, sister’s son of Knut,and always well seen by him, had long beenbusy in this direction, much forgetful of thatoath to Olaf when his barge got canted overby the cable of two capstans, and his life wasgiven him, not without conditions altogether!

About the year 1026 there arrived twosplendid persons out of England, bearing KingKnut the Great’s letter and seal, with a mes-sage, likely enough to be far from welcometo Olaf. For some days Olaf refused to seethem or their letter, shrewdly guessing whatthe purport would be. Which indeed wascouched in mild language, but of sharp mean-ing enough: a notice to King Olaf namely,That Norway was properly, by just heritage,Knut the Great’s; and that Olaf must be-come the great Knut’s liegeman, and pay trib-ute to him, or worse would follow. King


Olaf listening to these two splendid personsand their letter, in indignant silence till theyquite ended, made answer: “I have heardsay, by old accounts there are, that KingGorm of Denmark [Blue-tooth’s father, Knut’sgreat-grandfather] was considered but a smallking; having Denmark only and few people torule over. But the kings who succeeded himthought that insufficient for them; and it hassince come so far that King Knut rules overboth Denmark and England, and has con-quered for himself a part of Scotland. Andnow he claims also my paternal bit of her-itage; cannot be contented without that too.Does he wish to rule over all the countries ofthe North? Can he eat up all the kale in Eng-land itself, this Knut the Great? He shall dothat, and reduce his England to a desert, be-fore I lay my head in his hands, or show himany other kind of vassalage. And so I bid youtell him these my words: I will defend Nor-way with battle-axe and sword as long as lifeis given me, and will pay tax to no man for mykingdom.” Words which naturally irritatedKnut to a high degree.

Next year accordingly (year 1027), tenth oreleventh year of Olaf ’s reign, there came badrumors out of England: That Knut was equip-ping an immense army,—land-army, and sucha fleet as had never sailed before; Knut’s ownship in it,—a Gold Dragon with no fewer thansixty benches of oars. Olaf and Onund King

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of Sweden, whose sister he had married, wellguessed whither this armament was bound.They were friends withal, they recognizedtheir common peril in this imminence; andhad, in repeated consultations, taken mea-sures the best that their united skill (whichI find was mainly Olaf ’s but loyally acceptedby the other) could suggest. It was in thisyear that Olaf (with his Swedish king assist-ing) did his grand feat upon Knut in Lymfjordof Jutland, which was already spoken of. Thespecial circumstances of which were these:

Knut’s big armament arriving on theJutish coasts too late in the season, and thecoast country lying all plundered into tem-porary wreck by the two Norse kings, whoshrank away on sight of Knut, there was noth-ing could be done upon them by Knut thisyear,—or, if anything, what? Knut’s shipsran into Lymfjord, the safe-sheltered frith, orintricate long straggle of friths and straits,which almost cuts Jutland in two in that re-gion; and lay safe, idly rocking on the watersthere, uncertain what to do farther. At lasthe steered in his big ship and some others,deeper into the interior of Lymfjord, deeperand deeper onwards to the mouth of a big rivercalled the Helge (Helge-aa, the Holy River,not discoverable in my poor maps, but cer-tainly enough still existing and still flowingsomewhere among those intricate straits andfriths), towards the bottom of which Helge


river lay, in some safe nook, the small com-bined Swedish and Norse fleet, under thecharge of Onund, the Swedish king, while atthe top or source, which is a biggish moun-tain lake, King Olaf had been doing con-siderable engineering works, well suited tosuch an occasion, and was now ready at amoment’s notice. Knut’s fleet having idlytaken station here, notice from the Swedishking was instantly sent; instantly Olaf ’s well-engineered flood-gates were thrown open;from the swollen lake a huge deluge of waterwas let loose; Olaf himself with all his peo-ple hastening down to join his Swedish friend,and get on board in time; Helge river all thewhile alongside of him, with ever-increasingroar, and wider-spreading deluge, hasteningdown the steeps in the night-watches. Sothat, along with Olaf or some way ahead ofhim, came immeasurable roaring waste of wa-ters upon Knut’s negligent fleet; shattered,broke, and stranded many of his ships, andwas within a trifle of destroying the GoldenDragon herself, with Knut on board. Olaf andOnund, we need not say, were promptly therein person, doing their very best; the railingsof the Golden Dragon, however, were too highfor their little ships; and Jarl Ulf, husband ofKnut’s sister, at the top of his speed, coura-geously intervening, spoiled their stratagem,and saved Knut from this very dangerouspass.

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Knut did nothing more this winter. Thetwo Norse kings, quite unequal to attacksuch an armament, except by ambush andengineering, sailed away; again plunderingat discretion on the Danish coast; carryinginto Sweden great booties and many prison-ers; but obliged to lie fixed all winter; andindeed to leave their fleets there for a se-ries of winters,—Knut’s fleet, posted at Elsi-nore on both sides of the Sound, render-ing all egress from the Baltic impossible, ex-cept at his pleasure. Ulf ’s opportune deliver-ance of his royal brother-in-law did not muchbestead poor Ulf himself. He had been indisfavor before, pardoned with difficulty, byQueen Emma’s intercession; an ambitious, of-ficious, pushing, stirring, and, both in Eng-land and Denmark, almost dangerous man;and this conspicuous accidental merit onlyawoke new jealousy in Knut. Knut, findingnothing pass the Sound worth much blockad-ing, went ashore; “and the day before Michael-mas,” says Snorro, “rode with a great retinueto Roeskilde.” Snorro continues his tragic nar-rative of what befell there:

“There Knut’s brother-in-law, Jarl Ulf, hadprepared a great feast for him. The Jarl wasthe most agreeable of hosts; but the King wassilent and sullen. The Jarl talked to him inevery way to make him cheerful, and broughtforward everything he could think of to amusehim; but the King remained stern, and speak-


ing little. At last the Jarl proposed a gameof chess, which he agreed to. A chess-boardwas produced, and they played together. JarlUlf was hasty in temper, stiff, and in nothingyielding; but everything he managed went onwell in his hands: and he was a great war-rior, about whom there are many stories. Hewas the most powerful man in Denmark nextto the King. Jarl Ulf ’s sister, Gyda, was mar-ried to Jarl Gudin (Godwin) Ulfnadson; andtheir sons were, Harald King of England, andJarl Tosti, Jarl Walthiof, Jarl Mauro-Kaare,and Jarl Svein. Gyda was the name of theirdaughter, who was married to the EnglishKing Edward, the Good (whom we call theConfessor).

“When they had played a while, the Kingmade a false move; on which the Jarl took aknight from him; but the King set the piece onthe board again, and told the Jarl to make an-other move. But the Jarl flew angry, tumbledthe chess-board over, rose, and went away.The King said, ‘Run thy ways, Ulf the Fearful.’The Jarl turned round at the door and said,’Thou wouldst have run farther at Helge riverhadst thou been left to battle there. Thoudidst not call me Ulf the Fearful when I has-tened to thy help while the Swedes were beat-ing thee like a dog.’ The Jarl then went out,and went to bed.

“The following morning, while the Kingwas putting on his clothes, he said to his foot-

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boy, ‘Go thou to Jarl Ulf and kill him.’ The ladwent, was away a while, and then came back.The King said, ’Hast thou killed the Jarl?’ ’Idid not kill him, for he was gone to St. Lu-cius’s church.’ There was a man called Ivarthe White, a Norwegian by birth, who was theKing’s courtman and chamberlain. The Kingsaid to him, ‘Go thou and kill the Jarl.’ Ivarwent to the church, and in at the choir, andthrust his sword through the Jarl, who diedon the spot. Then Ivar went to the King, withthe bloody sword in his hand.

“The King said, ‘Hast thou killed the Jarl?’‘I have killed him,’ said he. ‘Thou hast donewell,’ answered the King.” I

From a man who built so many churches(one on each battlefield where he had fought,to say nothing of the others), and who had inhim such depths of real devotion and otherfine cosmic quality, this does seem ratherstrong! But it is characteristic, withal,—of the man, and perhaps of the times stillmore.14 In any case, it is an event worthnoting, the slain Jarl Ulf and his connectionsbeing of importance in the history of Den-mark and of England also. Ulf ’s wife wasAstrid, sister of Knut, and their only childwas Svein, styled afterwards “Svein Estrith-son” ("Astrid-son”) when he became noted inthe world,—at this time a beardless youth,who, on the back of this tragedy, fled hastily

14Snorro, ii. pp. 252, 253.


to Sweden, where were friends of Ulf. Aftersome ten years’ eclipse there, Knut and bothhis sons being now dead, Svein reappearedin Denmark under a new and eminent figure,“Jarl of Denmark,” highest Liegeman to thethen sovereign there. Broke his oath to saidsovereign, declared himself, Svein Estrithson,to be real King of Denmark; and, after muchpreliminary trouble, and many beatings anddisastrous flights to and fro, became in effectsuch,—to the wonder of mankind; for he hadnot had one victory to cheer him on, or anygood luck or merit that one sees, except thatof surviving longer than some others. Never-theless he came to be the Restorer, so called,of Danish independence; sole remaining rep-resentative of Knut (or Knut’s sister), of Fork-beard, Blue-tooth, and Old Gorm; and ances-tor of all the subsequent kings of Denmark forsome 400 years; himself coming, as we see,only by the Distaff side, all of the Sword ormale side having died so soon. Early death, ithas been observed, was the Great Knut’s al-lotment, and all his posterity’s as well;—fatallimit (had there been no others, which we seethere were) to his becoming “Charlemagne ofthe North” in any considerable degree! JarlUlf, as we have seen, had a sister, Gyda byname, wife to Earl Godwin ("Gudin Ulfnads-son,” as Snorro calls him) a very memorableEnglishman, whose son and hers, King Har-ald, Harold in English books, is the memo-

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rablest of all. These things ought to be betterknown to English antiquaries, and will per-haps be alluded to again.

This pretty little victory or affront, gainedover Knut in Lymfjord, was among the lastsuccesses of Olaf against that mighty man.Olaf, the skilful captain he was, need not havedespaired to defend his Norway against Knutand all the world. But he learned hence-forth, month by month ever more tragically,that his own people, seeing softer prospectsunder Knut, and in particular the chiefs ofthem, industriously bribed by Knut for yearspast, had fallen away from him; and thathis means of defence were gone. Next sum-mer, Knut’s grand fleet sailed, unopposed,along the coast of Norway; Knut summon-ing a Thing every here and there, and inall of them meeting nothing but sky-high ac-clamation and acceptance. Olaf, with sometwelve little ships, all he now had, lay quietin some safe fjord, near Lindenaes, what wenow call the Naze, behind some little solitaryisles on the southeast of Norway there; tilltriumphant Knut had streamed home again.Home to England again “Sovereign of Nor-way” now, with nephew Hakon appointed Jarland Vice-regent under him! This was thenews Olaf met on venturing out; and that hisworst anticipations were not beyond the sadtruth all, or almost all, the chief Bonders andmen 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 moneyand force,—if such could now anywhere behad. He himself was resolute to hold out, andtry. “Sailing swiftly with a fair wind, morn-ing cloudy with some showers,” he passed thecoast of Jedderen, which was Erling Skjal-gson’s country, when he got sure notice of anendless multitude of ships, war-ships, armedmerchant ships, all kinds of shipping-craft,down to fishermen’s boats, just getting underway against him, under the command of Er-ling Skjalgson,— the powerfulest of his sub-jects, once much a friend of Olaf ’s but nowgone against him to this length, thanks toOlaf ’s severity of justice, and Knut’s abun-dance in gold and promises for years back.To that complexion had it come with Erling;sailing with this immense assemblage of thenaval people and populace of Norway to seizeKing Olaf, and bring him to the great Knutdead or alive.

Erling had a grand new ship of his own,which far outsailed the general miscellany ofrebel ships, and was visibly fast gaining dis-tance on Olaf himself,—who well understoodwhat Erling’s puzzle was, between the tailof his game (the miscellany of rebel ships,namely) that could not come up, and the heador general prize of the game which was crowd-ing all sail to get away; and Olaf took advan-

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tage of the same. “Lower your sails!” said Olafto his men (though we must go slower).

“Ho you, we have lost sight of them!” saidErling to his, and put on all his speed; Olafgoing, soon after this, altogether invisible,—behind a little island that he knew of, whenceinto a certain fjord or bay (Bay of Fungenon the maps), which he thought would suithim. “Halt here, and get out your arms,”said Olaf, and had not to wait long till Er-ling came bounding in, past the rocky promon-tory, and with astonishment beheld Olaf ’sfleet of twelve with their battle-axes and theirgrappling-irons all in perfect readiness. Thesefell on him, the unready Erling, simultane-ous, like a cluster of angry bees; and in afew minutes cleared his ship of men alto-gether, except Erling himself. Nobody askedhis life, nor probably would have got it if hehad. Only Erling still stood erect on a highplace on the poop, fiercely defensive, and verydifficult to get at. “Could not be reached atall,” says Snorro, “except by spears or arrows,and these he warded off with untiring dex-terity; no man in Norway, it was said, hadever defended himself so long alone againstmany,"—an almost invincible Erling, had hiscause been good. Olaf himself noticed Er-ling’s behavior, and said to him, from the fore-deck below, “Thou hast turned against meto-day, Erling.” “The eagles fight breast tobreast,” answers he. This was a speech of


the king’s to Erling once long ago, while theystood fighting, not as now, but side by side.The king, with some transient thought of pos-sibility going through his head, rejoins, “Wiltthou surrender, Erling?” “That will I,” an-swered he; took the helmet off his head; laiddown sword and shield; and went forward tothe forecastle deck. The king pricked, I thinknot very harshly, into Erling’s chin or beardwith the point of his battle-axe, saying, “Imust mark thee as traitor to thy Sovereign,though.” Whereupon one of the bystanders,Aslak Fitiaskalle, stupidly and fiercely burstup; smote Erling on the head with his axe;so that it struck fast in his brain and was in-stantly the death of Erling. “Ill-luck attendthee for that stroke; thou hast struck Nor-way out of my hand by it!” cried the king toAslak; but forgave the poor fellow, who haddone it meaning well. The insurrectionaryBonder fleet arriving soon after, as if for cer-tain victory, was struck with astonishment atthis Erling catastrophe; and being now with-out any leader of authority, made not the leastattempt at battle; but, full of discouragementand consternation, thankfully allowed Olaf tosail away on his northward voyage, at discre-tion; and themselves went off lamenting, withErling’s dead body.

This small victory was the last that Olafhad over his many enemies at present. Hesailed along, still northward, day after day;

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several important people joined him; but thenews from landward grew daily more omi-nous: Bonders busily arming to rear of him;and ahead, Hakon still more busily at Trond-hjem, now near by, “—and he will end thydays, King, if he have strength enough!” Olafpaused; sent scouts to a hill-top: “Hakon’s ar-mament visible enough, and under way hith-erward, about the Isle of Bjarno, yonder!”Soon after, Olaf himself saw the Bonder ar-mament of twenty-five ships, from the south-ward, sail past in the distance to join that ofHakon; and, worse still, his own ships, oneand another (seven in all), were slipping off ona like errand! He made for the Fjord of Fodrar,mouth of the rugged strath called Valdal,—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 promon-tory there. Finding that his twelve poor shipswere now reduced to five, against a world allrisen upon him, he could not but see and ad-mit to himself that there was no chance left;and that he must withdraw across the moun-tains and wait for a better time.

His journey through that wild country, inthese forlorn and straitened circumstances,has a mournful dignity and homely pathos,as described by Snorro: how he drew uphis five poor ships upon the beach, packed


all their furniture away, and with his hun-dred or so of attendants and their journey-baggage, under guidance of some friendlyBonder, rode up into the desert and foot ofthe mountains; scaled, after three days’ ef-fort (as if by miracle, thought his attendantsand thought Snorro), the well-nigh precip-itous slope that led across, never withoutmiraculous aid from Heaven and Olaf couldbaggage-wagons have ascended that path! Inshort, How he fared along, beset by difficul-ties and the mournfulest thoughts; but pa-tiently persisted, steadfastly trusted in God;and was fixed to return, and by God’s help tryagain. An evidently very pious and devoutman; a good man struggling with adversity,such as the gods, we may still imagine withthe ancients, do look down upon as their no-blest sight.

He got to Sweden, to the court of hisbrother-in-law; kindly and nobly enough re-ceived there, though gradually, perhaps, ill-seen by the now authorities of Norway. Sothat, before long, he quitted Sweden; left hisqueen there with her only daughter, his andhers, the only child they had; he himself hadan only son, “by a bondwoman,” Magnus byname, who came to great things afterwards;of whom, and of which, by and by. With thisbright little boy, and a selected escort of at-tendants, he moved away to Russia, to KingJarroslav; where he might wait secure against

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all risk of hurting kind friends by his pres-ence. He seems to have been an exile alto-gether some two years,—such is one’s vaguenotion; for there is no chronology in Snorro orhis Sagas, and one is reduced to guessing andinferring. He had reigned over Norway, reck-oning from the first days of his landing thereto those last of his leaving it across the Dovref-jeld, about fifteen years, ten of them shininglyvictorious.

The news from Norway were naturally ag-itating to King Olaf and, in the fluctuationof events there, his purposes and prospectsvaried much. He sometimes thought of pil-griming to Jerusalem, and a henceforth exclu-sively religious life; but for most part his piousthoughts themselves gravitated towards Nor-way, and a stroke for his old place and taskthere, which he steadily considered to havebeen committed to him by God. Norway, bythe rumors, was evidently not at rest. JarlHakon, under the high patronage of his un-cle, had lasted there but a little while. I knownot that his government was especially un-popular, nor whether he himself much remem-bered his broken oath. It appears, however,he had left in England a beautiful bride; andconsidering farther that in England only couldbridal ornaments and other wedding outfit ofa sufficiently royal kind be found, he set sailthither, to fetch her and them himself. Oneevening of wildish-looking weather he was


seen about the northeast corner of the Pent-land Frith; the night rose to be tempestuous;Hakon or any timber of his fleet was neverseen more. Had all gone down,—broken oaths,bridal hopes, and all else; mouse and man,—into the roaring waters. There was no fartherOpposition-line; the like of which had lastedever since old heathen Hakon Jarl, down tothis his grandson Hakon’s finis in the Pent-land Frith. With this Hakon’s disappearanceit now disappeared.

Indeed Knut himself, though of an empiresuddenly so great, was but a temporary phe-nomenon. Fate had decided that the grandand wise Knut was to be short-lived; and toleave nothing as successors but an ineffectualyoung Harald Harefoot, who soon perished,and a still stupider fiercely-drinking Harda-Knut, who rushed down of apoplexy (here inLondon City, as I guess), with the goblet athis mouth, drinking health and happiness ata wedding-feast, also before long.

Hakon having vanished in this dark way,there ensued a pause, both on Knut’s part andon Norway’s. Pause or interregnum of somemonths, till it became certain, first, whetherHakon were actually dead, secondly, till Nor-way, and especially till King Knut himself,could decide what to do. Knut, to the deep dis-appointment, which had to keep itself silent,of three or four chief Norway men, namednone of these three or four Jarl of Norway;

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but bethought him of a certain Svein, a bas-tard son of his own,—who, and almost stillmore his English mother, much desired a ca-reer in the world fitter for him, thought theyindignantly, than that of captain over Joms-burg, where alone the father had been able toprovide for him hitherto. Svein was sent toNorway as king or vice-king for Father Knut;and along with him his fond and vehementmother. Neither of whom gained any favorfrom the Norse people by the kind of manage-ment they ultimately came to show.

Olaf on news of this change, and such un-certainty prevailing everywhere in Norway asto the future course of things, whether Sveinwould come, as was rumored of at last, and beable to maintain himself if he did,—thoughtthere might be something in it of a chancefor himself and his rights. And, after length-ened hesitation, much prayer, pious invoca-tion, and consideration, decided to go and tryit. The final grain that had turned the bal-ance, it appears, was a half-waking morningdream, or almost ocular vision he had of hisglorious cousin Olaf Tryggveson, who severelyadmonished, exhorted, and encouraged him;and disappeared grandly, just in the instantof Olaf ’s awakening; so that Olaf almost fan-cied he had seen the very figure of him, as itmelted into air. “Let us on, let us on!” thoughtOlaf always after that. He left his son, not inRussia, but in Sweden with the Queen, who


proved very good and carefully helpful in wiseways to him:—in Russia Olaf had now noth-ing more to do but give his grateful adieus,and get ready.

His march towards Sweden, and from thattowards Norway and the passes of the moun-tains, down Vaerdal, towards Stickelstad, andthe crisis that awaited, is beautifully depictedby Snorro. It has, all of it, the description (andwe see clearly, the fact itself had), a kind ofpathetic grandeur, simplicity, and rude noble-ness; something Epic or Homeric, without themetre or the singing of Homer, but with all thesincerity, rugged truth to nature, and muchmore of piety, devoutness, reverence for whatis forever High in this Universe, than meetsus in those old Greek Ballad-mongers. Singu-larly visual all of it, too, brought home in ev-ery particular to one’s imagination, so that itstands out almost as a thing one actually saw.

Olaf had about three thousand men withhim; gathered mostly as he fared alongthrough Norway. Four hundred, raised byone Dag, a kinsman whom he had found inSweden and persuaded to come with him,marched usually in a separate body; and were,or might have been, rather an important el-ement. Learning that the Bonders were allarming, especially in Trondhjem country, Olafstreamed down towards them in the closest or-der he could. By no means very close, subsis-tence even for three thousand being difficult

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in such a country. His speech was almost al-ways free and cheerful, though his thoughtsalways naturally were of a high and earnest,almost sacred tone; devout above all. Stickel-stad, a small poor hamlet still standing wherethe valley ends, was seen by Olaf, and tacitlyby the Bonders as well, to be the natural placefor offering battle. There Olaf issued out fromthe hills one morning: drew himself up ac-cording to the best rules of Norse tactics, rulesof little complexity, but perspicuously true tothe facts. I think he had a clear open groundstill rather raised above the plain in front;he could see how the Bonder army had notyet quite arrived, but was pouring forward, inspontaneous rows or groups, copiously by ev-ery path. This was thought to be the biggestarmy that ever met in Norway; “certainly notmuch fewer than a hundred times a hundredmen,” according to Snorro; great Bonders sev-eral of them, small Bonders very many,—allof willing mind, animated with a hot sense ofintolerable injuries. “King Olaf had punishedgreat and small with equal rigor,” says Snorro;“which appeared to the chief people of thecountry too severe; and animosity rose to thehighest when they lost relatives by the King’sjust sentence, although they were in realityguilty. He again would rather renounce hisdignity than omit righteous judgment. Theaccusation against him, of being stingy withhis money, was not just, for he was a most


generous man towards his friends. But thatalone was the cause of the discontent raisedagainst him, that he appeared hard and se-vere in his retributions. Besides, King Knutoffered large sums of money, and the greatchiefs were corrupted by this, and by his offer-ing them greater dignities than they had pos-sessed before.” On these grounds, against theintolerable man, great and small were nowpouring along by every path.

Olaf perceived it would still be some timebefore the Bonder army was in rank. His ownDag of Sweden, too, was not yet come up; hewas to have the right banner; King Olaf ’s ownbeing the middle or grand one; some otherperson the third or left banner. All which be-ing perfectly ranked and settled, according tothe best rules, and waiting only the arrival ofDag, Olaf bade his men sit down, and freshenthemselves with a little rest. There werereligious services gone through: a matins-worship such as there have been few; sternlyearnest to the heart of it, and deep as deathand eternity, at least on Olaf ’s own part. Forthe rest Thormod sang a stave of the fiercestSkaldic poetry that was in him; all the armystraightway sang it in chorus with fiery mind.The Bonder of the nearest farm came up, totell Olaf that he also wished to fight for him“Thanks to thee; but don’t,” said Olaf; “stayat home rather, that the wounded may havesome shelter.” To this Bonder, Olaf delivered

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all the money he had, with solemn order tolay out the whole of it in masses and prayersfor 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 gotranked; three commanders, one of them witha kind of loose chief command, having set-tled to take charge of it; and began to shakeitself towards actual advance. Olaf, in themean while, had laid his head on the kneesof Finn Arneson, his trustiest man, and fallenfast asleep. Finn’s brother, Kalf Arneson,once a warm friend of Olaf, was chief of thethree commanders on the opposite side. Finnand he addressed angry speech to one anotherfrom the opposite ranks, when they came nearenough. Finn, seeing the enemy fairly ap-proach, stirred Olaf from his sleep. “Oh, whyhast thou wakened me from such a dream?”said Olaf, in a deeply solemn tone. “Whatdream was it, then?” asked Finn. “Idreamtthat there rose a ladder here reaching up tovery Heaven,” said Olaf; “I had climbed andclimbed, and got to the very last step, andshould have entered there hadst thou givenme another moment.” “King, I doubt thou artfey; I do not quite like that dream.”

The actual fight began about one of theclock in a most bright last day of July, and wasvery fierce and hot, especially on the part of


Olaf ’s men, who shook the others back a lit-tle, though fierce enough they too; and hadDag been on the ground, which he wasn’tyet, it was thought victory might have beenwon. Soon after battle joined, the sky grewof a ghastly brass or copper color, darker anddarker, till thick night involved all things; anddid not clear away again till battle was nearending. Dag, with his four hundred, arrivedin the darkness, and made a furious charge,what was afterwards, in the speech of the peo-ple, called “Dag’s storm.” Which had nearlyprevailed, but could not quite; victory againinclining to the so vastly larger party. It is un-certain still how the matter would have gone;for Olaf himself was now fighting with his ownhand, and doing deadly execution on his bus-iest enemies to right and to left. But oneof these chief rebels, Thorer Hund (thoughtto have learnt magic from the Laplanders,whom he long traded with, and made moneyby), mysteriously would not fall for Olaf ’s beststrokes. Best strokes brought only dust fromthe (enchanted) deer-skin coat of the fellow,to Olaf ’s surprise,—when another of the rebelchiefs rushed forward, struck Olaf with hisbattle-axe, a wild slashing wound, and mis-erably broke his thigh, so that he staggered orwas supported back to the nearest stone; andthere sat down, lamentably calling on God tohelp him in this bad hour. Another rebel ofnote (the name of him long memorable in Nor-

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way) slashed or stabbed Olaf a second time, asdid then a third. Upon which the noble Olafsank dead; and forever quitted this dogholeof a world,—little worthy of such men as Olafone sometimes thinks. But that too is a mis-take, and even an important one, should wepersist in it.

With Olaf ’s death the sky cleared again.Battle, now near done, ended with completevictory to the rebels, and next to no pur-suit or result, except the death of Olaf ev-erybody hastening home, as soon as the bigDuel had decided itself. Olaf ’s body was se-cretly carried, after dark, to some out-houseon the farm near the spot; whither a poorblind beggar, creeping in for shelter that veryevening, was miraculously restored to sight.And, truly with a notable, almost miraculous,speed, the feelings of all Norway for King Olafchanged themselves, and were turned upsidedown, “within a year,” or almost within a day.Superlative example of Extinctus amabituridem. Not “Olaf the Thick-set” any longer,but “Olaf the Blessed” or Saint, now clearlyin Heaven; such the name and character ofhim from that time to this. Two churchesdedicated to him (out of four that once stood)stand in London at this moment. And the mir-acles that have been done there, not to speakof Norway and Christendom elsewhere, in hisname, were numerous and great for long cen-turies afterwards. Visibly a Saint Olaf ever


since; and, indeed, in Bollandus or elsewhere,I have seldom met with better stuff to makea Saint of, or a true World-Hero in all goodsenses.

Speaking of the London Olaf Churches, Ishould have added that from one of these thethrice-famous Tooley Street gets its name,—where those Three Tailors, addressing Par-liament and the Universe, sublimely styledthemselves, “We, the People of England.”Saint Olave Street, Saint Oley Street, StooleyStreet, Tooley Street; such are the metamor-phoses of human fame in the world!

The battle-day of Stickelstad, King Olaf ’sdeath-day, is generally believed to have beenWednesday, July 31, 1033. But on investi-gation, it turns out that there was no totaleclipse of the sun visible in Norway that year;though three years before, there was one; buton the 29th instead of the 31st. So that the ex-act date still remains uncertain; Dahlmann,the latest critic, inclining for 1030, and its in-disputable eclipse.15

15Saxon Chronicle says expressly, under A.D. 1030:“In this year King Olaf was slain in Norway by his ownpeople, and was afterwards sainted.”

CHAPTER XI.Magnus the Goodand Others.

St. Olaf is the highest of these Norway Kings,and is the last that much attracts us. Forthis reason, if a reason were not superfluous,we might here end our poor reminiscences ofthose dim Sovereigns. But we will, never-theless, for the sake of their connection withbits of English History, still hastily mentionthe Dames of one or two who follow, and whothrow a momentary gleam of life and illumi-nation on events and epochs that have fallenso extinct among ourselves at present, thoughonce they were so momentous and memorable.

The new King Svein from Jomsburg,Knut’s natural son, had no success in Nor-way, nor seems to have deserved any. His En-glish mother and he were found to be grasp-ing, oppressive persons; and awoke, almostfrom the instant that Olaf was suppressedand crushed away from Norway into Heaven,

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universal odium more and more in that coun-try. Well-deservedly, as still appears; for theirtaxings and extortions of malt, of herring, ofmeal, smithwork and every article taxable inNorway, were extreme; and their service tothe country otherwise nearly imperceptible.In brief their one basis there was the powerof Knut the Great; and that, like all earthlythings, was liable to sudden collapse,—and itsuffered such in a notable degree. King Knut,hardly yet of middle age, and the greatestKing in the then world, died at Shaftesbury,in 1035, as Dahlmann thinks16,—leaving twolegitimate sons and a busy, intriguing widow(Norman Emma, widow of Ethelred the Un-ready), mother of the younger of these two;neither of whom proved to have any talent orany continuance. In spite of Emma’s utmostefforts, Harald, the elder son of Knut, nothers, got England for his kingdom; Emma andher Harda-Knut had to be content with Den-mark, and go thither, much against their will.Harald in England,—light-going little figurelike his father before him,—got the name ofHarefoot here; and might have done goodwork among his now orderly and settled peo-ple; but he died almost within year and day;and has left no trace among us, except that

16Saxon Chronicle says: “1035. In this year died KingCnut. ... He departed at Shaftesbury, November 12,and they conveyed him thence to Winchester, and thereburied him.”

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of “Harefoot,” from his swift mode of walking.Emma and her Harda-Knut now returned joy-ful to England. But the violent, idle, anddrunken Harda-Knut did no good there; and,happily for England and him, soon suddenlyended, by stroke of apoplexy at a marriage fes-tival, as mentioned above. In Denmark he haddone still less good. And indeed,—under him,in a year or two, the grand imperial edifice,laboriously built by Knut’s valor and wisdom,had already tumbled all to the ground, in amost unexpected and remarkable way. As weare now to indicate with all brevity.

Svein’s tyrannies in Norway had wroughtsuch fruit that, within the four years afterOlaf ’s death, the chief men in Norway, thevery slayers of King Olaf, Kalf Arneson at thehead of them, met secretly once or twice; andunanimously agreed that Kalf Arneson mustgo to Sweden, or to Russia itself; seek youngMagnus, son of Olaf home: excellent Mag-nus, to be king over all Norway and them,instead of this intolerable Svein. Which wasat once done,—Magnus brought home in akind of triumph, all Norway waiting for him.Intolerable Svein had already been rebelledagainst: some years before this, a certainyoung Tryggve out of Ireland, authentic sonof Olaf Tryggveson, and of that fine IrishPrincess who chose him in his low habilimentsand low estate, and took him over to herown Green Island,—this royal young Tryggve


Olafson had invaded the usurper Svein, in afierce, valiant, and determined manner; andthough with too small a party, showed excel-lent fight for some time; till Svein, zealouslybestirring himself, managed to get him beatenand killed. But that was a couple of years ago;the party still too small, not including one andall as now! Svein, without stroke of swordthis time, moved off towards Denmark; nevershowing face in Norway again. His drunkenbrother, Harda-Knut, received him brother-like; even gave him some territory to rule overand subsist upon. But he lived only a shortwhile; was gone before Harda-Knut himself;and we will mention him no more.

Magnus was a fine bright young fellow, andproved a valiant, wise, and successful King,known among his people as Magnus the Good.He was only natural son of King Olaf butthat made little difference in those times andthere. His strange-looking, unexpected Latinname he got in this way: Alfhild, his mother,a slave through ill-luck of war, though noblyborn, was seen to be in a hopeful way; andit was known in the King’s house how inti-mately Olaf was connected with that occur-rence, and how much he loved this “King’sserving-maid,” as she was commonly desig-nated. Alfhild was brought to bed late atnight; and all the world, especially King Olafwas asleep; Olaf ’s strict rule, then and al-ways, being, Don’t awaken me:—seemingly a

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man sensitive about his sleep. The child wasa boy, of rather weakly aspect; no importantperson present, except Sigvat, the King’s Ice-landic Skald, who happened to be still awake;and the Bishop of Norway, who, I suppose,had been sent for in hurry. “What is to bedone?” said the Bishop: “here is an infant inpressing need of baptism; and we know notwhat the name is: go, Sigvat, awaken theKing, and ask.” “I dare not for my life,” an-swered Sigvat; “King’s orders are rigorous onthat point.” “But if the child die unbaptized,”said the Bishop, shuddering; too certain, heand everybody, where the child would go inthat case! “I will myself give him a name,”said Sigvat, with a desperate concentration ofall his faculties; “he shall be namesake of thegreatest of mankind,—imperial Carolus Mag-nus; let us call the infant Magnus!” King Olaf,on the morrow, asked rather sharply how Sig-vat had dared take such a liberty; but excusedSigvat, seeing what the perilous alternativewas. And Magnus, by such accident, this boywas called; and he, not another, is the primeorigin and introducer of that name Magnus,which occurs rather frequently, not among theNorman Kings only, but by and by among theDanish and Swedish; and, among the Scandi-navian populations, appears to be rather fre-quent to this day.

Magnus, a youth of great spirit, whoseown, and standing at his beck, all Norway now


was, immediately smote home on Denmark;desirous naturally of vengeance for what ithad done to Norway, and the sacred kindredof Magnus. Denmark, its great Knut gone,and nothing but a drunken Harda-Knut, fugi-tive Svein and Co., there in his stead, was be-come a weak dislocated Country. And Mag-nus plundered in it, burnt it, beat it, as of-ten as he pleased; Harda-Knut strugglingwhat he could to make resistance or reprisals,but never once getting any victory over Mag-nus. Magnus, I perceive, was, like his Fa-ther, a skilful as well as valiant fighter by seaand land; Magnus, with good battalions, andprobably backed by immediate alliance withHeaven and St. Olaf, as was then the generalbelief or surmise about him, could not easilybe beaten. And the truth is, he never was,by Harda-Knut or any other. Harda-Knut’slast transaction with him was, To make a firmPeace and even Family-treaty sanctioned byall the grandees of both countries, who didindeed mainly themselves make it; their twoKings assenting: That there should be per-petual Peace, and no thought of war more,between Denmark and Norway; and that, ifeither of the Kings died childless while theother was reigning, the other should succeedhim in both Kingdoms. A magnificent ar-rangement, such as has several times beenmade in the world’s history; but which in thisinstance, what is very singular, took actual

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effect; drunken Harda-Knut dying so speed-ily, and Magnus being the man he was. Onewould like to give the date of this remark-able Treaty; but cannot with precision. Guesssomewhere about 1040:17 actual fruition of itcame to Magnus, beyond question, in 1042,when Harda-Knut drank that wassail bowl atthe wedding in Lambeth, and fell down dead;which in the Saxon Chronicle is dated 3d Juneof that year. Magnus at once went to Denmarkon hearing this event; was joyfully received bythe headmen there, who indeed, with their fel-lows in Norway, had been main contrivers ofthe Treaty; both Countries longing for mutualpeace, and the end of such incessant broils.

Magnus was triumphantly received asKing in Denmark. The only unfortunate thingwas, that Svein Estrithson, the exile son ofUlf, Knut’s Brother-in-law, whom Knut, as wesaw, had summarily killed twelve years be-fore, emerged from his exile in Sweden in aflattering form; and proposed that Magnusshould make him Jarl of Denmark, and gen-eral administrator there, in his own stead. Towhich the sanguine Magnus, in spite of ad-vice to the contrary, insisted on acceding. “Toopowerful a Jarl,” said Einar Tamberskelver—the same Einar whose bow was heard tobreak in Olaf Tryggveson’s last battle ("Nor-way breaking from thy hand, King!"), who

17Munch gives the date 1038 (ii. 840), Adam of Bre-men 1040.


had now become Magnus’s chief man, andhad long been among the highest chiefs inNorway; “too powerful a Jarl,” said Einarearnestly. But Magnus disregarded it; and atroublesome experience had to teach him thatit was true. In about a year, crafty Svein,bringing ends to meet, got himself declaredKing of Denmark for his own behoof, insteadof Jarl for another’s: and had to be beaten anddriven out by Magnus. Beaten every year; butalmost always returned next year, for a newbeating,—almost, though not altogether; hav-ing at length got one dreadful smashing-downand half-killing, which held him quiet for awhile,—so long as Magnus lived. Nay in theend, he made good his point, as if by mere pa-tience in being beaten; and did become Kinghimself, and progenitor of all the Kings thatfollowed. King Svein Estrithson; so calledfrom Astrid or Estrith, his mother, the greatKnut’s sister, daughter of Svein Forkbeard bythat amazing Sigrid the Proud, who burntthose two ineligible suitors of hers both atonce, and got a switch on the face from OlafTryggveson, which proved the death of thathigh man.

But all this fine fortune of the often beatenEstrithson was posterior to Magnus’s death;who never would have suffered it, had he beenalive. Magnus was a mighty fighter; a fieryman; very proud and positive, among otherqualities, and had such luck as was never seen

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before. Luck invariably good, said everybody;never once was beaten,—which proves, con-tinued everybody, that his Father Olaf andthe miraculous power of Heaven were withhim always. Magnus, I believe, did put downa great deal of anarchy in those countries.One of his earliest enterprises was to abol-ish Jomsburg, and trample out that nest ofpirates. Which he managed so completelythat Jomsburg remained a mere reminiscencethenceforth; and its place is not now known toany mortal.

One perverse thing did at last turn up inthe course of Magnus: a new Claimant for theCrown of Norway, and he a formidable personwithal. This was Harald, half-brother of thelate Saint Olaf; uncle or half-uncle, therefore,of Magnus himself. Indisputable son of theSaint’s mother by St. Olaf ’s stepfather, whowas, himself descended straight from Har-ald Haarfagr. This new Harald was alreadymuch heard of in the world. As an ardentBoy of fifteen he had fought at King Olaf ’sside at Stickelstad; would not be admonishedby the Saint to go away. Got smitten downthere, not killed; was smuggled away thatnight from the field by friendly help; got curedof his wounds, forwarded to Russia, where hegrew to man’s estate, under bright auspicesand successes. Fell in love with the RussianPrincess, but could not get her to wife; wentoff thereupon to Constantinople as Vaeringer


(Life-Guardsman of the Greek Kaiser); be-came Chief Captain of the Vaeringers, invin-cible champion of the poor Kaisers that thenwere, and filled all the East with the shineand noise of his exploits. An authentic Waringor Baring, such the surname we now have de-rived from these people; who were an impor-tant institution in those Greek countries forseveral ages: Vaeringer Life-Guard, consist-ing of Norsemen, with sometimes a few En-glish among them. Harald had innumerableadventures, nearly always successful, sing theSkalds; gained a great deal of wealth, gold or-naments, and gold coin; had even Queen Zoe(so they sing, though falsely) enamored of himat one time; and was himself a Skald of emi-nence; some of whose verses, by no means theworst of their kind, remain to this day.

This character of Waring much distin-guishes Harald to me; the only Vaeringer ofwhom I could ever get the least biography,true or half-true. It seems the Greek History-books but indifferently correspond with theseSaga records; and scholars say there couldhave been no considerable romance betweenZoe and him, Zoe at that date being 60 yearsof age! Harald’s own lays say nothing of anyZoe, but are still full of longing for his RussianPrincess far away.

At last, what with Zoes, what with Greekperversities and perfidies, and troubles thatcould not fail, he determined on quitting

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Greece; packed up his immensities of wealthin succinct shape, and actually returned toRussia, where new honors and favors awaitedhim from old friends, and especially, if I mis-take not, the hand of that adorable Princess,crown of all his wishes for the time being.Before long, however, he decided farther tolook after his Norway Royal heritages; and,for that purpose, sailed in force to the Jarlor quasi-King of Denmark, the often-beatenSvein, who was now in Sweden on his usualwinter exile after beating. Svein and he hadevidently interests in common. Svein wascharmed to see him, so warlike, glorious andrenowned a man, with masses of money abouthim, too. Svein did by and by become treach-erous; and even attempted, one night, to as-sassinate Harald in his bed on board ship:but Harald, vigilant of Svein, and a man ofquick and sure insight, had providently goneto sleep elsewhere, leaving a log instead ofhimself among the blankets. In which log,next morning, treacherous Svein’s battle-axewas found deeply sticking: and could not beremoved without difficulty! But this was afterHarald and King Magnus himself bad beguntreating; with the fairest prospects,—whichthis of the $vein battle-axe naturally tendedto forward, as it altogether ended the othercopartnery.

Magnus, on first hearing of Vaeringer Har-ald and his intentions, made instant equip-


ment, and determination to fight his utter-most against the same. But wise persons ofinfluence round him, as did the like sort roundVaeringer Harald, earnestly advised compro-mise and peaceable agreement. Which, soonafter that of Svein’s nocturnal battle-axe, wasthe course adopted; and, to the joy of all par-ties, did prove a successful solution. Mag-nus agreed to part his kingdom with UncleHarald; uncle parting his treasures, or unit-ing them with Magnus’s poverty. Each wasto be an independent king, but they were togovern in common; Magnus rather presiding.He, to sit, for example, in the High Seat alone;King Harald opposite him in a seat not quiteso high, though if a stranger King came ona visit, both the Norse Kings were to sit inthe High Seat. With various other punctiliousregulations; which the fiery Magnus was ex-tremely strict with; rendering the mutual re-lation a very dangerous one, had not both theKings been honest men, and Harald a muchmore prudent and tolerant one than Magnus.They, on the whole, never had any weightyquarrel, thanks now and then rather to Har-ald than to Magnus. Magnus too was very no-ble; and Harald, with his wide experience andgreater length of years, carefully held his heatof temper well covered in.

Prior to Uncle Harald’s coming, Magnushad distinguished himself as a Lawgiver. HisCode of Laws for the Trondhjem Province was

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considered a pretty piece of legislation; and insubsequent times got the name of Gray-goose(Gragas); one of the wonderfulest names evergiven to a wise Book. Some say it came fromthe gray color of the parchment, some giveother incredible origins; the last guess I haveheard is, that the name merely denotes an-tiquity; the witty name in Norway for a mangrowing old having been, in those times, thathe was now “becoming a gray-goose.” Veryfantastic indeed; certain, however, that Gray-goose is the name of that venerable Law Book;nay, there is another, still more famous, be-longing to Iceland, and not far from a centuryyounger, the Iceland Gray-goose. The Norwayone is perhaps of date about 1037, the otherof about 1118; peace be with them both! Or, ifanybody is inclined to such matters let him goto Dahlmann, for the amplest information andsuch minuteness of detail as might almost en-able him to be an Advocate, with Silk Gown,in any Court depending on these Gray-geese.

Magnus did not live long. He had a dreamone night of his Father Olaf ’s coming to himin shining presence, and announcing, That amagnificent fortune and world-great renownwas now possible for him; but that perhapsit was his duty to refuse it; in which case hisearthly life would be short. “Which way wiltthou do, then?” said the shining presence.“Thou shalt decide for me, Father, thou, notI!” and told his Uncle Harald on the morrow,


adding that he thought he should now soondie; which proved to be the fact. The magnif-icent fortune, so questionable otherwise, hasreference, no doubt, to the Conquest of Eng-land; to which country Magnus, as rightfuland actual King of Denmark, as well as undis-puted heir to drunken Harda-Knut, by treatylong ago, had now some evident claim. Theenterprise itself was reserved to the patient,gay, and prudent Uncle Harald; and to himit did prove fatal,—and merely paved the wayfor Another, luckier, not likelier!

Svein Estrithson, always beaten duringMagnus’s life, by and by got an agreementfrom the prudent Harald to be King of Den-mark, then; and end these wearisome and in-effectual brabbles; Harald having other workto do. But in the autumn of 1066, Tosti,a younger son of our English Earl Godwin,came to Svein’s court with a most impor-tant announcement; namely, that King Ed-ward the Confessor, so called, was dead, andthat Harold, as the English write it, his el-dest brother would give him, Tosti, no suffi-cient share in the kingship. Which state ofmatters, if Svein would go ahead with himto rectify it, would be greatly to the advan-tage of Svein. Svein, taught by many beat-ings, was too wise for this proposal; refusedTosti, who indignantly stepped over into Nor-way, and proposed it to King Harald there.Svein really had acquired considerable teach-

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ing, I should guess, from his much beating andhard experience in the world; one finds himafterwards the esteemed friend of the famousHistorian Adam of Bremen, who reports var-ious wise humanities, and pleasant discours-ings with Svein Estrithson.

As for Harald Hardrade, “Harald the Hardor Severe,” as he was now called, Tosti’s pro-posal awakened in him all his old Vaeringerambitious and cupidities into blazing vehe-mence. He zealously consented; and at once,with his whole strength, embarked in the ad-venture. Fitted out two hundred ships, andthe biggest army he could carry in them;and sailed with Tosti towards the dangerousPromised Land. Got into the Tyne and tookbooty; got into the Humber, thence into theOuse; easily subdued any opposition the offi-cial people or their populations could make;victoriously scattered these, victoriously tookthe City of York in a day; and even got himselfhomaged there, “King of Northumberland,”as per covenant,—Tosti proving honorable,—Tosti and he going with faithful strict copart-nery, and all things looking prosperous andglorious. Except only (an important excep-tion!) that they learnt for certain, EnglishHarold was advancing with all his strength;and, in a measurable space of hours, unlesscare were taken, would be in York himself.Harald and Tosti hastened off to seize the postof Stamford Bridge on Derwent River, six or


seven miles east of York City, and there barthis dangerous advent. Their own ships laynot far off in Ouse River, in case of the worst.The battle that ensued the next day, Septem-ber 20, 1066, is forever memorable in Englishhistory.

Snorro gives vividly enough his view of itfrom the Icelandic side: A ring of stalwartNorsemen, close ranked, with their steel toolsin hand; English Harold’s Army, mostly cav-alry, prancing and pricking all around; try-ing 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 somewherein pursuit, they quickly turned round, andquickly made an end, of that matter. Snorrorepresents English Harold, with a first partyof these horse coming up, and, with prelim-inary salutations, asking if Tosti were there,and if Harald were; making generous propos-als to Tosti; but, in regard to Harald and whatshare of England was to be his, answeringTosti with the words, “Seven feet of Englishearth, or more if he require it, for a grave.”Upon which Tosti, like an honorable man andcopartner, said, “No, never; let us fight yourather till we all die.” “Who is this that spoketo you?” inquired Harald, when the cavaliershad withdrawn. “My brother Harold,” an-swers Tosti; which looks rather like a Saga,but may be historical after all. Snorro’s his-tory of the battle is intelligible only after you

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have premised to it, what he never hints at,that the scene was on the east side of thebridge and of the Derwent; the great strugglefor the bridge, one at last finds, was after thefall of Harald; and to the English Chroniclers,said struggle, which was abundantly severe,is all they know of the battle.

Enraged at that breaking loose of his steelring of infantry, Norse Harald blazed up intotrue Norse fury, all the old Vaeringer andBerserkir rage awakening in him; sprangforth into the front of the fight, and mauledand cut and smashed down, on both handsof him, everything he met, irresistible by anyhorse or man, till an arrow cut him throughthe windpipe, and laid him low forever. Thatwas the end of King Harald and of his work-ings in this world. The circumstance that hewas a Waring or Baring and had smitten topieces so many Oriental cohorts or crowds,and had made love-verses (kind of iron madri-gals) to his Russian Princess, and caught thefancy of questionable Greek queens, and hadamassed such heaps of money, while poornephew Magnus had only one gold ring (whichhad been his father’s, and even his father’smother’s, as Uncle Harald noticed), and noth-ing more whatever of that precious metal tocombine with Harald’s treasures:—all this isnew to me, naturally no hint of it in any En-glish book; and lends some gleam of roman-tic splendor to that dim business of Stamford


Bridge, now fallen so dull and torpid to mostEnglish minds, transcendently important asit once was to all Englishmen. Adam of Bre-men says, the English got as much gold plun-der from Harald’s people as was a heavy bur-den for twelve men;18 a thing evidently impos-sible, which nobody need try to believe. YoungOlaf, Harald’s son, age about sixteen, steer-ing down the Ouse at the top of his speed, es-caped home to Norway with all his ships, andsubsequently reigned there with Magnus, hisbrother. Harald’s body did lie in English earthfor about a year; but was then brought to Nor-way for burial. He needed more than sevenfeet of grave, say some; Laing, interpretingSnorro’s measurements, makes Harald eightfeet in stature,—I do hope, with some error inexcess!

18Camden, Rapin, &c. quote.

CHAPTER XII. Olafthe Tranquil,Magnus Barefoot,and Sigurd theCrusader.

The new King Olaf, his brother Magnus hav-ing soon died, bore rule in Norway for somefive-and-twenty years. Rule soft and gentle,not like his father’s, and inclining rather toimprovement in the arts and elegancies thanto anything severe or dangerously laborious.A slim-built, witty-talking, popular and prettyman, with uncommonly bright eyes, and hairlike floss silk: they called him Olaf Kyrre (theTranquil or Easygoing).

The ceremonials of the palace were muchimproved by him. Palace still continued tobe built of huge logs pyramidally sloping up-wards, with fireplace in the middle of the floor,and no egress for smoke or ingress for light

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except right overhead, which, in bad weather,you could shut, or all but shut, with a lid.Lid originally made of mere opaque board, butchanged latterly into a light frame, covered(glazed, so to speak) with entrails of animals,clarified into something of pellucidity. All thisOlaf, I hope, further perfected, as he did theplacing of the court ladies, court officials, andthe like; but I doubt if the luxury of a glasswindow were ever known to him, or a cupto drink from that was not made of metal orhorn. In fact it is chiefly for his son’s sakeI mention him here; and with the son, too, Ihave little real concern, but only a kind of fan-tastic.

This son bears the name of Magnus Bar-fod (Barefoot, or Bareleg); and if you askwhy so, the answer is: He was used to ap-pear in the streets of Nidaros (Trondhjem)now and then in complete Scotch Highlanddress. Authentic tartan plaid and philibeg,at that epoch,—to the wonder of Trondhjemand us! The truth is, he had a mighty fancyfor those Hebrides and other Scotch posses-sions of his; and seeing England now quiteimpossible, eagerly speculated on some con-quest in Ireland as next best. He did, in fact,go diligently voyaging and inspecting amongthose Orkney and Hebridian Isles; puttingeverything straight there, appointing strin-gent authorities, jarls,—nay, a king, “King-dom of the Suderoer” (Southern Isles, now

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called Sodor),—and, as first king, Sigurd, hispretty little boy of nine years. All which done,and some quarrel with Sweden fought out, heseriously applied himself to visiting in a stillmore emphatic manner; namely, to invading,with his best skill and strength, the consider-able virtual or actual kingdom he had in Ire-land, intending fully to enlarge it to the ut-most limits of the Island if possible. He gotprosperously into Dublin (guess A.D. 1102).Considerable authority he already had, evenamong those poor Irish Kings, or kinglets,in their glibs and yellow-saffron gowns; stillmore, I suppose, among the numerous NorsePrincipalities there. “King Murdog, King ofIreland,” says the Chronicle of Man, “hadobliged himself, every Yule-day, to take a pairof shoes, hang them over his shoulder, as yourservant does on a journey, and walk acrosshis court, at bidding and in presence of Mag-nus Barefoot’s messenger, by way of homageto the said “King.” Murdog on this greateroccasion did whatever homage could be re-quired of him; but that, though comfortable,was far from satisfying the great King’s ambi-tious mind. The great King left Murdog; lefthis own Dublin; marched off westward on ageneral conquest of Ireland. Marched easilyvictorious for a time; and got, some say, intothe wilds of Connaught, but there saw him-self beset by ambuscades and wild Irish coun-tenances intent on mischief; and had, on the


sudden, to draw up for battle;—place, I re-gret to say, altogether undiscoverable to me;known only that it was boggy in the extreme.Certain enough, too certain and evident, Mag-nus Barefoot, searching eagerly, could find nofirm footing there; nor, fighting furiously up tothe knees or deeper, any result but honorabledeath! Date is confidently marked “24 August,1103,"—as if people knew the very day of themonth. The natives did humanely give KingMagnus Christian burial. The remnants ofhis force, without further molestation, foundtheir ships on the Coast of Ulster; and sailedhome,—without conquest of Ireland; nay per-haps, leaving royal Murdog disposed to be re-lieved of his procession with the pair of shoes.

Magnus Barefoot left three sons, all kingsat once, reigning peaceably together. But tous, at present, the only noteworthy one ofthem was Sigurd; who, finding nothing specialto do at home, left his brothers to manage forhim, and went off on a far Voyage, which hasrendered him distinguishable in the crowd.Voyage through the Straits of Gibraltar, onto Jerusalem, thence to Constantinople; andso home through Russia, shining with suchrenown as filled all Norway for the time being.A King called Sigurd Jorsalafarer (Jerusale-mer) or Sigurd the Crusader henceforth. Hisvoyage had been only partially of the Vikingtype; in general it was of the Royal-Progresskind rather; Vikingism only intervening in

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cases of incivility or the like. His receptionin the Courts of Portugal, Spain, Sicily, Italy,had been honorable and sumptuous. The Kingof Jerusalem broke out into utmost splendorand effusion at sight of such a pilgrim; andConstantinople did its highest honors to sucha Prince of Vaeringers. And the truth is, Sig-urd intrinsically was a wise, able, and pru-dent man; who, surviving both his brothers,reigned a good while alone in a solid and suc-cessful way. He shows features of an origi-nal, independent-thinking man; something ofruggedly strong, sincere, and honest, with pe-culiarities that are amiable and even patheticin the character and temperament of him; ascertainly, the course of life he took was of hisown choosing, and peculiar enough. He hap-pens furthermore to be, what he least of allcould have chosen or expected, the last of theHaarfagr Genealogy that had any success, ormuch deserved any, in this world. The lastof the Haarfagrs, or as good as the last! Sothat, singular to say, it is in reality, for onething only that Sigurd, after all his crusadingsand wonderful adventures, is memorable to ushere: the advent of an Irish gentleman called“Gylle Krist” (Gil-christ, Servant of Christ),who,—not over welcome, I should think, but(unconsciously) big with the above result,—appeared in Norway, while King Sigurd wassupreme. Let us explain a little.

This Gylle Krist, the unconsciously fatal


individual, who “spoke Norse imperfectly,” de-clared himself to be the natural son of whilomMagnus Barefoot; born to him there while en-gaged in that unfortunate “Conquest of Ire-land.” “Here is my mother come with me,” saidGilchrist, “who declares my real baptismalname to have been Harald, given me by thatgreat King; and who will carry the red-hotploughshares or do any reasonable ordeal intestimony of these facts. I am King Sigurd’sveritable half-brother: what will King Sigurdthink it fair to do with me?” Sigurd clearlyseems to have believed the man to be speak-ing truth; and indeed nobody to have doubtedbut he was. Sigurd said, “Honorable suste-nance shalt thou have from me here. But, un-der pain of extirpation, swear that, neither inmy time, nor in that of my young son Mag-nus, wilt thou ever claim any share in thisGovernment.” Gylle swore; and punctuallykept his promise during Sigurd’s reign. Butduring Magnus’s, he conspicuously broke it;and, in result, through many reigns, and dur-ing three or four generations afterwards, pro-duced unspeakable contentions, massacrings,confusions in the country he had adopted.There are reckoned, from the time of Sigurd’sdeath (A.D. 1130), about a hundred years ofcivil war: no king allowed to distinguish him-self by a solid reign of well-doing, or by anycontinuing reign at all,—sometimes as manyas four kings simultaneously fighting;—and

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in Norway, from sire to son, nothing but san-guinary anarchy, disaster and bewilderment;a Country sinking steadily as if towards abso-lute ruin. Of all which frightful misery anddiscord Irish Gylle, styled afterwards KingHarald Gylle, was, by ill destiny and other-wise, the visible origin: an illegitimate IrishHaarfagr who proved to be his own destruc-tion, and that of the Haarfagr kindred alto-gether!

Sigurd himself seems always to haverather favored Gylle, who was a cheerful,shrewd, patient, witty, and effective fellow;and had at first much quizzing to endure, fromthe younger kind, on account of his Irish wayof speaking Norse, and for other reasons. Oneevening, for example, while the drink wasgoing round, Gylle mentioned that the Irishhad a wonderful talent of swift running andthat there were among them people who couldkeep up with the swiftest horse. At which, es-pecially from young Magnus, there were pealsof laughter; and a declaration from the lat-ter that Gylle and he would have it tried to-morrow morning! Gylle in vain urged thathe had not himself professed to be so swift arunner as to keep up with the Prince’s horses;but only that there were men in Ireland whocould. Magnus was positive; and, early nextmorning, Gylle had to be on the ground; andthe race, naturally under heavy bet, actu-ally went off. Gylle started parallel to Mag-


nus’s stirrup; ran like a very roe, and wasclearly ahead at the goal. “Unfair,” said Mag-nus; “thou must have had hold of my stirrup-leather, and helped thyself along; we must tryit again.” Gylle ran behind the horse this sec-ond time; then at the end, sprang forward;and again was fairly in ahead. “Thou musthave held by the tail,” said Magnus; “not byfair running was this possible; we must trya third time!” Gylle started ahead of Mag-nus and his horse, this third time; kept aheadwith increasing distance, Magnus gallopinghis very best; and reached the goal more pal-pably foremost than ever. So that Magnus hadto pay his bet, and other damage and humili-ation. And got from his father, who heard of itsoon afterwards, scoffing rebuke as a silly fel-low, who did not know the worth of men, butonly the clothes and rank of them, and welldeserved what he had got from Gylle. All thetime King Sigurd lived, Gylle seems to havehad good recognition and protection from thatfamous man; and, indeed, to have gained fa-vor all round, by his quiet social demeanorand the qualities he showed.

CHAPTER XIII.Magnus the Blind,Harald Gylle, andMutual Extinctionof the Haarfagrs.

On Sigurd the Crusader’s death, Magnus nat-urally came to the throne; Gylle keeping si-lence and a cheerful face for the time. But itwas not long till claim arose on Gylle’s part,till war and fight arose between Magnus andhim, till the skilful, popular, ever-active andshifty Gylle had entirely beaten Magnus; putout his eyes, mutilated the poor body of himin a horrid and unnamable manner, and shuthim up in a convent as out of the game hence-forth. There in his dark misery Magnus livednow as a monk; called “Magnus the Blind” bythose Norse populations; King Harald Gyllereigning victoriously in his stead. But thisalso was only for a time. There arose avenging

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kinsfolk of Magnus, who had no Irish accentin their Norse, and were themselves eagerenough to bear rule in their native country. Byone of these,—a terribly stronghanded, fight-ing, violent, and regardless fellow, who alsowas a Bastard of Magnus Barefoot’s, and hadbeen made a Priest, but liked it unbearably ill,and had broken loose from it into the wildestcourses at home and abroad; so that his cur-rent name got to be “Slembi-diakn,” Slim orIll Deacon, under which he is much noisedof in Snorro and the Sagas: by this Slim-Deacon, Gylle was put an end to (murderedby night, drunk in his sleep); and poor blindMagnus was brought out, and again set to actas King, or King’s Cloak, in hopes Gylle’s pos-terity would never rise to victory more. ButGylle’s posterity did, to victory and also to de-feat, and were the death of Magnus and ofSlim-Deacon too, in a frightful way; and allgot their own death by and by in a ditto. Inbrief, these two kindreds (reckoned to be au-thentic enough Haarfagr people, both kindsof them) proved now to have become a ver-itable crop of dragon’s teeth; who mutuallyfought, plotted, struggled, as if it had beentheir life’s business; never ended fighting andseldom long intermitted it, till they had ex-terminated one another, and did at last allrest in death. One of these later Gylle tempo-rary Kings I remember by the name of Har-ald Herdebred, Harald of the Broad Shoul-

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ders. The very last of them I think was HaraldMund (Harald of the Wry-Mouth), who gaverise to two Impostors, pretending to be Sonsof his, a good while after the poor Wry-Mouthitself and all its troublesome belongings werequietly underground. What Norway sufferedduring that sad century may be imagined.

CHAPTER XIV.Sverrir andDescendants, toHakon the Old.

The end of it was, or rather the first abate-ment, and beginnings of the end, That, whenall this had gone on ever worsening for someforty years or so, one Sverrir (A.D. 1177),at the head of an armed mob of poor peoplecalled Birkebeins, came upon the scene. Astrange enough figure in History, this Sverrirand his Birkebeins! At first a mere mockeryand dismal laughing-stock to the enlightenedNorway public. Nevertheless by unheard-offighting, hungering, exertion, and endurance,Sverrir, after ten years of such a death-wrestleagainst men and things, got himself acceptedas King; and by wonderful expenditure of in-genuity, common cunning, unctuous Parlia-mentary Eloquence or almost Popular Preach-ing, and (it must be owned) general hu-

161


man faculty and valor (or value) in the over-clouded and distorted state, did victoriouslycontinue such. And founded a new Dynastyin Norway, which ended only with Norway’sseparate existence, after near three hundredyears.

This Sverrir called himself a Son of Har-ald Wry-Mouth; but was in reality the son of apoor Comb-maker in some little town of Nor-way; nothing heard of Sonship to Wry-Mouthtill after good success otherwise. His Birke-beins (that is to say, Birchlegs; the poor rebel-lious wretches having taken to the woods; andbeen obliged, besides their intolerable scarcityof food, to thatch their bodies from the coldwith whatever covering could be got, and theirlegs especially with birch bark; sad species offleecy hosiery; whence their nickname),—hisBirkebeins I guess always to have been a kindof Norse Jacquerie: desperate rising of thrallsand indigent people, driven mad by their un-endurable sufferings and famishings,—theirsthe deepest stratum of misery, and the dens-est and heaviest, in this the general mis-ery of Norway, which had lasted towards thethird generation and looked as if it wouldlast forever:—whereupon they had risen pro-claiming, in this furious dumb manner, un-intelligible except to Heaven, that the samecould not, nor would not, be endured anylonger! And, by their Sverrir, strange tosay, they did attain a kind of permanent suc-

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cess; and, from being a dismal laughing-stockin Norway, came to be important, and fora time all-important there. Their opposi-tion nicknames, “Baglers (from Bagall, bac-ulus, bishop’s staff; Bishop Nicholas beingchief Leader),” “Gold-legs,” and the like ob-scure terms (for there was still a considerablecourse of counter-fighting ahead, and espe-cially of counter-nicknaming), I take to havemeant in Norse prefigurement seven cen-turies ago, “bloated Aristocracy,” “tyrannous-Bourgeoisie,"—till, in the next century, theserents were closed again!

King Sverrir, not himself bred to comb-making, had, in his fifth year, gone to an un-cle, Bishop in the Faroe Islands; and got someconsiderable education from him, with a viewto Priesthood on the part of Sverrir. But,not liking that career, Sverrir had fled andsmuggled himself over to the Birkebeins; who,noticing the learned tongue, and other mirac-ulous qualities of the man, proposed to makehim Captain of them; and even threatenedto kill him if he would not accept,—whichthus at the sword’s point, as Sverrir says, hewas obliged to do. It was after this that hethought of becoming son of Wry-Mouth andother higher things.

His Birkebeins and he had certainly a tal-ent of campaigning which has hardly everbeen equalled. They fought like devils againstany odds of number; and before battle they


have been known to march six days togetherwithout food, except, perhaps, the inner barksof trees, and in such clothing and shoeing asmere birch bark:—at one time, somewhere inthe Dovrefjeld, there was serious counsel heldamong them whether they should not all, asone man, leap down into the frozen gulfs andprecipices, or at once massacre one anotherwholly, and so finish. Of their conduct in bat-tle, fiercer than that of Baresarks, where wasthere ever seen the parallel? In truth they area dim strange object to one, in that black time;wondrously bringing light into it withal; andproved to be, under such unexpected circum-stances, the beginning of better days!

Of Sverrir’s public speeches there still ex-ist authentic specimens; wonderful indeed,and much characteristic of such a Sverrir. Acomb-maker King, evidently meaning severalgood and solid things; and effecting them too,athwart such an element of Norwegian chaos-come-again. His descendants and successorswere a comparatively respectable kin. Thelast and greatest of them I shall mention isHakon VII., or Hakon the Old; whose fame isstill lively among us, from the Battle of Largsat least.

CHAPTER XV.Hakon the Old atLargs.

In the Norse annals our famous Battle ofLargs makes small figure, or almost none atall among Hakon’s battles and feats. Theydo say indeed, these Norse annalists, thatthe King of Scotland, Alexander III. (who hadsuch a fate among the crags about Kinghornin time coming), was very anxious to purchasefrom King Hakon his sovereignty of the West-ern Isles, but that Hakon pointedly refused;and at length, being again importuned andbothered on the business, decided on giving arefusal that could not be mistaken. Decided,namely, to go with a big expedition, and lookthoroughly into that wing of his Dominions;where no doubt much has fallen awry sinceMagnus Barefoot’s grand visit thither, andseems to be inviting the cupidity of bad neigh-bors! “All this we will put right again,” thinksHakon, “and gird it up into a safe and defen-

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sive posture.” Hakon sailed accordingly, witha strong fleet; adjusting and rectifying amonghis Hebrides as he went long, and landingwithal on the Scotch coast to plunder and pun-ish as he thought fit. The Scots say he hadclaimed of them Arran, Bute, and the TwoCumbraes ("given my ancestors by DonaldBain,” said Hakon, to the amazement of theScots) “as part of the Sudoer” (Southern Isles):—so far from selling that fine kingdom!—andthat it was after taking both Arran and Butethat he made his descent at Largs.

Of Largs there is no mention whateverin Norse books. But beyond any doubt,such is the other evidence, Hakon did landthere; land and fight, not conquering, proba-bly rather beaten; and very certainly “retiringto his ships,” as in either case he behoovedto do! It is further certain he was dread-fully maltreated by the weather on those wildcoasts; and altogether credible, as the Scotchrecords bear, that he was so at Largs veryspecially. The Norse Records or Sagas saymerely, he lost many of his ships by the tem-pests, and many of his men by land fightingin various parts,—tacitly including Largs, nodoubt, which was the last of these misfortunesto him. “In the battle here he lost 15,000 men,say the Scots, we 5,000”! Divide these num-bers by ten, and the excellently brief and lucidScottish summary by Buchanan may be taken

Hakon the Old at Largs 167

as the approximately true and exact.19 Date ofthe battle is A.D. 1263.

To this day, on a little plain to the south ofthe village, now town, of Largs, in Ayrshire,there are seen stone cairns and monumentalheaps, and, until within a century ago, onehuge, solitary, upright stone; still mutely tes-tifying to a battle there,—altogether clearly,to this battle of King Hakon’s; who by theNorse records, too, was in these neighbor-hoods at that same date, and evidently in anaggressive, high kind of humor. For “whilehis ships and army were doubling the Mull ofCantire, he had his own boat set on wheels,and therein, splendidly enough, had him-self drawn across the Promontory at a flatterpart,” no doubt with horns sounding, bannerswaving. “All to the left of me is mine and Nor-way’s,” exclaimed Hakon in his triumphantboat progress, which such disasters soon fol-lowed.

Hakon gathered his wrecks together, andsorrowfully made for Orkney. It is possibleenough, as our Guide Books now say, he mayhave gone by Iona, Mull, and the narrow seasinside of Skye; and that the Kyle-Akin, fa-vorably known to sea-bathers in that region,may actually mean the Kyle (narrow strait) ofHakon, where Hakon may have dropped an-chor, and rested for a little while in smoothwater and beautiful environment, safe from

19Buchanani Hist. i. 130.


equinoctial storms. But poor Hakon’s heartwas now broken. He went to Orkney; diedthere in the winter; never beholding Norwaymore.

He it was who got Iceland, which hadbeen a Republic for four centuries, united tohis kingdom of Norway: a long and intri-cate operation,—much presided over by ourSnorro Sturleson, so often quoted here, whoindeed lost his life (by assassination from hissons-in-law) and out of great wealth sank atonce into poverty of zero,—one midnight inhis own cellar, in the course of that bad busi-ness. Hakon was a great Politician in his time;and succeeded in many things before he lostLargs. Snorro’s death by murder had hap-pened about twenty years before Hakon’s bybroken heart. He is called Hakon the Old,though one finds his age was but fifty-nine,probably a longish life for a Norway King.Snorro’s narrative ceases when Snorro him-self was born; that is to say, at the threshold ofKing Sverrir; of whose exploits and doubtfulbirth it is guessed by some that Snorro will-ingly forbore to speak in the hearing of such aHakon.

CHAPTER XVI.Epilogue.

Haarfagr’s kindred lasted some three cen-turies in Norway; Sverrir’s lasted into itsthird century there; how long after this,among the neighboring kinships, I did not in-quire. For, by regal affinities, consanguini-ties, and unexpected chances and changes, thethree Scandinavian kingdoms fell all peace-ably together under Queen Margaret, of theCalmar Union (A.D. 1397); and Norway, incor-porated now with Denmark, needed no morekings.

The History of these Haarfagrs has awak-ened in me many thoughts: Of Despotismand Democracy, arbitrary government by oneand self-government (which means no govern-ment, or anarchy) by all; of Dictatorship withmany faults, and Universal Suffrage with lit-tle possibility of any virtue. For the contrastbetween Olaf Tryggveson, and a Universal-Suffrage Parliament or an “Imperial” CopperCaptain has, in these nine centuries, grown

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to be very great. And the eternal Providencethat guides all this, and produces alike theseentities with their epochs, is not its coursestill through the great deep? Does not it stillspeak to us, if we have ears? Here, clothed instormy enough passions and instincts, uncon-scious of any aim but their own satisfaction, isthe blessed beginning of Human Order, Regu-lation, and real Government; there, clothed ina highly different, but again suitable garni-ture of passions, instincts, and equally uncon-scious as to real aim, is the accursed-lookingending (temporary ending) of Order, Regula-tion, and Government;—very dismal to thesane onlooker for the time being; not dismalto him otherwise, his hope, too, being stead-fast! But here, at any rate, in this poor Norsetheatre, one looks with interest on the firsttransformation, so mysterious and abstruse,of human Chaos into something of articulateCosmos; witnesses the wild and strange birth-pangs of Human Society, and reflects thatwithout something similar (little as men ex-pect such now), no Cosmos of human societyever was got into existence, nor can ever againbe.

The violences, fightings, crimes—ahyes, these seldom fail, and they are verylamentable. But always, too, among those oldpopulations, there was one saving element;the now want of which, especially the un-lamented want, transcends all lamentation.


Here is one of those strange, piercing, winged-words of Ruskin, which has in it a terribletruth for us in these epochs now come:—

“My friends, the follies of modern Lib-eralism, many and great though they be,are practically summed in this denial or ne-glect of the quality and intrinsic value ofthings. Its rectangular beatitudes, and spher-ical benevolences,—theology of universal in-dulgence, and jurisprudence which will hangno rogues, mean, one and all of them, inthe root, incapacity of discerning, or refusalto discern, worth and unworth in anything,and least of all in man; whereas Nature andHeaven command you, at your peril, to dis-cern worth from unworth in everything, andmost of all in man. Your main problem is thatancient and trite one, ‘Who is best man?’ andthe Fates forgive much,—forgive the wildest,fiercest, cruelest experiments,—if fairly madefor the determination of that.

Theft and blood-guiltiness are not pleasingin their sight; yet the favoring powers of thespiritual and material world will confirm toyou your stolen goods, and their noblest voicesapplaud the lifting of Your spear, and rehearsethe sculpture of your shield, if only your rob-bing and slaying have been in fair arbitra-ment of that question, ‘Who is best man?’ Butif you refuse such inquiry, and maintain ev-ery man for his neighbor’s match,—if you givevote to the simple and liberty to the vile, the


powers of those spiritual and material worldsin due time present you inevitably with thesame problem, soluble now only wrong sideupwards; and your robbing and slaying mustbe 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, andlowest circle in the Inferno of Worst, you aresure to find, and to be governed by."20 All read-ers will admit that there was something natu-rally royal in these Haarfagr Kings. A wildlygreat kind of kindred; counts in it two Heroesof a high, or almost highest, type: the firsttwo Olafs, Tryggveson and the Saint. And theview of them, withal, as we chance to have it,I have often thought, how essentially Home-ric it was:—indeed what is “Homer” himselfbut the Rhapsody of five centuries of GreekSkalds and wandering Ballad-singers, done(i.e. “stitched together”) by somebody moremusical than Snorro was? Olaf Tryggvesonand Olaf Saint please me quite as well intheir prosaic form; offering me the truth ofthem as if seen in their real lineaments bysome marvellous opening (through the art ofSnorro) across the black strata of the ages.Two high, almost among the highest sons ofNature, seen as they veritably were; fairlycomparable or superior to god-like Achilleus,goddess-wounding Diomedes, much more tothe two Atreidai, Regulators of the Peoples.

20Fors Clavigera, Letter XIV. Pp. 8-10.


I have also thought often what a Bookmight be made of Snorro, did there but arisea man furnished with due literary insight,and indefatigable diligence; who, faithfullyacquainting himself with the topography, themonumental relies and illustrative actualitiesof Norway, carefully scanning the best testi-monies as to place and time which that coun-try can still give him, carefully the best collat-eral records and chronologies of other coun-tries, and who, himself possessing the high-est faculty of a Poet, could, abridging, arrang-ing, elucidating, reduce Snorro to a polishedCosmic state, unweariedly purging away hismuch chaotic matter! A modern “highest kindof Poet,” capable of unlimited slavish laborwithal;—who, I fear, is not soon to be expectedin this world, or likely to find his task in theHeimskringla if he did appear here.

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