EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY. 

by Thomas Carlyle

Transcriber's Note: The text has been taken from volume 19 of the"Sterling Edition" of Carlyle's complete works. All footnotes have beencollected as endnotes. The pound (currency) symbol has been replaced bythe word "pounds". 

The Icelanders, in their long winter, had a great habit of writing; andwere, and still are, excellent in penmanship, says Dahlmann. It is tothis fact, that any little history there is of the Norse Kings and theirold tragedies, crimes and heroisms, is almost all due. The Icelanders, it seems, not only made beautiful letters on their paper or parchment, but were laudably observant and desirous of accuracy; and have leftus such a collection of narratives (_Sagas_, literally "Says") as, for quantity and quality, is unexampled among rude nations. SnorroSturleson's History of the Norse Kings is built out of these oldSagas; and has in it a great deal of poetic fire, not a little faithfulsagacity applied in sifting and adjusting these old Sagas; and, in aword, deserves, were it once well edited, furnished with accuratemaps, chronological summaries, &c. , to be reckoned among the greathistory-books of the world. It is from these sources, greatly aided byaccurate, learned and unwearied Dahlmann, [1] the German Professor, thatthe following rough notes of the early Norway Kings are hastily throwntogether. In Histories of England (Rapin's excepted) next to nothing hasbeen shown of the many and strong threads of connection between Englishaffairs and Norse. 

CHAPTER I. HARALD HAARFAGR. 

Till about the Year of Grace 860 there were no kings in Norway, nothingbut numerous jarls, --essentially kinglets, each presiding over a kind ofrepublican or parliamentary little territory; generally striving eachto be on some terms of human neighborhood with those about him, but, --inspite of "_Fylke Things_" (Folk Things, little parish parliaments), and small combinations of these, which had gradually formedthemselves, --often reduced to the unhappy state of quarrel with them. Harald Haarfagr was the first to put an end to this state of things, andbecome memorable and profitable to his country by uniting it underone head and making a kingdom of it; which it has continued to be eversince. His father, Halfdan the Black, had already begun this rough butsalutary process, --inspired by the cupidities and instincts, by thefaculties and opportunities, which the good genius of this world, beneficent often enough under savage forms, and diligent at all times todiminish anarchy as the world's worst savagery, usually appoints insuch cases, --conquest, hard fighting, followed by wise guidance of theconquered;--but it was Harald the Fairhaired, his son, who conspicuouslycarried it on and completed it. Harald's birth-year, death-year, andchronology in general, are known only by inference and computation; but, by the latest reckoning, he died about the year 933 of our era, a man ofeighty-three. 

The business of conquest lasted Harald about twelve years (A. D. 860-872?), in which he subdued also the vikings of the out-islands, Orkneys, Shetlands, Hebrides, and Man. Sixty more years were given himto consolidate and regulate what he had conquered, which he did withgreat judgment, industry and success. His reign altogether is counted tohave been of over seventy years. 

The beginning of his great adventure was of a romanticcharacter. --youthful love for the beautiful Gyda, a then glorious andfamous young lady of those regions, whom the young Harald aspired tomarry. Gyda answered his embassy and prayer in a distant, lofty manner:"Her it would not beseem to wed any Jarl or poor creature of that kind;let him do as Gorm of Denmark, Eric of Sweden, Egbert of England, and others had done, --subdue into peace and regulation the confused, contentious bits of jarls round him, and become a king; then, perhaps, she might think of his proposal: till then, not. " Harald was struck withthis proud answer, which rendered Gyda tenfold more desirable to him. He vowed to let his hair grow, never to cut or even to comb it till thisfeat were done, and the peerless Gyda his own. He proceeded accordinglyto conquer, in fierce battle, a Jarl or two every year, and, at the endof twelve years, had his unkempt (and almost unimaginable) head of hairclipt off, --Jarl Rognwald (_Reginald_) of More, the most valued andvaluable of all his subject-jarls, being promoted to this sublime barberfunction;--after which King Harald, with head thoroughly cleaned, andhair grown, or growing again to the luxuriant beauty that had no equalin his day, brought home his Gyda, and made her the brightest queenin all the north. He had after her, in succession, or perhaps evensimultaneously in some cases, at least six other wives; and by Gydaherself one daughter and four sons. 

Harald was not to be considered a strict-living man, and he had a greatdeal of trouble, as we shall see, with the tumultuous ambition of hissons; but he managed his government, aided by Jarl Rognwald and others, in a large, quietly potent, and successful manner; and it lasted in thisroyal form till his death, after sixty years of it. 

These were the times of Norse colonization; proud Norsemen flying intoother lands, to freer scenes, --to Iceland, to the Faroe Islands, whichwere hitherto quite vacant (tenanted only by some mournful hermit, Irish Christian _fakir_, or so); still more copiously to the Orkney andShetland Isles, the Hebrides and other countries where Norse squattersand settlers already were. Settlement of Iceland, we say; settlementof 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 three little islets far north, near the Fjord of Folden, called the Three Vigten Islands; but hischief means of living was that of sea robbery; which, or at least Rolf'sconduct in which, Harald did not approve of. In the Court of Harald, sea-robbery was strictly forbidden as between Harald's own countries, but as against foreign countries it continued to be the one professionfor a gentleman; thus, I read, Harald's own chief son, King Eric thatafterwards was, had been at sea in such employments ever since histwelfth year. Rolf's crime, however, was that in coming home from one ofthese expeditions, his crew having fallen short of victual, Rolf landedwith them on the shore of Norway, and in his strait, drove in somecattle there (a crime by law) and proceeded to kill and eat; which, in alittle while, he heard that King Harald was on foot to inquire into andpunish; whereupon Rolf the Ganger speedily got into his ships again, gotto the coast of France with his sea-robbers, got infestment by the poorKing of France in the fruitful, shaggy desert which is since calledNormandy, land of the Northmen; and there, gradually felling theforests, banking the rivers, tilling the fields, became, during the nexttwo centuries, Wilhelmus Conquaestor, the man famous to England, andmomentous at this day, not to England alone, but to all speakers of theEnglish tongue, now spread from side to side of the world in a wonderfuldegree. Tancred of Hauteville and his Italian Normans, though importanttoo, in Italy, are not worth naming in comparison. This is a feraciousearth, and the grain of mustard-seed will grow to miraculous extent insome cases. 

Harald's chief helper, counsellor, and lieutenant was theabove-mentioned Jarl Rognwald of More, who had the honor to cut Harald'sdreadful head of hair. This Rognwald was father of Turf-Einar, who firstinvented peat in the Orkneys, finding the wood all gone there; andis remembered to this day. Einar, being come to these islands by KingHarald's permission, to see what he could do in them, --islandsinhabited by what miscellany of Picts, Scots, Norse squatters we do notknow, --found the indispensable fuel all wasted. Turf-Einar too may beregarded as a benefactor to his kind. He was, it appears, a bastard;and got no coddling from his father, who disliked him, partly perhaps, because "he was ugly and blind of an eye, "--got no flattering even onhis conquest of the Orkneys and invention of peat. Here is the partingspeech his father made to him on fitting him out with a "long-ship"(ship of war, "dragon-ship, " ancient seventy-four), and sending himforth to make a living for himself in the world: "It were best if thounever camest back, for I have small hope that thy people will have honorby thee; thy mother's kin throughout is slavish. "

Harald Haarfagr had a good many sons and daughters; the daughters hemarried mostly to jarls of due merit who were loyal to him; with thesons, as remarked above, he had a great deal of trouble. They wereambitious, stirring fellows, and grudged at their finding so littlepromotion from a father so kind to his jarls; sea-robbery by no meansan adequate career for the sons of a great king, two of them, HalfdanHaaleg (Long-leg), and Gudrod Ljome (Gleam), jealous of the favors wonby the great Jarl Rognwald, surrounded him in his house one night, andburnt him and sixty men to death there. That was the end of Rognwald, the invaluable jarl, always true to Haarfagr; and distinguished in worldhistory by producing Rolf the Ganger, author of the Norman Conquest ofEngland, and Turf-Einar, who invented peat in the Orkneys. Whether Rolfhad left Norway at this time there is no chronology to tell me. As toRolf's surname, "Ganger, " there are various hypotheses; the likeliest, perhaps, that Rolf was so weighty a man no horse (small Norwegianhorses, big ponies rather) could carry him, and that he usually walked, having a mighty stride withal, and great velocity on foot. 

One of these murderers of Jarl Rognwald quietly set himself inRognwald's place, the other making for Orkney to serve Turf-Einar inlike fashion. Turf-Einar, taken by surprise, fled to the mainland; butreturned, days or perhaps weeks after, ready for battle, fought withHalfdan, put his party to flight, and at next morning's light searchedthe island and slew all the men he found. As to Halfdan Long-leghimself, in fierce memory of his own murdered father, Turf-Einar "cut aneagle on his back, " that is to say, hewed the ribs from each side of thespine and turned them out like the wings of a spread-eagle: a mode ofNorse vengeance fashionable at that time in extremely aggravated cases!

Harald Haarfagr, in the mean time, had descended upon the Rognwaldscene, not in mild mood towards the new jarl there; indignantlydismissed said jarl, and appointed a brother of Rognwald (brother, notesDahlmann), though Rognwald had left other sons. Which done, Haarfagrsailed with all speed to the Orkneys, there to avenge that cutting of aneagle on the human back on Turf-Einar's part. Turf-Einar did not resist;submissively met the angry Haarfagr, said he left it all, what had beendone, what provocation there had been, to Haarfagr's own equity andgreatness of mind. Magnanimous Haarfagr inflicted a fine of sixty marksin gold, which was paid in ready money by Turf-Einar, and so the matterended. 

CHAPTER II. ERIC BLOOD-AXE AND BROTHERS. 

In such violent courses Haarfagr's sons, I know not how many of them, had come to an untimely end; only Eric, the accomplished sea-rover, andthree others remained to him. Among these four sons, rather impatientfor property and authority of their own, King Harald, in his old days, tried to part his kingdom in some eligible and equitable way, and retirefrom the constant press of business, now becoming burdensome to him. Toeach of them he gave a kind of kingdom; Eric, his eldest son, to be headking, and the others to be feudatory under him, and pay a certain yearlycontribution; an arrangement which did not answer well at all. Head-KingEric insisted on his tribute; quarrels arose as to the payment, considerable fighting and disturbance, bringing fierce destruction fromKing Eric upon many valiant but too stubborn Norse spirits, and amongthe rest upon all his three brothers, which got him from the Norsepopulations the surname of _Blod-axe_, "Eric Blood-axe, " his title inhistory. One of his brothers he had killed in battle before his oldfather's life ended; this brother was Bjorn, a peaceable, improving, trading economic Under-king, whom the others mockingly called "Bjornthe Chapman. " The great-grandson of this Bjorn became extremelydistinguished by and by as _Saint_ Olaf. Head-King Eric seems to havehad a violent wife, too. She was thought to have poisoned one of herother brothers-in-law. Eric Blood-axe had by no means a gentle lifeof it in this world, trained to sea-robbery on the coasts of England, Scotland, Ireland and France, since his twelfth year. 

Old King Fairhair, at the age of seventy, had another son, to whom wasgiven the name of Hakon. His mother was a slave in Fairhair's house;slave by ill-luck of war, though nobly enough born. A strange adventureconnects this Hakon with England and King Athelstan, who was thenentering upon his great career there. Short while after this Hakon cameinto the world, there entered Fairhair's palace, one evening as Fairhairsat Feasting, an English ambassador or messenger, bearing in his hand, as gift from King Athelstan, a magnificent sword, with gold hilt andother fine trimmings, to the great Harald, King of Norway. Haraldtook the sword, drew it, or was half drawing it, admiringly from thescabbard, when the English excellency broke into a scornful laugh, "Ha, ha; thou art now the feudatory of my English king; thou hast acceptedthe sword from him, and art now his man!" (acceptance of a sword in thatmanner being the symbol of investiture in those days. ) Harald lookeda trifle flurried, it is probable; but held in his wrath, and didno damage to the tricksy Englishman. He kept the matter in his mind, however, and next summer little Hakon, having got his weaning done, --oneof the prettiest, healthiest little creatures, --Harald sent him off, under charge of "Hauk" (Hawk so called), one of his Principal, warriors, with order, "Take him to England, " and instructions what to do with himthere. And accordingly, one evening, Hauk, with thirty men escorting, strode into Athelstan's high dwelling (where situated, how built, whether with logs like Harald's, I cannot specifically say), intoAthelstan's high presence, and silently set the wild little cherub uponAthelstan's knee. "What is this?" asked Athelstan, looking at the littlecherub. "This is King Harald's son, whom a serving-maid bore to him, andwhom he now gives thee as foster-child!" Indignant Athelstan drew hissword, as if to do the gift a mischief; but Hauk said, "Thou hast takenhim on thy knee [common symbol of adoption]; thou canst kill him if thouwilt; but thou dost not thereby kill all the sons of Harald. " Athelstanstraightway took milder thoughts; brought up, and carefully educatedHakon; from whom, and this singular adventure, came, before very long, the first tidings of Christianity into Norway. 

Harald Haarfagr, latterly withdrawn from all kinds of business, diedat the age of eighty-three--about A. D. 933, as is computed; nearlycontemporary in death with the first Danish King, Gorm the Old, who haddone a corresponding feat in reducing Denmark under one head. Remarkableold men, these two first kings; and possessed of gifts for bringingChaos a little nearer to the form of Cosmos; possessed, in fact, ofloyalties to Cosmos, that is to say, of authentic virtues in the savagestate, such as have been needed in all societies at their incipience inthis world; a kind of "virtues" hugely in discredit at present, but notunlikely to be needed again, to the astonishment of careless persons, before all is done!

CHAPTER III. HAKON THE GOOD. 

Eric Blood-axe, whose practical reign is counted to have begun aboutA. D. 930, had by this time, or within a year or so of this time, prettymuch extinguished all his brother kings, and crushed down recalcitrantspirits, in his violent way; but had naturally become entirely unpopularin Norway, and filled it with silent discontent and even rage againsthim. Hakon Fairhair's last son, the little foster-child of Athelstan inEngland, who had been baptized and carefully educated, was come tohis fourteenth or fifteenth year at his father's death; a veryshining youth, as Athelstan saw with just pleasure. So soon as the fewpreliminary preparations had been settled, Hakon, furnished with a shipor two by Athelstan, suddenly appeared in Norway got acknowledged bythe Peasant Thing in Trondhjem "the news of which flew over Norway, likefire through dried grass, " says an old chronicler. So that Eric, withhis Queen Gunhild, and seven small children, had to run; no other shiftfor Eric. They went to the Orkneys first of all, then to England, andhe "got Northumberland as earldom, " I vaguely hear, from Athelstan. But Eric soon died, and his queen, with her children, went back tothe Orkneys in search of refuge or help; to little purpose there orelsewhere. From Orkney she went to Denmark, where Harald Blue-tooth tookher poor eldest boy as foster-child; but I fear did not very faithfullykeep that promise. The Danes had been robbing extensively during thelate tumults in Norway; this the Christian Hakon, now established there, paid in kind, and the two countries were at war; so that Gunhild'slittle boy was a welcome card in the hand of Blue-tooth. 

Hakon proved a brilliant and successful king; regulated many things, public law among others (_Gule-Thing_ Law, _Frost-Thing_ Law: theseare little codes of his accepted by their respective Things, and had asalutary effect in their time); with prompt dexterity he drove back theBlue-tooth foster-son invasions every time they came; and on the wholegained for himself the name of Hakon the Good. These Danish invasionswere a frequent source of trouble to him, but his greatest and continualtrouble was that of extirpating heathen idolatry from Norway, andintroducing the Christian Evangel in its stead. His transcendent anxietyto achieve this salutary enterprise was all along his grand difficultyand stumbling-block; the heathen opposition to it being also rootedand great. Bishops and priests from England Hakon had, preaching andbaptizing what they could, but making only slow progress; much too slowfor Hakon's zeal. On the other hand, every Yule-tide, when the chiefheathen were assembled in his own palace on their grand sacrificialfestival, there was great pressure put upon Hakon, as to sprinklingwith horse-blood, drinking Yule-beer, eating horse-flesh, and the otherdistressing rites; the whole of which Hakon abhorred, and with allhis steadfastness strove to reject utterly. Sigurd, Jarl of Lade(Trondhjem), a liberal heathen, not openly a Christian, was ever a wisecounsellor and conciliator in such affairs; and proved of great helpto Hakon. Once, for example, there having risen at a Yule-feast, loud, almost stormful demand that Hakon, like a true man and brother, shoulddrink Yule-beer with them in their sacred hightide, Sigurd persuaded himto comply, for peace's sake, at least, in form. Hakon took the cup inhis left hand (excellent hot _beer_), and with his right cut the signof the cross above it, then drank a draught. "Yes; but what is this withthe king's right hand?" cried the company. "Don't you see?" answeredshifty Sigurd; "he makes the sign of Thor's hammer before drinking!"which quenched the matter for the time. 

Horse-flesh, horse-broth, and the horse ingredient generally, Hakon allbut inexorably declined. By Sigurd's pressing exhortation and entreaty, he did once take a kettle of horsebroth by the handle, with a good dealof linen-quilt or towel interposed, and did open his lips for what ofsteam could insinuate itself. At another time he consented to a particleof horse-liver, intending privately, I guess, to keep it outside thegullet, and smuggle it away without swallowing; but farther than thisnot even Sigurd could persuade him to go. At the Things held in regardto this matter Hakon's success was always incomplete; now and then itwas plain failure, and Hakon had to draw back till a better time. Hereis one specimen of the response he got on such an occasion; curiousspecimen, withal, of antique parliamentary eloquence from anAnti-Christian Thing. 

At a Thing of all the Fylkes of Trondhjem, Thing held at Froste in thatregion, King Hakon, with all the eloquence he had, signified that it wasimperatively necessary that all Bonders and sub-Bonders should becomeChristians, and believe in one God, Christ the Son of Mary; renouncingentirely blood sacrifices and heathen idols; should keep every seventhday holy, abstain from labor that day, and even from food, devoting theday to fasting and sacred meditation. Whereupon, by way of universalanswer, arose a confused universal murmur of entire dissent. "Take awayfrom us our old belief, and also our time for labor!" murmured they inangry astonishment; "how can even the land be got tilled in that way?""We cannot work if we don't get food, " said the hand laborers andslaves. "It lies in King Hakon's blood, " remarked others; "his fatherand all his kindred were apt to be stingy about food, though liberalenough with money. " At length, one Osbjorn (or Bear of the Asen or Gods, what we now call Osborne), one Osbjorn of Medalhusin Gulathal, stept forward, and said, in a distinct manner, "We Bonders (peasantproprietors) thought, King Hakon, when thou heldest thy first Thing-dayhere in Trondhjem, and we took thee for our king, and received ourhereditary lands from thee again that we had got heaven itself. Butnow we know not how it is, whether we have won freedom, or whether thouintendest anew to make us slaves, with this wonderful proposal that weshould renounce our faith, which our fathers before us have held, andall our ancestors as well, first in the age of burial by burning, andnow in that of earth burial; and yet these departed ones were much oursuperiors, and their faith, too, has brought prosperity to us. Thee, atthe same time, we have loved so much that we raised thee to manage allthe laws of the land, and speak as their voice to us all. And even nowit is our will and the vote of all Bonders to keep that paction whichthou gavest us here on the Thing at Froste, and to maintain thee as kingso long as any of us Bonders who are here upon the Thing has life left, provided thou, king, wilt go fairly to work, and demand of us only suchthings as are not impossible. But if thou wilt fix upon this thing withso great obstinacy, and employ force and power, in that case, we Bondershave taken the resolution, all of us, to fall away from thee, and totake for ourselves another head, who will so behave that we may enjoyin freedom the belief which is agreeable to us. Now shalt thou, king, choose one of these two courses before the Thing disperse. " "Whereupon, "adds the Chronicle, "all the Bonders raised a mighty shout, 'Yes, we will have it so, as has been said. '" So that Jarl Sigurd had tointervene, and King Hakon to choose for the moment the milder branch ofthe alternative. [4] At other Things Hakon was more or less successful. All his days, by such methods as there were, he kept pressing forwardwith this great enterprise; and on the whole did thoroughly shakeasunder the old edifice of heathendom, and fairly introduce somefoundation for the new and better rule of faith and life among hispeople. Sigurd, Jarl of Lade, his wise counsellor in all these matters, is also a man worthy of notice. 

Hakon's arrangements against the continual invasions of Eric's sons, with Danish Blue-tooth backing them, were manifold, and for a long timesuccessful. He appointed, after consultation and consent in the variousThings, so many war-ships, fully manned and ready, to be furnishedinstantly on the King's demand by each province or fjord; watch-fires, on fit places, from hill to hill all along the coast, were to becarefully set up, carefully maintained in readiness, and kindled on anyalarm of war. By such methods Blue-tooth and Co. 's invasions were for along while triumphantly, and even rapidly, one and all of them, beatenback, till at length they seemed as if intending to cease altogether, and leave Hakon alone of them. But such was not their issue after all. The sons of Eric had only abated under constant discouragement, had notfinally left off from what seemed their one great feasibility inlife. Gunhild, their mother, was still with them: a most contriving, fierce-minded, irreconcilable woman, diligent and urgent on them, inseason and out of season; and as for King Blue-tooth, he was at alltimes ready to help, with his good-will at least. 

That of the alarm-fires on Hakon's part was found troublesome by hispeople; sometimes it was even hurtful and provoking (lighting youralarm-fires and rousing the whole coast and population, when it wasnothing but some paltry viking with a couple of ships); in short, thealarm-signal system fell into disuse, and good King Hakon himself, in the first place, paid the penalty. It is counted, by the latestcommentators, to have been about A. D. 961, sixteenth or seventeenth yearof Hakon's pious, valiant, and worthy reign. Being at a feast one day, with many guests, on the Island of Stord, sudden announcement cameto him that ships from the south were approaching in quantity, andevidently ships of war. This was the biggest of all the Blue-toothfoster-son invasions; and it was fatal to Hakon the Good that night. Eyvind the Skaldaspillir (annihilator of all other Skalds), in his famed_Hakon's Song_, gives account, and, still more pertinently, the alwayspractical Snorro. Danes in great multitude, six to one, as peopleafterwards computed, springing swiftly to land, and ranking themselves;Hakon, nevertheless, at once deciding not to take to his ships andrun, but to fight there, one to six; fighting, accordingly, in hismost splendid manner, and at last gloriously prevailing; routing andscattering back to their ships and flight homeward these six-to-oneDanes. "During the struggle of the fight, " says Snorro, "he was veryconspicuous among other men; and while the sun shone, his bright gildedhelmet glanced, and thereby many weapons were directed at him. One ofhis henchmen, Eyvind Finnson (_i. E. _ Skaldaspillir, the poet), took ahat, and put it over the king's helmet. Now, among the hostile firstleaders were two uncles of the Ericsons, brothers of Gunhild, greatchampions both; Skreya, the elder of them, on the disappearance of theglittering helmet, shouted boastfully, 'Does the king of the Norsemenhide himself, then, or has he fled? Where now is the golden helmet?' Andso saying, Skreya, and his brother Alf with him, pushed on like fools ormadmen. The king said, 'Come on in that way, and you shall find the kingof the Norsemen. '" And in a short space of time braggart Skreya didcome up, swinging his sword, and made a cut at the king; but Thoralf theStrong, an Icelander, who fought at the king's side, dashed his shieldso hard against Skreya, that he tottered with the shock. On the sameinstant the king takes his sword "quernbiter" (able to cut _querns_or millstones) with both hands, and hews Skreya through helm and head, cleaving him down to the shoulders. Thoralf also slew Alf. That was whatthey got by such over-hasty search for the king of the Norsemen. [5]

Snorro considers the fall of these two champion uncles as the crisis ofthe fight; the Danish force being much disheartened by such a sight, andKing Hakon now pressing on so hard that all men gave way before him, the battle on the Ericson part became a whirl of recoil; and in a fewminutes more a torrent of mere flight and haste to get on board theirships, and put to sea again; in which operation many of them weredrowned, says Snorro; survivors making instant sail for Denmark in thatsad condition. 

This seems to have been King Hakon's finest battle, and the mostconspicuous of his victories, due not a little to his own grandqualities shown on the occasion. But, alas! it was his last also. He wasstill zealously directing the chase of that mad Danish flight, or whirlof recoil towards their ships, when an arrow, shot Most likely at aventure, hit him under the left armpit; and this proved his death. 

He was helped into his ship, and made sail for Alrekstad, where hischief residence in those parts was; but had to stop at a smaller placeof his (which had been his mother's, and where he himself was born)--aplace called Hella (the Flat Rock), still known as "Hakon's Hella, "faint from loss of blood, and crushed down as he had never before felt. Having no son and only one daughter, he appointed these invasive sonsof Eric to be sent for, and if he died to become king; but to "spare hisfriends and kindred. " "If a longer life be granted me, " he said, "I willgo out of this land to Christian men, and do penance for what I havecommitted against God. But if I die in the country of the heathen, letme have such burial as you yourselves think fittest. " These are hislast recorded words. And in heathen fashion he was buried, and besung byEyvind and the Skalds, though himself a zealously Christian king. Hakonthe _Good_; so one still finds him worthy of being called. The sorrow onHakon's death, Snorro tells us, was so great and universal, "that hewas lamented both by friends and enemies; and they said that never againwould Norway see such a king. "

CHAPTER IV. HARALD GREYFELL AND BROTHERS. 

Eric's sons, four or five of them, with a Harald at the top, now at oncegot Norway in hand, all of it but Trondhjem, as king and under-kings;and made a severe time of it for those who had been, or seemed to be, their enemies. Excellent Jarl Sigurd, always so useful to Hakon and hiscountry, was killed by them; and they came to repent that before verylong. The slain Sigurd left a son, Hakon, as Jarl, who became famousin the northern world by and by. This Hakon, and him only, would theTrondhjemers accept as sovereign. "Death to him, then, " said the sonsof Eric, but only in secret, till they had got their hands free andwere ready; which was not yet for some years. Nay, Hakon, when actuallyattacked, made good resistance, and threatened to cause trouble. Nor didhe by any means get his death from these sons of Eric at this time, ortill long afterwards at all, from one of their kin, as it chanced. Onthe contrary, he fled to Denmark now, and by and by managed to comeback, to their cost. 

Among their other chief victims were two cousins of their own, Tryggveand Gudrod, who had been honest under-kings to the late head-king, Hakonthe Good; but were now become suspect, and had to fight for their lives, and lose them in a tragic manner. Tryggve had a son, whom we shall hearof. Gudrod, son of worthy Bjorn the Chapman, was grandfather of SaintOlaf, whom all men have heard of, --who has a church in Southwark even, and another in Old Jewry, to this hour. In all these violences, Gunhild, widow of the late king Eric, was understood to have a principal hand. She had come back to Norway with her sons; and naturally passed for thesecret adviser and Maternal President in whatever of violence went on;always reckoned a fell, vehement, relentless personage where her owninterests were concerned. Probably as things settled, her influence onaffairs grew less. At least one hopes so; and, in the Sagas, hears lessand less of her, and before long nothing. 

Harald, the head-king in this Eric fraternity, does not seem to havebeen a bad man, --the contrary indeed; but his position was untowardly, full of difficulty and contradictions. Whatever Harald could accomplishfor behoof of Christianity, or real benefit to Norway, in these crosscircumstances, he seems to have done in a modest and honest manner. Hegot the name of _Greyfell_ from his people on a very trivial account, but seemingly with perfect good humor on their part. Some Iceland traderhad brought a cargo of furs to Trondhjem (Lade) for sale; sale beingslacker than the Icelander wished, he presented a chosen specimen, cloak, doublet, or whatever it was, to Harald; who wore it withacceptance in public, and rapidly brought disposal of the Icelander'sstock, and the surname of _Greyfell_ to himself. His under-kings and hewere certainly not popular, though I almost think Greyfell himself, inabsence of his mother and the under-kings, might have been so. But herethey all were, and had wrought great trouble in Norway. "Too many ofthem, " said everybody; "too many of these courts and court people, eating up any substance that there is. " For the seasons withal, two orthree of them in succession, were bad for grass, much more for grain;no _herring_ came either; very cleanness of teeth was like to come inEyvind Skaldaspillir's opinion. This scarcity became at last their shareof the great Famine Of A. D. 975, which desolated Western Europe (see thepoem in the Saxon Chronicle). And all this by Eyvind Skaldaspillir, andthe heathen Norse in general, was ascribed to anger of the heathen gods. Discontent in Norway, and especially in Eyvind Skaldaspillir, seems tohave been very great. 

Whereupon exile Hakon, Jarl Sigurd's son, bestirs himself in Denmark, backed by old King Blue-tooth, and begins invading and encroaching in amiscellaneous way; especially intriguing and contriving plots all roundhim. An unfathomably cunning kind of fellow, as well as an audacious andstrong-handed! Intriguing in Trondhjem, where he gets the under-king, Greyfell's brother, fallen upon and murdered; intriguing with GoldHarald, a distinguished cousin or nephew of King Blue-tooth's, who haddone fine viking work, and gained, such wealth that he got theepithet of "Gold, " and who now was infinitely desirous of a share inBlue-tooth's kingdom as the proper finish to these sea-rovings. He evenventured one day to make publicly a distinct proposal that way to KingHarald Blue-tooth himself; who flew into thunder and lightning at themere mention of it; so that none durst speak to him for several daysafterwards. Of both these Haralds Hakon was confidential friend; andneeded all his skill to walk without immediate annihilation between sucha pair of dragons, and work out Norway for himself withal. In the endhe found he must take solidly to Blue-tooth's side of the question; andthat they two must provide a recipe for Gold Harald and Norway both atonce. 

"It is as much as your life is worth to speak again of sharing thisDanish kingdom, " said Hakon very privately to Gold Harald; "but couldnot you, my golden friend, be content with Norway for a kingdom, if onehelped you to it?"

"That could I well, " answered Harald. 

"Then keep me those nine war-ships you have just been rigging for a newviking cruise; have these in readiness when I lift my finger!"

That was the recipe contrived for Gold Harald; recipe for King Greyfellgoes into the same vial, and is also ready. 

Hitherto the Hakon-Blue-tooth disturbances in Norway had amounted to butlittle. King Greyfell, a very active and valiant man, has constantly, without much difficulty, repelled these sporadic bits of troubles; butGreyfell, all the same, would willingly have peace with dangerous oldBlue-tooth (ever anxious to get his clutches over Norway on any terms)if peace with him could be had. Blue-tooth, too, professes everywillingness; inveigles Greyfell, he and Hakon do; to have a friendlymeeting on the Danish borders, and not only settle all these quarrels, but generously settle Greyfell in certain fiefs which he claimed inDenmark itself; and so swear everlasting friendship. Greyfell joyfullycomplies, punctually appears at the appointed day in Lymfjord Sound, the appointed place. Whereupon Hakon gives signal to Gold Harald, "ToLymfjord with these nine ships of yours, swift!" Gold Harald flies toLymfjord with his ships, challenges King Harald Greyfell to land andfight; which the undaunted Greyfell, though so far outnumbered, does;and, fighting his very best, perishes there, he and almost all hispeople. Which done, Jarl Hakon, who is in readiness, attacks GoldHarald, the victorious but the wearied; easily beats Gold Harald, takeshim prisoner, and instantly hangs and ends him, to the huge joy of KingBlue-tooth and Hakon; who now make instant voyage to Norway; driveall the brother under-kings into rapid flight to the Orkneys, to anyreadiest shelter; and so, under the patronage of Blue-tooth, Hakon, withthe title of Jarl, becomes ruler of Norway. This foul treachery done onthe brave and honest Harald Greyfell is by some dated about A. D. 969, byMunch, 965, by others, computing out of Snorro only, A. D. 975. For thereis always an uncertainty in these Icelandic dates (say rather, rare andrude attempts at dating, without even an "A. D. " or other fixed "yearone" to go upon in Iceland), though seldom, I think, so large adiscrepancy as here. 

CHAPTER V. HAKON JARL. 

Hakon Jarl, such the style he took, had engaged to pay some kind oftribute to King Blue-tooth, "if he could;" but he never did pay any, pleading always the necessity of his own affairs; with which excuse, joined to Hakon's readiness in things less important, King Blue-toothmanaged to content himself, Hakon being always his good neighbor, atleast, and the two mutually dependent. In Norway, Hakon, withoutthe title of king, did in a strong-handed, steadfast, and at length, successful way, the office of one; governed Norway (some count) forabove twenty years; and, both at home and abroad, had much considerationthrough most of that time; specially amongst the heathen orthodox, forHakon Jarl himself was a zealous heathen, fixed in his mind againstthese chimerical Christian innovations and unsalutary changes of creed, and would have gladly trampled out all traces of what the last two kings(for Greyfell, also, was an English Christian after his sort) had donein this respect. But he wisely discerned that it was not possible, andthat, for peace's sake, he must not even attempt it, but must strikepreferably into "perfect toleration, " and that of "every one getting toheaven or even to the other goal in his own way. " He himself, it is wellknown, repaired many heathen temples (a great "church builder" in hisway!), manufactured many splendid idols, with much gilding and suchartistic ornament as there was, --in particular, one huge image of Thor, not forgetting the hammer and appendages, and such a collar (supposed ofsolid gold, which it was not quite, as we shall hear in time) round theneck of him as was never seen in all the North. How he did his ownYule festivals, with what magnificent solemnity, the horse-eatings, blood-sprinklings, and other sacred rites, need not be told. Somethingof a "Ritualist, " one may perceive; perhaps had Scandinavian Puseyismsin him, and other desperate heathen notions. He was universally believedto have gone into magic, for one thing, and to have dangerous potenciesderived from the Devil himself. The dark heathen mind of him strugglingvehemently in that strange element, not altogether so unlike our own insome points. 

For the rest, he was evidently, in practical matters, a man of sharp, clear insight, of steadfast resolution, diligence, promptitude; andmanaged his secular matters uncommonly well. Had sixteen Jarls underhim, though himself only Hakon Jarl by title; and got obedience fromthem stricter than any king since Haarfagr had done. Add to whichthat the country had years excellent for grass and crop, and that theherrings came in exuberance; tokens, to the thinking mind, that HakonJarl was a favorite of Heaven. 

His fight with the far-famed Jomsvikings was his grandest exploit inpublic rumor. Jomsburg, a locality not now known, except that it wasnear the mouth of the River Oder, denoted in those ages the impregnablecastle of a certain hotly corporate, or "Sea Robbery Association(limited), " which, for some generations, held the Baltic in terror, andplundered far beyond the Belt, --in the ocean itself, in Flanders and theopulent trading havens there, --above all, in opulent anarchic England, which, for forty years from about this time, was the pirates' Goshen;and yielded, regularly every summer, slaves, Danegelt, and miscellaneousplunder, like no other country Jomsburg or the viking-world hadever known. Palnatoke, Bue, and the other quasi-heroic heads of thisestablishment are still remembered in the northern parts. _Palnatoke_is the title of a tragedy by Oehlenschlager, which had its run ofimmortality in Copenhagen some sixty or seventy years ago. 

I judge the institution to have been in its floweriest state, probablynow in Hakon Jarl's time. Hakon Jarl and these pirates, robbing Hakon'ssubjects and merchants that frequented him, were naturally in quarrel;and frequent fightings had fallen out, not generally to the profit ofthe Jomsburgers, who at last determined on revenge, and the rooting outof this obstructive Hakon Jarl. They assembled in force at the Cape ofStad, --in the Firda Fylke; and the fight was dreadful in the extreme, noise of it filling all the north for long afterwards. Hakon, fightinglike a lion, could scarcely hold his own, --Death or Victory, the word onboth sides; when suddenly, the heavens grew black, and there broke outa terrific storm of thunder and hail, appalling to the humanmind, --universe swallowed wholly in black night; only the momentaryforked-blazes, the thunder-pealing as of Ragnarok, and the batteringhail-torrents, hailstones about the size of an egg. Thor with his hammerevidently acting; but in behalf of whom? The Jomsburgers in thehideous darkness, broken only by flashing thunder-bolts, had a dismalapprehension that it was probably not on their behalf (Thor having asense of justice in him); and before the storm ended, thirty-five oftheir seventy ships sheered away, leaving gallant Bue, with the otherthirty-five, to follow as they liked, who reproachfully hailed thesefugitives, and continued the now hopeless battle. Bue's nose and lipswere smashed or cut away; Bue managed, half-articulately, to exclaim, "Ha! the maids ('mays') of Funen will never kiss me more. Overboard, allye Bue's men!" And taking his two sea-chests, with all the gold he hadgained in such life-struggle from of old, sprang overboard accordingly, and finished the affair. Hakon Jarl's renown rose naturally to thetranscendent pitch after this exploit. His people, I suppose chiefly theChristian part of them, whispered one to another, with a shudder, "Thatin the blackest of the thunder-storm, he had taken his youngest littleboy, and made away with him; sacrificed him to Thor or some devil, andgained his victory by art-magic, or something worse. " Jarl Eric, Hakon'seldest son, without suspicion of art-magic, but already a distinguishedviking, became thrice distinguished by his style of sea-fighting in thisbattle; and awakened great expectations in the viking public; of him weshall hear again. 

The Jomsburgers, one might fancy, after this sad clap went visibly downin the world; but the fact is not altogether so. Old King Blue-tooth wasnow dead, died of a wound got in battle with his unnatural (so-called"natural") son and successor, Otto Svein of the Forked Beard, afterwardsking and conqueror of England for a little while; and seldom, perhapsnever, had vikingism been in such flower as now. This man's name is Svenin Swedish, Svend in German, and means boy or lad, --the English "swain. "It was at old "Father Bluetooth's funeral-ale" (drunken burial-feast), that Svein, carousing with his Jomsburg chiefs and other choice spirits, generally of the robber class, all risen into height of highest robberenthusiasm, pledged the vow to one another; Svein that he would conquerEngland (which, in a sense, he, after long struggling, did); and theJomsburgers that they would ruin and root out Hakon Jarl (which, aswe have just seen, they could by no means do), and other guests otherfoolish things which proved equally unfeasible. Sea-robber volunteersso especially abounding in that time, one perceives how easily theJomsburgers could recruit themselves, build or refit new robber fleets, man them with the pick of crews, and steer for opulent, fruitfulEngland; where, under Ethelred the Unready, was such a field forprofitable enterprise as the viking public never had before or since. 

An idle question sometimes rises on me, --idle enough, for it never canbe answered in the affirmative or the negative, Whether it was not thesesame refitted Jomsburgers who appeared some while after this at Red HeadPoint, on the shore of Angus, and sustained a new severe beating, inwhat the Scotch still faintly remember as their "Battle of Loncarty"?Beyond doubt a powerful Norse-pirate armament dropt anchor at the RedHead, to the alarm of peaceable mortals, about that time. It was thoughtand hoped to be on its way for England, but it visibly hung on forseveral days, deliberating (as was thought) whether they would do thispoorer coast the honor to land on it before going farther. Did land, andvigorously plunder and burn south-westward as far as Perth; laid siegeto Perth; but brought out King Kenneth on them, and produced that"Battle of Loncarty" which still dwells in vague memory among the Scots. Perhaps it might be the Jomsburgers; perhaps also not; for there weremany pirate associations, lasting not from century to century like theJomsburgers, but only for very limited periods, or from year to year;indeed, it was mainly by such that the splendid thief-harvest of Englandwas reaped in this disastrous time. No Scottish chronicler gives theleast of exact date to their famed victory of Loncarty, only that it wasachieved by Kenneth III. , which will mean some time between A. D. 975 and994; and, by the order they put it in, probably soon after A. D. 975, orthe beginning of this Kenneth's reign. Buchanan's narrative, carefullydistilled from all the ancient Scottish sources, is of admirable qualityfor style and otherwise quiet, brief, with perfect clearness, perfectcredibility even, except that semi-miraculous appendage of thePloughmen, Hay and Sons, always hanging to the tail of it; the grain ofpossible truth in which can now never be extracted by man's art! [6] Inbrief, what we know is, fragments of ancient human bones and armorhave occasionally been ploughed up in this locality, proof positive ofancient fighting here; and the fight fell out not long after Hakon'sbeating of the Jomsburgers at the Cape of Stad. And in such dim glimmerof wavering twilight, the question whether these of Loncarty wererefitted Jomsburgers or not, must be left hanging. Loncarty is now thebiggest bleach-field in Queen Victoria's dominions; no village or hamletthere, only the huge bleaching-house and a beautiful field, some six orseven miles northwest of Perth, bordered by the beautiful Tay riveron the one side, and by its beautiful tributary Almond on the other; aLoncarty fitted either for bleaching linen, or for a bit of fair duelbetween nations, in those simple times. 

Whether our refitted Jomsburgers had the least thing to do with it isonly matter of fancy, but if it were they who here again got a goodbeating, fancy would be glad to find herself fact. The old piraticalkings of Denmark had been at the founding of Jomsburg, and to Svein ofthe Forked Beard it was still vitally important, but not so to the greatKnut, or any king that followed; all of whom had better business thanmere thieving; and it was Magnus the Good, of Norway, a man of stillhigher anti-anarchic qualities, that annihilated it, about a centurylater. 

Hakon Jarl, his chief labors in the world being over, is said to havebecome very dissolute in his elder days, especially in the matter ofwomen; the wretched old fool, led away by idleness and fulness of bread, which to all of us are well said to be the parents of mischief. Havingabsolute power, he got into the habit of openly plundering men's prettydaughters and wives from them, and, after a few weeks, sending themback; greatly to the rage of the fierce Norse heart, had there been anymeans of resisting or revenging. It did, after a little while, prove theruin and destruction of Hakon the Rich, as he was then called. It openedthe door, namely, for entry of Olaf Tryggveson upon the scene, --a verymuch grander man; in regard to whom the wiles and traps of Hakon provedto be a recipe, not on Tryggveson, but on the wily Hakon himself, asshall now be seen straightway. 

CHAPTER VI. OLAF TRYGGVESON. 

Hakon, in late times, had heard of a famous stirring person, victoriousin various lands and seas, latterly united in sea-robbery with Svein, Prince Royal of Denmark, afterwards King Svein of the Double-beard("_Zvae Skiaeg_", _Twa Shag_) or fork-beard, both of whom had alreadydone transcendent feats in the viking way during this copartnery. Thefame of Svein, and this stirring personage, whose name was "Ole, " and, recently, their stupendous feats in plunder of England, siege of London, and other wonders and splendors of viking glory and success, had goneover all the North, awakening the attention of Hakon and everybodythere. The name of "Ole" was enigmatic, mysterious, and evendangerous-looking to Hakon Jarl; who at length sent out a confidentialspy to investigate this "Ole;" a feat which the confidential spy didcompletely accomplish, --by no means to Hakon's profit! The mysterious"Ole" proved to be no other than Olaf, son of Tryggve, destined to blowHakon Jarl suddenly into destruction, and become famous among the heroesof the Norse world. 

Of Olaf Tryggveson one always hopes there might, one day, some realoutline of a biography be written; fished from the abysses where (asusual) it welters deep in foul neighborhood for the present. Farther onwe intend a few words more upon the matter. But in this place all thatconcerns us in it limits itself to the two following facts first, thatHakon's confidential spy "found Ole in Dublin;" picked acquaintance withhim, got him to confess that he was actually Olaf, son of Tryggve (theTryggve, whom Blood-axe's fierce widow and her sons had murdered); gothim gradually to own that perhaps an expedition into Norway might haveits chances; and finally that, under such a wise and loyal guidanceas his (the confidential spy's, whose friendship for Tryggveson was soindubitable), he (Tryggveson) would actually try it upon Hakon Jarl, thedissolute old scoundrel. Fact second is, that about the time they twoset sail from Dublin on their Norway expedition, Hakon Jarl removed toTrondhjem, then called Lade; intending to pass some months there. 

Now just about the time when Tryggveson, spy, and party had landed inNorway, and were advancing upon Lade, with what support from the publiccould be got, dissolute old Hakon Jarl had heard of one Gudrun, aBonder's wife, unparalleled in beauty, who was called in those parts, "Sunbeam of the Grove" (so inexpressibly lovely); and sent off a coupleof thralls to bring her to him. "Never, " answered Gudrun; "never, " herindignant husband; in a tone dangerous and displeasing to these Courtthralls; who had to leave rapidly, but threatened to return in betterstrength before long. Whereupon, instantly, the indignant Bonder and hisSunbeam of the Grove sent out their war-arrow, rousing all the countryinto angry promptitude, and more than one perhaps into greedy hope ofrevenge for their own injuries. The rest of Hakon's history now rusheson with extreme rapidity. 

Sunbeam of the Grove, when next demanded of her Bonder, has the wholeneighborhood assembled in arms round her; rumor of Tryggveson is fastmaking it the whole country. Hakon's insolent messengers are cut inpieces; Hakon finds he cannot fly under cover too soon. With a singleslave he flies that same night;--but whitherward? Can think of no safeplace, except to some old mistress of his, who lives retired in thatneighborhood, and has some pity or regard for the wicked old Hakon. Oldmistress does receive him, pities him, will do all she can to protectand hide him. But how, by what uttermost stretch of female artifice hidehim here; every one will search here first of all! Old mistress, by theslave's help, extemporizes a cellar under the floor of her pig-house;sticks Hakon and slave into that, as the one safe seclusion she cancontrive. Hakon and slave, begrunted by the pigs above them, tortured bythe devils within and about them, passed two days in circumstancesmore and more horrible. For they heard, through their light-slitand breathing-slit, the triumph of Tryggveson proclaiming itself byTryggveson's own lips, who had mounted a big boulder near by and wasvictoriously speaking to the people, winding up with a promise ofhonors and rewards to whoever should bring him wicked old Hakon's head. Wretched Hakon, justly suspecting his slave, tried to at least keephimself awake. Slave did keep himself awake till Hakon dozed or slept, then swiftly cut off Hakon's head, and plunged out with it to thepresence of Tryggveson. Tryggveson, detesting the traitor, useful as thetreachery was, cut off the slave's head too, had it hung up along withHakon's on the pinnacle of the Lade Gallows, where the populace peltedboth heads with stones and many curses, especially the more important ofthe two. "Hakon the Bad" ever henceforth, instead of Hakon the Rich. 

This was the end of Hakon Jarl, the last support of heathenry in Norway, among other characteristics he had: a stronghanded, hard-headed, veryrelentless, greedy and wicked being. He is reckoned to have ruled inNorway, or mainly ruled, either in the struggling or triumphant state, for about thirty years (965-995?). He and his seemed to have formed, by chance rather than design, the chief opposition which the Haarfagrposterity throughout its 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 todo. 

Hakon Jarl is considerably connected with the _Faroer Saga_ oftenmentioned there, and comes out perfectly in character; an altogetherworldly-wise man of the roughest type, not without a turn forpracticality of kindness to those who would really be of use to him. Histendencies to magic also are not forgotten. 

Hakon left two sons, Eric and Svein, often also mentioned in this Saga. On their father's death they fled to Sweden, to Denmark, and were busystirring up troubles in those countries against Olaf Tryggveson; till atlength, by a favorable combination, under their auspices chiefly, theygot his brief and noble reign put an end to. Nay, furthermore, Jarl Ericleft sons, especially an elder son, named also Eric, who proved a soreaffliction, and a continual stone of stumbling to a new generation ofHaarfagrs, and so continued the curse of Sigurd's murder upon them. 

Towards the end of this Hakon's reign it was that the discovery ofAmerica took place (985). Actual discovery, it appears, by Eric the Red, an Icelander; concerning which there has been abundant investigation anddiscussion in our time. _Ginnungagap_ (Roaring Abyss) is thought to bethe mouth of Behring's Straits in Baffin's Bay; _Big Helloland_, thecoast from Cape Walsingham to near Newfoundland; _Little Helloland_, Newfoundland itself. _Markland_ was Lower Canada, New Brunswick, andNova Scotia. Southward thence to Chesapeake Bay was called _Wine Land_(wild grapes still grow in Rhode Island, and more luxuriantly furthersouth). _White Man's Land_, called also _Great Ireland_, is supposedto mean the two Carolinas, down to the Southern Cape of Florida. InDahlmann's opinion, the Irish themselves might even pretend to haveprobably been the first discoverers of America; they had evidently gotto Iceland itself before the Norse exiles found it out. It appears to becertain that, from the end of the tenth century to the early part of thefourteenth, there was a dim knowledge of those distant shores extantin the Norse mind, and even some straggling series of visits thitherby roving Norsemen; though, as only danger, difficulty, and no profitresulted, the visits ceased, and the whole matter sank into oblivion, and, but for the Icelandic talent of writing in the long winter nights, would never have been heard of by posterity at all. 

CHAPTER VII. REIGN OF OLAF TRYGGVESON. 

Olaf Tryggveson (A. D. 995-1000) also makes a great figure in the _FaroerSaga_, and recounts there his early troubles, which were strange andmany. He is still reckoned a grand hero of the North, though his _vates_now is only Snorro Sturleson of Iceland. Tryggveson had indeed manyadventures in the world. His poor mother, Astrid, was obliged to fly, onmurder of her husband by Gunhild, --to fly for life, three months beforehe, her little Olaf, was born. She lay concealed in reedy islands, fledthrough trackless forests; reached her father's with the little baby inher arms, and lay deep-hidden there, tended only by her father himself;Gunhild's pursuit being so incessant, and keen as with sleuth-hounds. Poor Astrid had to fly again, deviously to Sweden, to Esthland(Esthonia), to Russia. In Esthland she was sold as a slave, quite partedfrom her boy, --who also was sold, and again sold; but did at lastfall in with a kinsman high in the Russian service; did from him findredemption and help, and so rose, in a distinguished manner, to manhood, victorious self-help, and recovery of his kingdom at last. He even methis mother again, he as king of Norway, she as one wonderfully liftedout of darkness into new life and happiness still in store. 

Grown to manhood, Tryggveson, --now become acquainted with his birth, and with his, alas, hopeless claims, --left Russia for the one professionopen to him, that of sea-robbery; and did feats without number in thatquestionable line in many seas and scenes, --in England latterly, andmost conspicuously of all. In one of his courses thither, after longlabors in the Hebrides, Man, Wales, and down the western shores tothe very Land's End and farther, he paused at the Scilly Islands fora little while. He was told of a wonderful Christian hermit livingstrangely in these sea-solitudes; had the curiosity to seek him out, examine, question, and discourse with him; and, after some reflection, accepted Christian baptism from the venerable man. In Snorro the storyis involved in miracle, rumor, and fable; but the fact itself seemscertain, and is very interesting; the great, wild, noble soul of fierceOlaf opening to this wonderful gospel of tidings from beyond the world, tidings which infinitely transcended all else he had ever heard ordreamt of! It seems certain he was baptized here; date not fixable;shortly before poor heart-broken Dunstan's death, or shortly after; mostEnglish churches, monasteries especially, lying burnt, under continualvisitation of the Danes. Olaf such baptism notwithstanding, did not quithis viking profession; indeed, what other was there for him in the worldas yet?

We mentioned his occasional copartneries with Svein of the Double-beard, now become King of Denmark, but the greatest of these, and the aloneinteresting at this time, is their joint invasion of England, andTryggveson's exploits and fortunes there some years after that adventureof baptism in the Scilly Isles. Svein and he "were above a year inEngland together, " this time: they steered up the Thames with threehundred ships and many fighters; siege, or at least furious assault, ofLondon was their first or main enterprise, but it did not succeed. TheSaxon Chronicle gives date to it, A. D. 994, and names expressly, asSvein's co-partner, "Olaus, king of Norway, "--which he was as yet farfrom being; but in regard to the Year of Grace the Saxon Chronicle isto be held indisputable, and, indeed, has the field to itself in thismatter. Famed Olaf Tryggveson, seen visibly at the siege of London, year 994, it throws a kind of momentary light to us over that disastrouswhirlpool of miseries and confusions, all dark and painful to thefancy otherwise! This big voyage and furious siege of London is SveinDouble-beard's first real attempt to fulfil that vow of his at FatherBlue-tooth's "funeral ale, " and conquer England, --which it is a pity hecould not yet do. Had London now fallen to him, it is pretty evident allEngland must have followed, and poor England, with Svein as king overit, been delivered from immeasurable woes, which had to last sometwo-and-twenty years farther, before this result could be arrived at. But finding London impregnable for the moment (no ship able to getathwart the bridge, and many Danes perishing in the attempt to do it byswimming), Svein and Olaf turned to other enterprises; all England ina manner lying open to them, turn which way they liked. They burnt andplundered over Kent, over Hampshire, Sussex; they stormed far and wide;world lying all before them where to choose. Wretched Ethelred, as theone invention he could fall upon, offered them Danegelt (16, 000 poundsof silver this year, but it rose in other years as high as 48, 000pounds); the desperate Ethelred, a clear method of quenching fireby pouring oil on it! Svein and Olaf accepted; withdrew toSouthampton, --Olaf at least did, --till the money was got ready. Strangeto think of, fierce Svein of the Double-beard, and conquest of Englandby him; this had at last become the one salutary result which remainedfor that distracted, down-trodden, now utterly chaotic and anarchiccountry. A conquering Svein, followed by an ably and earnestlyadministrative, as well as conquering, Knut (whom Dahlmann comparesto Charlemagne), were thus by the mysterious destinies appointed theeffective saviors of England. 

Tryggveson, on this occasion, was a good while at Southampton; androamed extensively about, easily victorious over everything, ifresistance were attempted, but finding little or none; and acting nowin a peaceable or even friendly capacity. In the Southampton countryhe came in contact with the then Bishop of Winchester, afterwardsArchbishop of Canterbury, excellent Elphegus, still dimly decipherableto us as a man of great natural discernment, piety, and inborn veracity;a hero-soul, probably of real brotherhood with Olaf's own. He even madecourt visits to King Ethelred; one visit to him at Andover of a veryserious nature. By Elphegus, as we can discover, he was introduced intothe real depths of the Christian faith. Elphegus, with due solemnity ofapparatus, in presence of the king, at Andover, baptized Olaf anew, andto him Olaf engaged that he would never plunder in England any more;which promise, too, he kept. In fact, not long after, Svein's conquestof England being in an evidently forward state, Tryggveson (having made, withal, a great English or Irish marriage, --a dowager Princess, who hadvoluntarily fallen in love with him, --see Snorro for this fine romanticfact!) mainly resided in our island for two or three years, or else inDublin, in the precincts of the Danish Court there in the Sister Isle. Accordingly it was in Dublin, as above noted, that Hakon's spy foundhim; and from the Liffey that his squadron sailed, through the Hebrides, through the Orkneys, plundering and baptizing in their strange way, towards such success as we have seen. 

Tryggveson made a stout, and, in effect, victorious and gloriousstruggle for himself as king. Daily and hourly vigilant to do so, oftenenough by soft and even merry methods, for he was a witty, jocund man, and had a fine ringing laugh in him, and clear pregnant words everready, --or if soft methods would not serve, then by hard and evenhardest he put down a great deal of miscellaneous anarchy in Norway; wasespecially busy against heathenism (devil-worship and its rites): this, indeed, may be called the focus and heart of all his royal endeavor inNorway, and of all the troubles he now had with his people there. Forthis was a serious, vital, all-comprehending matter; devil-worship, athing not to be tolerated one moment longer than you could by any methodhelp! Olaf's success was intermittent, of varying complexion; but hiseffort, swift or slow, was strong and continual; and on the whole he didsucceed. Take a sample or two of that wonderful conversion process:--

At one of his first Things he found the Bonders all assembled inarms; resolute to the death seemingly, against his proposal and him. Tryggveson said little; waited impassive, "What your reasons are, good men?" One zealous Bonder started up in passionate parliamentaryeloquence; but after a sentence or two, broke down; one, and thenanother, and still another, and remained all three staring inopen-mouthed silence there! The peasant-proprietors accepted thephenomenon as ludicrous, perhaps partly as miraculous withal, andconsented to baptism this time. 

On another occasion of a Thing, which had assembled near some heathentemple to meet him, --temple where Hakon Jarl had done much repairing, and set up many idol figures and sumptuous ornaments, regardless ofexpense, especially a very big and splendid Thor, with massive goldcollar round the neck of him, not the like of it in Norway, --King OlafTryggveson was clamorously invited by the Bonders to step in there, enlighten his eyes, and partake of the sacred rites. Instead of whichhe rushed into the temple with his armed men; smashed down, with his ownbattle-axe, the god Thor, prostrate on the ground at one stroke, to setan example; and, in a few minutes, had the whole Hakon Pantheon wrecked;packing up meanwhile all the gold and preciosities accumulated there(not forgetting Thor's illustrious gold collar, of which we shall hearagain), and victoriously took the plunder home with him for his ownroyal uses and behoof of the state. In other cases, though a friend tostrong measures, he had to hold in, and await the favorable moment. Thusonce, in beginning a parliamentary address, so soon as he came to touchupon Christianity, the Bonders rose in murmurs, in vociferations andjingling of arms, which quite drowned the royal voice; declared, theyhad taken arms against king Hakon the Good to compel him to desist fromhis Christian proposals; and they did not think King Olaf a higher manthan him (Hakon the Good). The king then said, "He purposed coming tothem next Yule to their great sacrificial feast, to see for himselfwhat their customs were, " which pacified the Bonders for this time. Theappointed place of meeting was again a Hakon-Jarl Temple, not yet doneto ruin; chief shrine in those Trondhjem parts, I believe: there shouldTryggveson appear at Yule. Well, but before Yule came, Tryggveson made agreat banquet in his palace at Trondhjem, and invited far and wide, allmanner of important persons out of the district as guests there. Banquethardly done, Tryggveson gave some slight signal, upon which armed menstrode in, seized eleven of these principal persons, and the king said:"Since he himself was to become a heathen again, and do sacrifice, itwas his purpose to do it in the highest form, namely, that of HumanSacrifice; and this time not of slaves and malefactors, but of the bestmen in the country!" In which stringent circumstances the eleven seizedpersons, and company at large, gave unanimous consent to baptism;straightway received the same, and abjured their idols; but were notpermitted to go home till they had left, in sons, brothers, and otherprecious relatives, sufficient hostages in the king's hands. 

By unwearied industry of this and better kinds, Tryggveson had trampleddown idolatry, so far as form went, --how far in substance may be greatlydoubted. But it is to be remembered withal, that always on the back ofthese compulsory adventures there followed English bishops, priests andpreachers; whereby to the open-minded, conviction, to all degrees of it, was attainable, while silence and passivity became the duty or necessityof the unconvinced party. 

In about two years Norway was all gone over with a rough harrow ofconversion. Heathenism at least constrained to be silent and outwardlyconformable. Tryggveson, next turned his attention to Iceland, sent oneThangbrand, priest from Saxony, of wonderful qualities, military aswell as theological, to try and convert Iceland. Thangbrand made a fewconverts; for Olaf had already many estimable Iceland friends, whom heliked much, and was much liked by; and conversion was the ready roadto his favor. Thangbrand, I find, lodged with Hall of Sida (familiaracquaintance of "Burnt Njal, " whose Saga has its admirers among us evennow). Thangbrand converted Hall and one or two other leading men;but in general he was reckoned quarrelsome and blusterous rather thaneloquent and piously convincing. Two skalds of repute made bitinglampoons upon Thangbrand, whom Thangbrand, by two opportunities thatoffered, cut down and did to death because of their skaldic quality. Another he killed with his own hand, I know not for what reason. Inbrief, after about a year, Thangbrand returned to Norway and king Olaf;declaring the Icelanders to be a perverse, satirical, and inconvertiblepeople, having himself, the record says, "been the death of three menthere. " King Olaf was in high rage at this result; but was persuaded bythe Icelanders about him to try farther, and by a wilder instrument. Heaccordingly chose one Thormod, a pious, patient, and kindly man, who, within the next year or so, did actually accomplish the matter; namely, get Christianity, by open vote, declared at Thingvalla by the generalThing of Iceland there; the roar of a big thunder-clap at the rightmoment rather helping the conclusion, if I recollect. Whereupon Olaf'sjoy was no doubt great. 

One general result of these successful operations was the discontent, to all manner of degrees, on the part of many Norse individuals, againstthis glorious and victorious, but peremptory and terrible king oftheirs. Tryggveson, I fancy, did not much regard all that; a man ofjoyful, cheery temper, habitually contemptuous of danger. Anothertrivial misfortune that befell in these conversion operations, andbecame important to him, he did not even know of, and would have muchdespised if he had. It was this: Sigrid, queen dowager of Sweden, thought to be amongst the most shining women of the world, was alsoknown for one of the most imperious, revengeful, and relentless, and hadgot for herself the name of Sigrid the Proud. In her high widowhood shehad naturally many wooers; but treated them in a manner unexampled. Twoof her suitors, a simultaneous Two, were, King Harald Graenske (a cousinof King Tryggveson's, and kind of king in some district, by sufferanceof the late Hakon's), --this luckless Graenske and the then RussianSovereign as well, name not worth mentioning, were zealous suitors ofQueen Dowager Sigrid, and were perversely slow to accept the negative, which in her heart was inexorable for both, though the expression ofit could not be quite so emphatic. By ill-luck for them they cameonce, --from the far West, Graenske; from the far East, the Russian;--andarrived both together at Sigrid's court, to prosecute their importunate, and to her odious and tiresome suit; much, how very much, to herimpatience and disdain. She lodged them both in some old mansion, whichshe had contiguous, and got compendiously furnished for them; and there, I know not whether on the first or on the second, or on what followingnight, this unparalleled Queen Sigrid had the house surrounded, set onfire, and the two suitors and their people burnt to ashes! No more ofbother from these two at least! This appears to be a fact; and it couldnot be unknown to Tryggveson. 

In spite of which, however, there went from Tryggveson, who was now awidower, some incipient marriage proposals to this proud widow; bywhom they were favorably received; as from the brightest man in all theworld, they might seem worth being. Now, in one of these anti-heathenonslaughts of King Olaf's on the idol temples of Hakon--(I think itwas that case where Olaf's own battle-axe struck down the monstrousrefulgent Thor, and conquered an immense gold ring from the neck of him, or from the door of his temple), --a huge gold ring, at any rate, hadcome into Olaf's hands; and this he bethought him might be a prettypresent to Queen Sigrid, the now favorable, though the proud. Sigridreceived the ring with joy; fancied what a collar it would make for herown fair neck; but noticed that her two goldsmiths, weighing it on theirfingers, exchanged a glance. "What is that?" exclaimed Queen Sigrid. "Nothing, " answered they, or endeavored to answer, dreading mischief. But Sigrid compelled them to break open the ring; and there was found, all along the inside of it, an occult ring of copper, not a heart ofgold at all! "Ha, " said the proud Queen, flinging it away, "he thatcould deceive in this matter can deceive in many others!" And was in hotwrath with Olaf; though, by degrees, again she took milder thoughts. 

Milder thoughts, we say; and consented to a meeting next autumn, at somehalf-way station, where their great business might be brought to a happysettlement and betrothment. Both Olaf Tryggveson and the high dowagerappear to have been tolerably of willing mind at this meeting; but Olafinterposed, what was always one condition with him, "Thou must consentto baptism, and give up thy idol-gods. " "They are the gods of all myforefathers, " answered the lady, "choose thou what gods thou pleasest, but leave me mine. " Whereupon an altercation; and Tryggveson, as was hiswont, towered up into shining wrath, and exclaimed at last, "Why shouldI care about thee then, old faded heathen creature?" And impatientlywagging his glove, hit her, or slightly switched her, on the face withit, and contemptuously turning away, walked out of the adventure. "Thisis a feat that may cost thee dear one day, " said Sigrid. And in the endit came to do so, little as the magnificent Olaf deigned to think of itat the moment. 

One of the last scuffles I remember of Olaf's having with his refractoryheathens, was at a Thing in Hordaland or Rogaland, far in the North, where the chief opposition hero was one Jaernskaegg ("ironbeard")Scottice ("Airn-shag, " as it were!). Here again was a grand heathentemple, Hakon Jarl's building, with a splendid Thor in it and much idolfurniture. The king stated what was his constant wish here as elsewhere, but had no sooner entered upon the subject of Christianity thanuniversal murmur, rising into clangor and violent dissent, interruptedhim, and Ironbeard took up the discourse in reply. Ironbeard did notbreak down; on the contrary, he, with great brevity, emphasis, andclearness, signified "that the proposal to reject their old gods was inthe highest degree unacceptable to this Thing; that it was contraryto bargain, withal; so that if it were insisted on, they would have tofight with the king about it; and in fact were now ready to do so. " Inreply to this, Olaf, without word uttered, but merely with some signalto the trusty armed men he had with him, rushed off to the temple closeat hand; burst into it, shutting the door behind him; smashed Thor andCo. To destruction; then reappearing victorious, found much confusionoutside, and, in particular, what was a most important item, the ruggedIronbeard done to death by Olaf's men in the interim. Which entirelydisheartened the Thing from fighting at that moment; having now noleader who dared to head them in so dangerous an enterprise. So thatevery one departed to digest his rage in silence as he could. 

Matters having cooled for a week or two, there was another Thing held;in which King Olaf testified regret for the quarrel that had fallen out, readiness to pay what _mulct_ was due by law for that unlucky homicideof Ironbeard by his people; and, withal, to take the fair daughter ofIronbeard to wife, if all would comply and be friends with him in othermatters; which was the course resolved on as most convenient: acceptbaptism, we; marry Jaernskaegg's daughter, you. This bargain held onboth sides. The wedding, too, was celebrated, but that took rather astrange turn. On the morning of the bride-night, Olaf, who had not beensleeping, though his fair partner thought he had, opened his eyes, andsaw, with astonishment, the fair partner aiming a long knife readyto strike home upon him! Which at once ended their wedded life; poorDemoiselle Ironbeard immediately bundling off with her attendants homeagain; King Olaf into the apartment of his servants, mentioning therewhat had happened, and forbidding any of them to follow her. 

Olaf Tryggveson, though his kingdom was the smallest of the Norse Three, had risen to a renown over all the Norse world, which neither heof Denmark nor he of Sweden could pretend to rival. A magnificent, far-shining man; more expert in all "bodily exercises" as the Norse callthem, than any man had ever been before him, or after was. Could keepfive daggers in the air, always catching the proper fifth by its handle, and sending it aloft again; could shoot supremely, throw a javelin witheither hand; and, in fact, in battle usually throw two together. These, with swimming, climbing, leaping, were the then admirable Fine Arts ofthe North; in all which Tryggveson appears to have been the Raphael andthe Michael Angelo at once. Essentially definable, too, if we lookwell into him, as a wild bit of real heroism, in such rude guise andenvironment; a high, true, and great human soul. A jovial burst oflaughter in him, withal; a bright, airy, wise way of speech; dressedbeautifully and with care; a man admired and loved exceedingly by thosehe liked; dreaded as death by those he did not like. "Hardly any king, "says Snorro, "was ever so well obeyed; by one class out of zeal andlove, by the rest out of dread. " His glorious course, however, was notto last long. 

King Svein of the Double-Beard had not yet completed his conquest ofEngland, --by no means yet, some thirteen horrid years of that stillbefore him!--when, over in Denmark, he found that complaints againsthim and intricacies had arisen, on the part principally of one Burislav, King of the Wends (far up the Baltic), and in a less degree with theKing of Sweden and other minor individuals. Svein earnestly appliedhimself to settle these, and have his hands free. Burislav, an agedheathen gentleman, proved reasonable and conciliatory; so, too, the Kingof Sweden, and Dowager Queen Sigrid, his managing mother. Bargain inboth these cases got sealed and crowned by marriage. Svein, who hadbecome a widower lately, now wedded Sigrid; and might think, possiblyenough, he had got a proud bargain, though a heathen one. Burislav alsoinsisted on marriage with Princess Thyri, the Double-Beard's sister. Thyri, inexpressibly disinclined to wed an aged heathen of that stamp, pleaded hard with her brother; but the Double-Bearded was inexorable;Thyri's wailings and entreaties went for nothing. With some guardianfoster-brother, and a serving-maid or two, she had to go on this hatedjourney. Old Burislav, at sight of her, blazed out into marriage-feastof supreme magnificence, and was charmed to see her; but Thyri would notjoin the marriage party; refused to eat with it or sit with it at all. Day after day, for six days, flatly refused; and after nightfall of thesixth, glided out with her foster-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 gone toEngland again. But Thyri knew too well he would not allow her to stayhere, or anywhere that he could help, except with the old heathen shehad just fled from. 

Thyri, looking round the world, saw no likely road for her, but to OlafTryggveson in Norway; to beg protection from the most heroic man sheknew of in the world. Olaf, except by renown, was not known to her; butby renown he well was. Olaf, at sight of her, promised protectionand asylum against all mortals. Nay, in discoursing with Thyri Olafperceived more and more clearly what a fine handsome being, soul andbody, Thyri was; and in a short space of time winded up by proposingmarriage to Thyri; who, humbly, and we may fancy with what secret joy, consented to say yes, and become Queen of Norway. In the due months theyhad a little son, Harald; who, it is credibly recorded, was the joy ofboth his parents; but who, to their inexpressible sorrow, in about ayear died, and vanished from them. This, and one other fact now to bementioned, is all the wedded history we have of Thyri. 

The other fact is, that Thyri had, by inheritance or covenant, notdepending on her marriage with old Burislav, considerable properties inWendland; which, she often reflected, might be not a little behoovefulto her here in Norway, where her civil-list was probably but straitened. She spoke of this to her husband; but her husband would take no hold, merely made her gifts, and said, "Pooh, pooh, can't we live without oldBurislav and his Wendland properties?" So that the lady sank intoever deeper anxiety and eagerness about this Wendland object; took toweeping; sat weeping whole days; and when Olaf asked, "What ails thee, then?" would answer, or did answer once, "What a different man my fatherHarald Gormson was [vulgarly called Blue-tooth], compared with some thatare now kings! For no King Svein in the world would Harald Gormsonhave given up his own or his wife's just rights!" Whereupon Tryggvesonstarted up, exclaiming in some heat, "Of thy brother Svein I never wasafraid; if Svein and I meet in contest, it will not be Svein, I believe, that conquers;" and went off in a towering fume. Consented, however, at last, had to consent, to get his fine fleet equipped and armed, anddecide to sail with it to Wendland to have speech and settlement withKing Burislav. 

Tryggveson had already ships and navies that were the wonder of theNorth. Especially in building war ships, the Crane, the Serpent, lastof all the Long Serpent, [7]--he had, for size, for outward beauty, andinward perfection of equipment, transcended all example. 

This new sea expedition became an object of attention to all neighbors;especially Queen Sigrid the Proud and Svein Double-Beard, her now king, were attentive to it. 

"This insolent Tryggveson, " Queen Sigrid would often say, and had longbeen saying, to her Svein, "to marry thy sister without leave had orasked of thee; and now flaunting forth his war navies, as if he, kingonly of paltry Norway, were the big hero of the North! Why do you sufferit, you kings really great?"

By such persuasions and reiterations, King Svein of Denmark, KingOlaf of Sweden, and Jarl Eric, now a great man there, grown rich byprosperous sea robbery and other good management, were brought to takethe matter up, and combine strenuously for destruction of King OlafTryggveson on this grand Wendland expedition of his. Fleets and forceswere with best diligence got ready; and, withal, a certain Jarl Sigwald, of Jomsburg, chieftain of the Jomsvikings, a powerful, plausible, and cunning man, was appointed to find means of joining himself toTryggveson's grand voyage, of getting into Tryggveson's confidence, andkeeping Svein Double-Beard, Eric, and the Swedish King aware of all hismovements. 

King Olaf Tryggveson, unacquainted with all this, sailed away in summer, with his splendid fleet; went through the Belts with prosperous winds, under bright skies, to the admiration of both shores. Such a fleet, withits shining Serpents, long and short, and perfection of equipment andappearance, the Baltic never saw before. Jarl Sigwald joined with newships by the way: "Had, " he too, "a visit to King Burislav to pay; howcould he ever do it in better company?" and studiously and skilfullyingratiated himself with King Olaf. Old Burislav, when they arrived, proved altogether courteous, handsome, and amenable; agreed at once toOlaf's claims for his now queen, did the rites of hospitality with agenerous plenitude to Olaf; who cheerily renewed acquaintance with thatcountry, known to him in early days (the cradle of his fortunes in theviking line), and found old friends there still surviving, joyful tomeet him again. Jarl Sigwald encouraged these delays, King Svein and Co. Not being yet quite ready. "Get ready!" Sigwald directed them, and theydiligently did. Olaf's men, their business now done, were impatient tobe home; and grudged every day of loitering there; but, till Sigwaldpleased, such his power of flattering and cajoling Tryggveson, theycould not get away. 

At length, Sigwald's secret messengers reporting all ready on the partof Svein and Co. , Olaf took farewell of Burislav and Wendland, andall gladly sailed away. Svein, Eric, and the Swedish king, with theircombined fleets, lay in wait behind some cape in a safe little bay ofsome island, then called Svolde, but not in our time to be found; theBaltic tumults in the fourteenth century having swallowed it, as somethink, and leaving us uncertain whether it was in the neighborhood ofRugen Island or in the Sound of Elsinore. There lay Svein, Eric, and Co. Waiting till Tryggveson and his fleet came up, Sigwald's spy messengersdaily reporting what progress he and it had made. At length, one brightsummer morning, the fleet made appearance, sailing in loose order, Sigwald, as one acquainted with the shoal places, steering ahead, andshowing them the way. 

Snorro rises into one of his pictorial fits, seized with enthusiasm atthe thought of such a fleet, and reports to us largely in what orderTryggveson's winged Coursers of the Deep, in long series, for perhaps anhour or more, came on, and what the three potentates, from their knollof vantage, said of each as it hove in sight, Svein thrice over guessedthis and the other noble vessel to be the Long Serpent; Eric, alwayscorrecting him, "No, that is not the Long Serpent yet" (and asidealways), "Nor shall you be lord of it, king, when it does come. " TheLong Serpent itself did make appearance. Eric, Svein, and the Swedishking hurried on board, and pushed out of their hiding-place intothe open sea. Treacherous Sigwald, at the beginning of all this, hadsuddenly doubled that cape of theirs, and struck into the bay out ofsight, leaving the foremost Tryggveson ships astonished, and uncertainwhat to do, if it were not simply to strike sail and wait till Olafhimself with the Long Serpent arrived. 

Olaf's chief captains, seeing the enemy's huge fleet come out, andhow the matter lay, strongly advised King Olaf to elude this stroke oftreachery, and, with all sail, hold on his course, fight being now on sounequal terms. Snorro says, the king, high on the quarter-deck wherehe stood, replied, "Strike the sails; never shall men of mine think offlight. I never fled from battle. Let God dispose of my life; but flightI will never take. " And so the battle arrangements immediately began, and the battle with all fury went loose; and lasted hour after hour, till almost sunset, if I well recollect. "Olaf stood on the Serpent'squarter-deck, " says Snorro, "high over the others. He had a gilt shieldand a helmet inlaid with gold; over his armor he had a short red coat, and was easily distinguished from other men. " Snorro's account of thebattle is altogether animated, graphic, and so minute that antiquariesgather from it, if so disposed (which we but little are), what themethods of Norse sea-fighting were; their shooting of arrows, castingof javelins, pitching of big stones, ultimately boarding, and mutualclashing and smashing, which it would not avail us to speak of here. Olaf stood conspicuous all day, throwing javelins, of deadly aim, withboth hands at once; encouraging, fighting and commanding like a highestsea-king. 

The Danish fleet, the Swedish fleet, were, both of them, quickly dealtwith, and successively withdrew out of shot-range. And then Jarl Ericcame up, and fiercely grappled with the Long Serpent, or, rather, withher surrounding comrades; and gradually, as they were beaten empty ofmen, with the Long Serpent herself. The fight grew ever fiercer, morefurious. Eric was supplied with new men from the Swedes and Danes; Olafhad no such resource, except from the crews of his own beaten ships, andat length this also failed him; all his ships, except the Long Serpent, being beaten and emptied. Olaf fought on unyielding. Eric twice boardedhim, was twice repulsed. Olaf kept his quarterdeck; unconquerable, though left now more and more hopeless, fatally short of help. A tallyoung man, called Einar Tamberskelver, very celebrated and importantafterwards in Norway, and already the best archer known, kept busy withhis bow. Twice he nearly shot Jarl Eric in his ship. "Shoot me thatman, " said Jarl Eric to a bowman near him; and, just as Tamberskelverwas drawing his bow the third time, an arrow hit it in the middleand broke it in two. "What is this that has broken?" asked King Olaf. "Norway from thy hand, king, " answered Tamberskelver. Tryggveson's men, he observed with surprise, were striking violently on Eric's; but to nopurpose: nobody fell. "How is this?" asked Tryggveson. "Our swords arenotched and blunted, king; they do not cut. " Olaf stept down to hisarm-chest; delivered out new swords; and it was observed as he did it, blood ran trickling from his wrist; but none knew where the wound was. Eric boarded a third time. Olaf, left with hardly more than one man, sprang overboard (one sees that red coat of his still glancing in theevening sun), and sank in the deep waters to his long rest. 

Rumor ran among his people that he still was not dead; grounding on somemovement by the ships of that traitorous Sigwald, they fancied Olaf haddived beneath the keels of his enemies, and got away with Sigwald, asSigwald himself evidently did. "Much was hoped, supposed, spoken, " saysone old mourning Skald; "but the truth was, Olaf Tryggveson was neverseen in Norseland more. " Strangely he remains still a shining figure tous; the wildly beautifulest man, in body and in soul, that one has everheard of in the North. 

CHAPTER VIII. JARLS ERIC AND SVEIN. 

Jarl Eric, splendent with this victory, not to speak of that over theJomsburgers with his father long ago, was now made Governor of Norway:Governor or quasi-sovereign, with his brother, Jarl. Svein, as partner, who, however, took but little hand in governing;--and, under thepatronage of Svein Double-Beard and the then Swedish king (Olaf hisname, Sigrid the Proud, his mother's), administered it, they say, withskill and prudence for above fourteen years. Tryggveson's death isunderstood and laboriously computed to have happened in the year 1000;but there is no exact chronology in these things, but a continualuncertain guessing after such; so that one eye in History as regardsthem is as if put out;--neither indeed have I yet had the luck to findany decipherable and intelligible map of Norway: so that the othereye of History is much blinded withal, and her path through those wildregions and epochs is an extremely dim and chaotic one. An evil thatmuch demands remedying, and especially wants some first attempt atremedying, by inquirers into English History; the whole period fromEgbert, the first Saxon King of England, on to Edward the Confessor, the last, being everywhere completely interwoven with that of theirmysterious, continually invasive "Danes, " as they call them, andinextricably unintelligible till these also get to be a littleunderstood, and cease to be utterly dark, hideous, and mythical to us asthey now are. 

King Olaf Tryggveson is the first Norseman who is expressly mentionedto have been in England by our English History books, new or old; and ofhim it is merely said that he had an interview with King Ethelred II. AtAndover, of a pacific and friendly nature, --though it is absurdly addedthat the noble Olaf was converted to Christianity by that extremelystupid Royal Person. Greater contrast in an interview than in thisat Andover, between heroic Olaf Tryggveson and Ethelred the foreverUnready, was not perhaps seen in the terrestrial Planet that day. Olaf or "Olaus, " or "Anlaf, " as they name him, did "engage on oath toEthelred not to invade England any more, " and kept his promise, theyfarther say. Essentially a truth, as we already know, though thecircumstances were all different; and the promise was to a devout HighPriest, not to a crowned Blockhead and cowardly Do-nothing. One other"Olaus" I find mentioned in our Books, two or three centuries before, at a time when there existed no such individual; not to speak of severalAnlafs, who sometimes seem to mean Olaf and still oftener to mean nobodypossible. Which occasions not a little obscurity in our early History, says the learned Selden. A thing remediable, too, in which, if anyEnglishman of due genius (or even capacity for standing labor), whounderstood the Icelandic and Anglo-Saxon languages, would engage init, he might do a great deal of good, and bring the matter into acomparatively lucid state. Vain aspirations, --or perhaps not altogethervain. 

At the time of Olaf Tryggveson's death, and indeed long before, KingSvein Double-Beard had always for chief enterprise the Conquest ofEngland, and followed it by fits with extreme violence and impetus;often advancing largely towards a successful conclusion; but never, forthirteen years yet, getting it concluded. He possessed long since allEngland north of Watling Street. That is to say, Northumberland, EastAnglia (naturally full of Danish settlers by this time), were fixedlyhis; Mercia, his oftener than not; Wessex itself, with all the coasts, he was free to visit, and to burn and rob in at discretion. There orelsewhere, Ethelred the Unready had no battle in him whatever; and, for a forty years after the beginning of his reign, England excelled inanarchic stupidity, murderous devastation, utter misery, platitude, andsluggish contemptibility, all the countries one has read of. Apparentlya very opulent country, too; a ready skill in such arts and fine artsas there were; Svein's very ships, they say, had their gold dragons, top-mast pennons, and other metallic splendors generally wrought forthem in England. "Unexampled prosperity" in the manufacture way notunknown there, it would seem! But co-existing with such spiritualbankruptcy as was also unexampled, one would hope. Read Lupus(Wulfstan), Archbishop of York's amazing _Sermon_ on the subject, [8]addressed to contemporary audiences; setting forth such a state ofthings, --sons selling their fathers, mothers, and sisters as Slaves tothe Danish robber; themselves living in debauchery, blusterous gluttony, and depravity; the details of which are well-nigh incredible, thoughclearly stated as things generally known, --the humor of these poorwretches sunk to a state of what we may call greasy desperation, "Let useat and drink, for to-morrow we die. " The manner in which they treatedtheir own English nuns, if young, good-looking, and captive to theDanes; buying them on a kind of brutish or subter-brutish "GreatestHappiness Principle" (for the moment), and by a Joint-Stock arrangement, far transcends all human speech or imagination, and awakens in one themomentary red-hot thought, The Danes have served you right, ye accursed!The so-called soldiers, one finds, made not the least fight anywhere;could make none, led and guided as they were, and the "Generals" oftenenough traitors, always ignorant, and blockheads, were in the habit, when expressly commanded to fight, of taking physic, and declaring thatnature was incapable of castor-oil and battle both at once. Thisought to be explained a little to the modern English and theirWar-Secretaries, who undertake the conduct of armies. The undeniablefact is, defeat on defeat was the constant fate of the English; duringthese forty years not one battle in which they were not beaten. No gleamof victory or real resistance till the noble Edmund Ironside (whom itis always strange to me how such an Ethelred could produce for son)made his appearance and ran his brief course, like a great and far-seenmeteor, soon extinguished without result. No remedy for England in thatbase time, but yearly asking the victorious, plundering, burning andmurdering Danes, "How much money will you take to go away?" Thirtythousand pounds in silver, which the annual _Danegelt_ soon rose to, continued to be about the average yearly sum, though generally on theincreasing hand; in the last year I think it had risen to seventy-twothousand pounds in silver, 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 remedy still worse, which the miserable Ethelredonce tried: that of massacring "all the Danes settled in England"(practically, of a few thousands or hundreds of them), by treachery anda kind of Sicilian Vespers. Which issued, as such things usually do, interrible monition to you not to try the like again! Issued, namely, inredoubled fury on the Danish part; new fiercer invasion by Svein'sJarl Thorkel; then by Svein himself; which latter drove the miserableEthelred, with wife and family, into Normandy, to wife's brother, thethen Duke there; and ended that miserable struggle by Svein's becomingKing of England himself. Of this disgraceful massacre, which it wouldappear has been immensely exaggerated in the English books, we canhappily give the exact date (A. D. 1002); and also of Svein's victoriousaccession (A. D. 1013), [9]--pretty much the only benefit one gets out ofcontemplating such a set of objects. 

King Svein's first act was to levy a terribly increased Income-Taxfor the payment of his army. Svein was levying it with a stronghandeddiligence, but had not yet done levying it, when, at Gainsborough onenight, he suddenly died; smitten dead, once used to be said, by St. Edmund, whilom murdered King of the East Angles; who could not bearto see his shrine and monastery of St. Edmundsbury plundered by theTyrant's tax-collectors, as they were on the point of being. In all waysimpossible, however, --Edmund's own death did not occur till two yearsafter Svein's. Svein's death, by whatever cause, befell 1014; his fleet, then lying in the Humber; and only Knut, [10] his eldest son (hardlyyet eighteen, count some), in charge of it; who, on short counsel, andarrangement about this questionable kingdom of his, lifted anchor;made for Sandwich, a safer station at the moment; "cut off the feet andnoses" (one shudders, and hopes not, there being some discrepancy aboutit!) of his numerous hostages that had been delivered to King Svein;set them ashore;--and made for Denmark, his natural storehouse andstronghold, as the hopefulest first thing he could do. 

Knut soon returned from Denmark, with increase of force sufficient forthe English problem; which latter he now ended in a victorious, andessentially, for himself and chaotic England, beneficent manner. Becamewidely known by and by, there and elsewhere, as Knut the Great; and isthought by judges of our day to have really merited that title. A mostnimble, sharp-striking, clear-thinking, prudent and effective man, whoregulated this dismembered and distracted England in its Church matters, in its State matters, like a real King. Had a Standing Army (_HouseCarles_), who were well paid, well drilled and disciplined, capable ofinstantly quenching insurrection or breakage of the peace; and piouslyendeavored (with a signal earnestness, and even devoutness, if we lookwell) to do justice to all men, and to make all men rest satisfied withjustice. In a word, he successfully strapped up, by every true methodand regulation, this miserable, dislocated, and dissevered massof bleeding Anarchy into something worthy to be called an Englandagain;--only that he died too soon, and a second "Conqueror" of us, still weightier of structure, and under improved auspices, becamepossible, and was needed here! To appearance, Knut himself was capableof being a Charlemagne of England and the North (as has been alreadysaid or quoted), had he only lived twice as long as he did. But hiswhole sum of years seems not to have exceeded forty. His father Sveinof the Forkbeard is reckoned to have been fifty to sixty when St. Edmundfinished him at Gainsborough. We now return to Norway, ashamed of thislong circuit which has been a truancy more or less. 

CHAPTER IX. KING OLAF THE THICK-SET'S VIKING DAYS

King Harald Graenske, who, with another from Russia accidentally lodgingbeside him, got burned to death in Sweden, courting that unspeakableSigrid the Proud, --was third cousin or so to Tryggve, father of ourheroic Olaf. Accurately counted, he is great-grandson of Bjorn theChapman, first of Haarfagr's sons whom Eric Bloodaxe made away with. Hislittle "kingdom, " as he called it, was a district named the Greenland(_Graeneland_); he himself was one of those little Haarfagr kingletswhom Hakon Jarl, much more Olaf Tryggveson, was content to leavereigning, since they would keep the peace with him. Harald had a lovingwife of his own, Aasta the name of her, soon expecting the birth of herand his pretty babe, named Olaf, --at the time he went on that deplorableSwedish adventure, the foolish, fated creature, and ended self andkingdom altogether. Aasta was greatly shocked; composed herself however;married a new husband, Sigurd Syr, a kinglet, and a great-grandson ofHarald Fairhair, a man of great wealth, prudence, and influence in thosecountries; in whose house, as favorite and well-beloved stepson, littleOlaf was wholesomely and skilfully brought up. In Sigurd's house he had, withal, a special tutor entertained for him, one Rane, known as Rane theFar-travelled, by whom he could be trained, from the earliest basis, inNorse accomplishments and arts. New children came, one or two; butOlaf, from his mother, seems always to have known that he was thedistinguished and royal article there. One day his Foster-father, hurrying to leave home on business, hastily bade Olaf, no other beingby, saddle his horse for him. Olaf went out with the saddle, chose thebiggest he-goat about, saddled that, and brought it to the door by wayof horse. Old Sigurd, a most grave man, grinned sardonically at thesight. "Hah, I see thou hast no mind to take commands from me; thou artof too high a humor to take commands. " To which, says Snorro, Boy Olafanswered little except by laughing, till Sigurd saddled for himself, androde away. His mother Aasta appears to have been a thoughtful, prudentwoman, though always with a fierce royalism at the bottom of her memory, and a secret implacability on that head. 

At the age of twelve Olaf went to sea; furnished with a little fleet, and skilful sea-counsellor, expert old Rane, by his Foster-father, and set out to push his fortune in the world. Rane was a steersman andcounsellor in these incipient times; but the crew always called Olaf"King, " though at first, as Snorro thinks, except it were in the hour ofbattle, he merely pulled an oar. He cruised and fought in this capacityon many seas and shores; passed several years, perhaps till the ageof nineteen or twenty, in this wild element and way of life; fightingalways in a glorious and distinguished manner. In the hour of battle, diligent enough "to amass property, " as the Vikings termed it; and inthe long days and nights of sailing, given over, it is likely, to hisown thoughts and the unfathomable dialogue with the ever-moaning Sea;not the worst High School a man could have, and indeed infinitelypreferable to the most that are going even now, for a high and deepyoung soul. 

His first distinguished expedition was to Sweden: natural to go thitherfirst, to avenge his poor father's death, were it nothing more. Whichhe did, the Skalds say, in a distinguished manner; making victorious andhandsome battle for himself, in entering Maelare Lake; and in gettingout of it again, after being frozen there all winter, showing still moresurprising, almost miraculous contrivance and dexterity. This was thefirst of his glorious victories, of which the Skalds reckon up somefourteen or thirteen very glorious indeed, mostly in the Western andSouthern countries, most of all in England; till the name of OlafHaraldson became quite famous in the Viking and strategic world. Heseems really to have learned the secrets of his trade, and to have been, then and afterwards, for vigilance, contrivance, valor, and promptitudeof execution, a superior fighter. Several exploits recorded of himbetoken, in simple forms, what may be called a military genius. 

The principal, and to us the alone interesting, of his exploits seemto have lain in England, and, what is further notable, always on theanti-Svein side. English books do not mention him at all that I canfind; but it is fairly credible that, as the Norse records report, in the end of Ethelred's reign, he was the ally or hired general ofEthelred, and did a great deal of sea-fighting, watching, sailing, andsieging for this miserable king and Edmund Ironside, his son. Snorrosays expressly, London, the impregnable city, had to be besieged againfor Ethelred's behoof (in the interval between Svein's death and youngKnut's getting back from Denmark), and that our Olaf Haraldson wasthe great engineer and victorious captor of London on that singularoccasion, --London captured for the first time. The Bridge, as usual, Snorro says, offered almost insuperable obstacles. But the engineeringgenius of Olaf contrived huge "platforms of wainscoting [old wallsof wooden houses, in fact], bound together by withes;" these, carriedsteadily aloft above the ships, will (thinks Olaf) considerably securethem and us from the destructive missiles, big boulder stones, andother, mischief profusely showered down on us, till we get under theBridge with axes and cables, and do some good upon it. Olaf's planwas tried; most of the other ships, in spite of their wainscoting andwithes, recoiled on reaching the Bridge, so destructive were the boulderand other missile showers. But Olaf's ships and self got actually underthe Bridge; fixed all manner of cables there; and then, with the rivercurrent in their favor, and the frightened ships rallying to help inthis safer part of the enterprise, tore out the important piles andprops, and fairly broke the poor Bridge, wholly or partly, down intothe river, and its Danish defenders into immediate surrender. That isSnorro's account. 

On a previous occasion, Olaf had been deep in a hopeful combination withEthelred's two younger sons, Alfred and Edward, afterwards King Edwardthe Confessor: That they two should sally out from Normandy in strongforce, unite with Olaf in ditto, and, landing on the Thames, dosomething effectual for themselves. But impediments, bad weather or thelike, disheartened the poor Princes, and it came to nothing. Olaf wasmuch in Normandy, what they then called Walland; a man held in honor bythose Norman Dukes. 

What amount of "property" he had amassed I do not know, but could prove, were it necessary, that he had acquired some tactical or even strategicfaculty and real talent for war. At Lymfjord, in Jutland, but someyears after this (A. D. 1027), he had a sea-battle with the great Knuthimself, --ships combined with flood-gates, with roaring, artificialdeluges; right well managed by King Olaf; which were within ahair's-breadth of destroying Knut, now become a King and Great; and didin effect send him instantly running. But of this more particularly byand by. 

What still more surprises me is the mystery, where Olaf, in thiswandering, fighting, sea-roving life, acquired his deeply religiousfeeling, his intense adherence to the Christian Faith. I suppose ithad been in England, where many pious persons, priestly and other, werestill to be met with, that Olaf had gathered these doctrines; and thatin those his unfathomable dialogues with the ever-moaning Ocean, theyhad struck root downwards in the soul of him, and borne fruit upwards tothe degree so conspicuous afterwards. It is certain he became a deeplypious man during these long Viking cruises; and directed all hisstrength, when strength and authority were lent him, to establishingthe Christian religion in his country, and suppressing and abolishingVikingism there; both of which objects, and their respective worth andunworth, he, must himself have long known so well. 

It was well on in A. D. 1016 that Knut gained his last victory, atAshdon, in Essex, where the earth pyramids and antique church near bystill testify the thankful piety of Knut, --or, at lowest his joy athaving _won_ instead of lost and perished, as he was near doing there. And it was still this same year when the noble Edmund Ironside, afterforced partition-treaty "in the Isle of Alney, " got scandalouslymurdered, and Knut became indisputable sole King of England, anddecisively settled himself to his work of governing there. In the yearbefore either of which events, while all still hung uncertain for Knut, and even Eric Jarl of Norway had to be summoned in aid of him, in thatyear 1015, as one might naturally guess and as all Icelandic hintsand indications lead us to date the thing, Olaf had decided to giveup Vikingism in all its forms; to return to Norway, and try whether hecould not assert the place and career that belonged to him there. JarlEric had vanished with all his war forces towards England, leaving onlya boy, Hakon, as successor, and Svein, his own brother, --a quiet man, who had always avoided war. Olaf landed in Norway without obstacle; butdecided to be quiet till he had himself examined and consulted friends. 

His reception by his mother Aasta was of the kindest and proudest, andis lovingly described by Snorro. A pretty idyllic, or epic piece, of_Norse_ Homeric type: How Aasta, hearing of her son's advent, set allher maids and menials to work at the top of their speed; despatched arunner to the harvest-field, where her husband Sigurd was, to warn himto come home and dress. How Sigurd was standing among his harvest folk, reapers and binders; and what he had on, --broad slouch hat, with veil(against the midges), blue kirtle, hose of I forget what color, withlaced boots; and in his hand a stick with silver head and ditto ringupon it;--a personable old gentleman, of the eleventh century, in thoseparts. Sigurd was cautious, prudentially cunctatory, though heartilyfriendly in his counsel to Olaf as to the King question. Aasta had aSpartan tone in her wild maternal heart; and assures Olaf that she, witha half-reproachful glance at Sigurd, will stand by him to the death inthis his just and noble enterprise. Sigurd promises to consult fartherin his neighborhood, and to correspond by messages; the result is, Olafresolutely pushing forward himself, resolves to call a Thing, andopenly claim his kingship there. The Thing itself was willing enough:opposition parties do here and there bestir themselves; but Olafis always swifter than they. Five kinglets somewhere in theUplands, [11]--all descendants of Haarfagr; but averse to break thepeace, which Jarl Eric and Hakon Jarl both have always willingly allowedto peaceable people, --seem to be the main opposition party. These fivetake the field against Olaf with what force they have; Olaf, one night, by beautiful celerity and strategic practice which a Friedrich or aTurenne might have approved, surrounds these Five; and when morningbreaks, there is nothing for them but either death, or else instantsurrender, and swearing of fealty to King Olaf. Which latter branch ofthe alternative they gladly accept, the whole five of them, and go homeagain. 

This was a beautiful bit of war-practice by King Olaf on land. Byanother stroke still more compendious at sea, he had already settledpoor young Hakon, and made him peaceable for a long while. Olaf bydiligent quest and spy-messaging, had ascertained that Hakon, justreturning from Denmark and farewell to Papa and Knut, both now under wayfor England, was coasting north towards Trondhjem; and intended on orabout such a day to land in such and such a fjord towards the end ofthis Trondhjem voyage. Olaf at once mans two big ships, steers throughthe narrow mouth of the said fjord, moors one ship on the north shore, another on the south; fixes a strong cable, well sunk under water, tothe capstans of these two; and in all quietness waits for Hakon. Beforemany hours, Hakon's royal or quasi-royal barge steers gaily into thisfjord; is a little surprised, perhaps, to see within the jaws of it twobig ships at anchor, but steers gallantly along, nothing doubting. Olafwith a signal of "All hands, " works his two capstans; has the cableup high enough at the right moment, catches with it the keel of poorHakon's barge, upsets it, empties it wholly into the sea. Wholly intothe sea; saves Hakon, however, and his people from drowning, and bringsthem on board. His dialogue with poor young Hakon, especially poor youngHakon's responses, is very pretty. Shall I give it, out of Snorro, andlet the reader take it for as authentic as he can? It is at leastthe true image of it in authentic Snorro's head, little more than twocenturies later. 

"Jarl Hakon was led up to the king's ship. He was the handsomest manthat could be seen. He had long hair as fine as silk, bound about hishead with a gold ornament. When he sat down in the forehold the kingsaid to him:

_King. _ "'It is not false, what is said of your family, that ye arehandsome people to look at; but now your luck has deserted you. '

_Hakon. _ "'It has always been the case that success is changeable; andthere is no luck in the matter. It has gone with your family as withmine to have by turns the better lot. I am little beyond childhood inyears; and at any rate we could not have defended ourselves, as we didnot expect any attack on the way. It may turn out better with us anothertime. '

_King. _ "'Dost thou not apprehend that thou art in such a conditionthat, hereafter, there can be neither victory nor defeat for thee?'

_Hakon. _ "'That is what only thou canst determine, King, according tothy pleasure. '

_King. _ "'What wilt thou give me, Jarl, if, for this time, I let theego, whole and unhurt?'

_Hakon. _ "'What wilt thou take, King?'

_King. _ "'Nothing, except that thou shalt leave the country; give up thykingdom; and take an oath that thou wilt never go into battle againstme. '" [12]

Jarl Hakon accepted the generous terms; went to England and King Knut, and kept his bargain for a good few years; though he was at last driven, by pressure of King Knut, to violate it, --little to his profit, as weshall see. One victorious naval battle with Jarl Svein, Hakon's uncle, and his adherents, who fled to Sweden, after his beating, --battle notdifficult to a skilful, hard-hitting king, --was pretty much all theactual fighting Olaf had to do in this enterprise. He various timesmet angry Bonders and refractory Things with arms in their hand; but byskilful, firm management, --perfectly patient, but also perfectly readyto be active, --he mostly managed without coming to strokes; and wasuniversally recognized by Norway as its real king. A promising youngman, and fit to be a king, thinks Snorro. Only of middle stature, almostrather shortish; but firm-standing, and stout-built; so that they gotto call him Olaf the Thick (meaning Olaf the Thick-set, or Stout-built), though his final epithet among them was infinitely higher. For therest, "a comely, earnest, prepossessing look; beautiful yellow hair inquantity; broad, honest face, of a complexion pure as snow and rose;"and finally (or firstly) "the brightest eyes in the world; such that, in his anger, no man could stand them. " He had a heavy task ahead, andneeded all his qualities and fine gifts to get it done. 

CHAPTER X. REIGN OF KING OLAF THE SAINT. 

The late two Jarls, now gone about their business, had both beenbaptized, and called themselves Christians. But during their governmentthey did nothing in the conversion way; left every man to choose his ownGod or Gods; so that some had actually two, the Christian God by land, and at sea Thor, whom they considered safer in that element. And ineffect the mass of the people had fallen back into a sluggish heathenismor half-heathenism, the life-labor of Olaf Tryggveson lying ruinous oralmost quite overset. The new Olaf, son of Harald, set himself withall his strength to mend such a state of matters; and stood by hisenterprise to the end, as the one highest interest, including allothers, for his People and him. His method was by no means soft; onthe contrary, it was hard, rapid, severe, --somewhat on the model ofTryggveson's, though with more of _bishoping_ and preaching superadded. Yet still there was a great deal of mauling, vigorous punishing, and anentire intolerance of these two things: Heathenism and Sea-robbery, atleast of Sea-robbery in the old style; whether in the style we modernsstill practise, and call privateering, I do not quite know. ButVikingism proper had to cease in Norway; still more, Heathenism, underpenalties too severe to be borne; death, mutilation of limb, not tomention forfeiture and less rigorous coercion. Olaf was inexorableagainst violation of the law. "Too severe, " cried many; to whom oneanswers, "Perhaps in part _yes_, perhaps also in great part _no_;depends altogether on the previous question, How far the law was theeternal one of God Almighty in the universe, How far the law merelyof Olaf (destitute of right inspiration) left to his own passions andwhims?"

Many were the jangles Olaf had with the refractory Heathen Things andIronbeards of a new generation: very curious to see. Scarcely ever didit come to fighting between King and Thing, though often enough near it;but the Thing discerning, as it usually did in time, that the King wasstronger in men, seemed to say unanimously to itself, "We have lost, then; baptize us, we must burn our old gods and conform. " One newfeature we do slightly discern: here and there a touch of theologicalargument on the heathen side. At one wild Thing, far up in theDovrefjeld, of a very heathen temper, there was much of that; not to bequenched by King Olaf at the moment; so that it had to be adjourned tillthe morrow, and again till the next day. Here are some traits of it, much abridged from Snorro (who gives a highly punctual account), whichvividly represent Olaf's posture and manner of proceeding in suchintricacies. 

The chief Ironbeard on this occasion was one Gudbrand, a very ruggedpeasant; who, says Snorro, was like a king in that district. Some daysbefore, King Olaf, intending a religious Thing in those deeply heathenparts, with alternative of Christianity or conflagration, is reported, on looking down into the valley and the beautiful village of Loarstanding there, to have said wistfully, "What a pity it is that sobeautiful a village should be burnt!" Olaf sent out his message-tokenall the same however, and met Gudbrand and an immense assemblage, whose humor towards him was uncompliant to a high degree indeed. Judgeby this preliminary speech of Gudbrand to his Thing-people, while Olafwas not yet arrived, but only advancing, hardly got to Breeden on theother side of the hill: "A man has come to Loar who is called Olaf, "said Gudbrand, "and will force upon us another faith than we had before, and will break in pieces all our Gods. He says he has a much greaterand more powerful God; and it is wonderful that the earth does not burstasunder under him, or that our God lets him go about unpunished whenhe dares to talk such things. I know this for certain, that if we carryThor, who has always stood by us, out of our Temple that is standingupon this farm, Olaf's God will melt away, and he and his men be madenothing as soon as Thor looks upon them. " Whereupon the Bonders allshouted as one man, "Yea!"

Which tremendous message they even forwarded to Olaf, by Gudbrand'syounger son at the head of 700 armed men; but did not terrify Olaf withit, who, on the contrary, drew up his troops, rode himself at the headof them, and began a speech to the Bonders, in which he invited them toadopt Christianity, as the one true faith for mortals. 

Far from consenting to this, the Bonders raised a general shout, smitingat the same time their shields with their weapons; but Olaf's menadvancing on them swiftly, and flinging spears, they turned and ran, leaving Gudbrand's son behind, a prisoner, to whom Olaf gave his life:"Go home now to thy father, and tell him I mean to be with him soon. "

The son goes accordingly, and advises his father not to face Olaf; butGudbrand angrily replies: "Ha, coward! I see thou, too, art taken bythe folly that man is going about with;" and is resolved to fight. Thatnight, however, Gudbrand has a most remarkable Dream, or Vision: a Mansurrounded by light, bringing great terror with him, who warns Gudbrandagainst doing battle with Olaf. "If thou dost, thou and all thy peoplewill fall; wolves will drag away thee and thine; ravens will tearthee in stripes!" And lo, in telling this to Thord Potbelly, a sturdyneighbor of his and henchman in the Thing, it is found that to Thordalso has come the self same terrible Apparition! Better propose truce toOlaf (who seems to have these dreadful Ghostly Powers on his side), andthe holding of a Thing, to discuss matters between us. Thing assembles, on a day of heavy rain. Being all seated, uprises King Olaf, and informsthem: "The people of Lesso, Loar, and Vaage, have accepted Christianity, and broken down their idol-houses: they believe now in the True God, whohas made heaven and earth, and knows all things;" and sits down againwithout more words. 

"Gudbrand replies, 'We know nothing about him of whom thou speakest. Dost thou call him God, whom neither thou nor any one else can see? Butwe have a God who can be seen every day, although he is not out to-daybecause the weather is wet; and he will appear to thee terrible and verygrand; and I expect that fear will mix with thy very blood when he comesinto the Thing. But since thou sayest thy God is so great, let him makeit so that to-morrow we have a cloudy day, but without rain, and thenlet us meet again. '

"The king accordingly returned home to his lodging, taking Gudbrand'sson as a hostage; but he gave them a man as hostage in exchange. Inthe evening the king asked Gudbrand's son What their God was like? Hereplied that he bore the likeness of Thor; had a hammer in his hand; wasof great size, but hollow within; and had a high stand, upon which hestood when he was out. 'Neither gold nor silver are wanting about him, and every day he receives four cakes of bread, besides meat. ' They thenwent to bed; but the king watched all night in prayer. When day dawnedthe king went to mass; then to table, and from thence to the Thing. Theweather was such as Gudbrand desired. Now the Bishop stood up in hischoir-robes, with bishop's coif on his head, and bishop's crosier in hishand. He spoke to the Bonders of the true faith, told the many wonderfulacts of God, and concluded his speech well. 

"Thord Potbelly replies, 'Many things we are told of by this learned manwith the staff in his hand, crooked at the top like a ram's horn. Butsince you say, comrades, that your God is so powerful, and can do somany wonders, tell him to make it clear sunshine to-morrow forenoon, andthen we shall meet here again, and do one of two things, --either agreewith you about this business, or fight you. ' And they separated for theday. "

Overnight the king instructed Kolbein the Strong, an immense fellow, the same who killed Gunhild's two brothers, that he, Kolbein, muststand next him to-morrow; people must go down to where the ships of theBonders lay, and punctually bore holes in every one of them; _item_, tothe farms where their horses wore, and punctually unhalter the whole ofthem, and let them loose: all which was done. Snorro continues:--

"Now the king was in prayer all night, beseeching God of his goodnessand mercy to release him from evil. When mass was ended, and morning wasgray, the king went to the Thing. When he came thither, some Bonders hadalready arrived, and they saw a great crowd coming along, and bearingamong them a huge man's image, glancing with gold and silver. Whenthe Bonders who were at the Thing saw it, they started up, and bowedthemselves down before the ugly idol. Thereupon it was set down upon theThing field; and on the one side of it sat the Bonders, and on the otherthe King and his people. 

"Then Dale Gudbrand stood up and said, 'Where now, king, is thy God? Ithink he will now carry his head lower; and neither thou, nor the manwith the horn, sitting beside thee there, whom thou callest Bishop, areso bold to-day as on the former days. For now our God, who rules overall, is come, and looks on you with an angry eye; and now I see wellenough that you are terrified, and scarcely dare raise your eyes. Throwaway now all your opposition, and believe in the God who has your fatewholly in his hands. '

"The king now whispers to Kolbein the Strong, without the Bondersperceiving it, 'If it come so in the course of my speech that theBonders look another way than towards their idol, strike him as hard asthou canst with thy club. '

"The king then stood up and spoke. 'Much hast thou talked to us thismorning, and greatly hast thou wondered that thou canst not see our God;but we expect that he will soon come to us. Thou wouldst frighten uswith thy God, who is both blind and deaf, and cannot even move aboutwithout being carried; but now I expect it will be but a short timebefore he meets his fate: for turn your eyes towards the east, --beholdour God advancing in great light. '

"The sun was rising, and all turned to look. At that moment Kolbein gavetheir God a stroke, so that he quite burst asunder; and there ran outof him mice as big almost as cats, and reptiles and adders. The Bonderswere so terrified that some fled to their ships; but when they sprangout upon them the ships filled with water, and could not get away. Others ran to their horses, but could not find them. The king thenordered the Bonders to be called together, saying he wanted to speakwith them; on which the Bonders came back, and the Thing was againseated. 

"The king rose up and said, 'I do not understand what your noise andrunning mean. You yourselves see what your God can do, --the idol youadorned with gold and silver, and brought meat and provisions to. Yousee now that the protecting powers, who used and got good of all that, were the mice and adders, the reptiles and lizards; and surely they doill who trust to such, and will not abandon this folly. Take now yourgold and ornaments that are lying strewed on the grass, and give them toyour wives and daughters, but never hang them hereafter upon stocks andstones. Here are two conditions between us to choose upon: either acceptChristianity, or fight this very day, and the victory be to them to whomthe God we worship gives it. '

"Then Dale Gudbrand stood up and said, 'We have sustained great damageupon our God; but since he will not help us, we will believe in the Godwhom thou believest in. '

"Then all received Christianity. The Bishop baptized Gudbrand and hisson. King Olaf and Bishop Sigurd left behind them teachers; and they whomet as enemies parted as friends. And afterwards Gudbrand built a churchin the valley. " [13]

Olaf was by no means an unmerciful man, --much the reverse where he sawgood cause. There was a wicked old King Raerik, for example, oneof those five kinglets whom, with their bits of armaments, Olaf bystratagem had surrounded one night, and at once bagged and subjectedwhen morning rose, all of them consenting; all of them except thisRaerik, whom Olaf, as the readiest sure course, took home with him;blinded, and kept in his own house; finding there was no alternative butthat or death to the obstinate old dog, who was a kind of distant cousinwithal, and could not conscientiously be killed. Stone-blind old Raerikwas not always in murderous humor. Indeed, for most part he wore aplacid, conciliatory aspect, and said shrewd amusing things; buthad thrice over tried, with amazing cunning of contrivance, thoughstone-blind, to thrust a dagger into Olaf and the last time had all butsucceeded. So that, as Olaf still refused to have him killed, it hadbecome a problem what was to be done with him. Olaf's good humor, aswell as _his_ quiet, ready sense and practicality, are manifested in hisfinal settlement of this Raerik problem. Olaf's laugh, I can perceive, was not so loud as Tryggveson's but equally hearty, coming from thebright mind of him!

Besides blind Raerik, Olaf had in his household one Thorarin, anIcelander; a remarkably ugly man, says Snorro, but a far-travelled, shrewdly observant, loyal-minded, and good-humored person, whom Olafliked to talk with. "Remarkably ugly, " says Snorro, "especially inhis hands and feet, which were large and ill-shaped to a degree. "One morning Thorarin, who, with other trusted ones, slept in Olaf'sapartment, was lazily dozing and yawning, and had stretched one of hisfeet out of the bed before the king awoke. The foot was still there whenOlaf did open his bright eyes, which instantly lighted on this foot. 

"Well, here is a foot, " says Olaf, gayly, "which one seldom sees thematch of; I durst venture there is not another so ugly in this city ofNidaros. "

"Hah, king!" said Thorarin, "there are few things one cannot match ifone seek long and take pains. I would bet, with thy permission, King, tofind an uglier. "

"Done!" cried Olaf. Upon which Thorarin stretched out the other foot. 

"A still uglier, " cried he; "for it has lost the little toe. "

"Ho, ho!" said Olaf; "but it is I who have gained the bet. The _less_ ofan ugly thing the less ugly, not the more!"

Loyal Thorarin respectfully submitted. 

"What is to be my penalty, then? The king it is that must decide. "

"To take me that wicked old Raerik to Leif Ericson in Greenland. "

Which the Icelander did; leaving two vacant seats henceforth at Olaf'stable. Leif Ericson, son of Eric discoverer of America, quietly managedRaerik henceforth; sent him to Iceland, --I think to father Eric himself;certainly to some safe hand there, in whose house, or in some stillquieter neighboring lodging, at his own choice, old Raerik spent thelast three years of his life in a perfectly quiescent manner. 

Olaf's struggles in the matter of religion had actually settled thatquestion in Norway. By these rough methods of his, whatever we may thinkof them, Heathenism had got itself smashed dead; and was no more heardof in that country. Olaf himself was evidently a highly devout and piousman;--whosoever is born with Olaf's temper now will still find, as Olafdid, new and infinite field for it! Christianity in Norway had the likefertility as in other countries; or even rose to a higher, and whatDahlmann thinks, exuberant pitch, in the course of the two centurieswhich followed that of Olaf. Him all testimony represents to us as amost righteous no less than most religious king. Continually vigilant, just, and rigorous was Olaf's administration of the laws; repressionof robbery, punishment of injustice, stern repayment of evil-doers, wherever he could lay hold of them. 

Among the Bonder or opulent class, and indeed everywhere, for the poortoo can be sinners and need punishment, Olaf had, by this course ofconduct, naturally made enemies. His severity so visible to all, andthe justice and infinite beneficence of it so invisible except to a veryfew. But, at any rate, his reign for the first ten years was victorious;and might have been so to the end, had it not been intersected, andinterfered with, by King Knut in his far bigger orbit and current ofaffairs and interests. Knut's English affairs and Danish being allsettled to his mind, he seems, especially after that year of pilgrimageto Rome, and association with the Pontiffs and Kaisers of the world onthat occasion, to have turned his more particular attention upon Norway, and the claims he himself had there. Jarl Hakon, too, sister's son ofKnut, and always well seen by him, had long been busy in this direction, much forgetful of that oath to Olaf when his barge got canted overby the cable of two capstans, and his life was given him, not withoutconditions altogether!

About the year 1026 there arrived two splendid persons out of England, bearing King Knut the Great's letter and seal, with a message, likelyenough to be far from welcome to Olaf. For some days Olaf refused to seethem or their letter, shrewdly guessing what the purport would be. Whichindeed was couched in mild language, but of sharp meaning enough: anotice to King Olaf namely, That Norway was properly, by just heritage, Knut the Great's; and that Olaf must become the great Knut's liegeman, and pay tribute to him, or worse would follow. King Olaf listening tothese two splendid persons and their letter, in indignant silence tillthey quite ended, made answer: "I have heard say, by old accountsthere are, that King Gorm of Denmark [Blue-tooth's father, Knut'sgreat-grandfather] was considered but a small king; having Denmark onlyand few people to rule over. But the kings who succeeded him thoughtthat insufficient for them; and it has since come so far that King Knutrules over both Denmark and England, and has conquered for himself apart of Scotland. And now he claims also my paternal bit of heritage;cannot be contented without that too. Does he wish to rule over all thecountries of the North? Can he eat up all the kale in England itself, this Knut the Great? He shall do that, and reduce his England to adesert, before I lay my head in his hands, or show him any other kindof vassalage. And so I bid you tell him these my words: I will defendNorway with battle-axe and sword as long as life is given me, and willpay tax to no man for my kingdom. " Words which naturally irritated Knutto a high degree. 

Next year accordingly (year 1027), tenth or eleventh year of Olaf'sreign, there came bad rumors out of England: That Knut was equipping animmense army, --land-army, and such a fleet as had never sailed before;Knut's own ship in it, --a Gold Dragon with no fewer than sixty benchesof oars. Olaf and Onund King of Sweden, whose sister he had married, well guessed whither this armament was bound. They were friends withal, they recognized their common peril in this imminence; and had, inrepeated consultations, taken measures the best that their united skill(which I find was mainly Olaf's but loyally accepted by the other) couldsuggest. It was in this year that Olaf (with his Swedish king assisting)did his grand feat upon Knut in Lymfjord of Jutland, which was alreadyspoken of. The special circumstances of which were these:

Knut's big armament arriving on the Jutish coasts too late in theseason, and the coast country lying all plundered into temporary wreckby the two Norse kings, who shrank away on sight of Knut, there wasnothing could be done upon them by Knut this year, --or, if anything, what? Knut's ships ran into Lymfjord, the safe-sheltered frith, orintricate long straggle of friths and straits, which almost cuts Jutlandin two in that region; and lay safe, idly rocking on the waters there, uncertain what to do farther. At last he steered in his big ship andsome others, deeper into the interior of Lymfjord, deeper and deeperonwards to the mouth of a big river called the Helge (_Helge-aa_, theHoly River, not discoverable in my poor maps, but certainly enough stillexisting and still flowing somewhere among those intricate straits andfriths), towards the bottom of which Helge river lay, in some safe nook, the small combined Swedish and Norse fleet, under the charge of Onund, the Swedish king, while at the top or source, which is a biggishmountain lake, King Olaf had been doing considerable engineering works, well suited to such an occasion, and was now ready at a moment's notice. Knut's fleet having idly taken station here, notice from the Swedishking was instantly sent; instantly Olaf's well-engineered flood-gateswere thrown open; from the swollen lake a huge deluge of water waslet loose; Olaf himself with all his people hastening down to join hisSwedish friend, and get on board in time; Helge river all the whilealongside of him, with ever-increasing roar, and wider-spreading deluge, hastening down the steeps in the night-watches. So that, along with Olafor some way ahead of him, came immeasurable roaring waste of watersupon Knut's negligent fleet; shattered, broke, and stranded many of hisships, and was within a trifle of destroying the Golden Dragon herself, with Knut on board. Olaf and Onund, we need not say, were promptly therein person, doing their very best; the railings of the Golden Dragon, however, were too high for their little ships; and Jarl Ulf, husbandof Knut's sister, at the top of his speed, courageously intervening, spoiled their stratagem, and saved Knut from this very dangerous pass. 

Knut did nothing more this winter. The two Norse kings, quite unequal toattack such an armament, except by ambush and engineering, sailed away;again plundering at discretion on the Danish coast; carrying into Swedengreat booties and many prisoners; but obliged to lie fixed all winter;and indeed to leave their fleets there for a series of winters, --Knut'sfleet, posted at Elsinore on both sides of the Sound, rendering allegress from the Baltic impossible, except at his pleasure. Ulf'sopportune deliverance of his royal brother-in-law did not much besteadpoor Ulf himself. He had been in disfavor before, pardoned withdifficulty, by Queen Emma's intercession; an ambitious, officious, pushing, stirring, and, both in England and Denmark, almost dangerousman; and this conspicuous accidental merit only awoke new jealousy inKnut. Knut, finding nothing pass the Sound worth much blockading, wentashore; "and the day before Michaelmas, " says Snorro, "rode with a greatretinue to Roeskilde. " Snorro continues his tragic narrative of whatbefell there:

"There Knut's brother-in-law, Jarl Ulf, had prepared a great feast forhim. The Jarl was the most agreeable of hosts; but the King was silentand sullen. The Jarl talked to him in every way to make him cheerful, and brought forward everything he could think of to amuse him; but theKing remained stern, and speaking little. At last the Jarl proposed agame of chess, which he agreed to. A chess-board was produced, and theyplayed together. Jarl Ulf was hasty in temper, stiff, and in nothingyielding; but everything he managed went on well in his hands: and hewas a great warrior, about whom there are many stories. He was the mostpowerful man in Denmark next to the King. Jarl Ulf's sister, Gyda, wasmarried to Jarl Gudin (Godwin) Ulfnadson; and their sons were, HaraldKing of England, and Jarl Tosti, Jarl Walthiof, Jarl Mauro-Kaare, andJarl Svein. Gyda was the name of their daughter, who was married to theEnglish King Edward, the Good (whom we call the Confessor). 

"When they had played a while, the King made a false move; on which theJarl took a knight from him; but the King set the piece on the boardagain, and told the Jarl to make another move. But the Jarl flew angry, tumbled the chess-board over, rose, and went away. The King said, 'Runthy ways, Ulf the Fearful. ' The Jarl turned round at the door and said, 'Thou wouldst have run farther at Helge river hadst thou been left tobattle there. Thou didst not call me Ulf the Fearful when I hastened tothy help while the Swedes were beating thee like a dog. ' The Jarl thenwent out, and went to bed. 

"The following morning, while the King was putting on his clothes, hesaid to his footboy, 'Go thou to Jarl Ulf and kill him. ' The lad went, was away a while, and then came back. The King said, 'Hast thou killedthe Jarl?' 'I did not kill him, for he was gone to St. Lucius's church. 'There was a man called Ivar the White, a Norwegian by birth, who was theKing's courtman and chamberlain. The King said to him, 'Go thou and killthe Jarl. ' Ivar went to the church, and in at the choir, and thrusthis sword through the Jarl, who died on the spot. Then Ivar went to theKing, with the bloody sword in his hand. 

"The King said, 'Hast thou killed the Jarl?' 'I have killed him, ' saidhe. 'Thou hast done well, ' answered the King. " I

From a man who built so many churches (one on each battlefield wherehe had fought, to say nothing of the others), and who had in him suchdepths of real devotion and other fine cosmic quality, this does seemrather strong! But it is characteristic, withal, --of the man, andperhaps of the times still more. [14] In any case, it is an event worthnoting, the slain Jarl Ulf and his connections being of importancein the history of Denmark and of England also. Ulf's wife was Astrid, sister of Knut, and their only child was Svein, styled afterwards "SveinEstrithson" ("Astrid-son") when he became noted in the world, --at thistime a beardless youth, who, on the back of this tragedy, fled hastilyto Sweden, where were friends of Ulf. After some ten years' eclipsethere, Knut and both his sons being now dead, Svein reappeared inDenmark under a new and eminent figure, "Jarl of Denmark, " highestLiegeman to the then sovereign there. Broke his oath to said sovereign, declared himself, Svein Estrithson, to be real King of Denmark; and, after much preliminary trouble, and many beatings and disastrous flightsto and fro, became in effect such, --to the wonder of mankind; for he hadnot had one victory to cheer him on, or any good luck or merit that onesees, except that of surviving longer than some others. Neverthelesshe came to be the Restorer, so called, of Danish independence; soleremaining representative of Knut (or Knut's sister), of Fork-beard, Blue-tooth, and Old Gorm; and ancestor of all the subsequent kingsof Denmark for some 400 years; himself coming, as we see, only by theDistaff side, all of the Sword or male side having died so soon. Earlydeath, it has been observed, was the Great Knut's allotment, and all hisposterity's as well;--fatal limit (had there been no others, whichwe see there were) to his becoming "Charlemagne of the North" in anyconsiderable degree! Jarl Ulf, as we have seen, had a sister, Gyda byname, wife to Earl Godwin ("Gudin Ulfnadsson, " as Snorro calls him) avery memorable Englishman, whose son and hers, King Harald, _Harold_in English books, is the memorablest of all. These things ought to bebetter known to English antiquaries, and will perhaps be alluded toagain. 

This pretty little victory or affront, gained over Knut in _Lymfjord_, was among the last successes of Olaf against that mighty man. Olaf, theskilful captain he was, need not have despaired to defend his Norwayagainst Knut and all the world. But he learned henceforth, month bymonth ever more tragically, that his own people, seeing softer prospectsunder Knut, and in particular the chiefs of them, industriously bribedby Knut for years past, had fallen away from him; and that his means ofdefence were gone. Next summer, Knut's grand fleet sailed, unopposed, along the coast of Norway; Knut summoning a Thing every here andthere, and in all of them meeting nothing but sky-high acclamation andacceptance. Olaf, with some twelve little ships, all he now had, layquiet in some safe fjord, near Lindenaes, what we now call the Naze, behind some little solitary isles on the southeast of Norway there;till triumphant Knut had streamed home again. Home to England again"Sovereign of Norway" now, with nephew Hakon appointed Jarl andVice-regent under him! This was the news Olaf met on venturing out;and that his worst anticipations were not beyond the sad truth all, oralmost all, the chief Bonders and men of weight in Norway had declaredagainst him, and stood with triumphant Knut. 

Olaf, with his twelve poor ships, steered vigorously along the coast tocollect money and force, --if such could now anywhere be had. He himselfwas resolute to hold out, and try. "Sailing swiftly with a fair wind, morning cloudy with some showers, " he passed the coast of Jedderen, which was Erling Skjalgson's country, when he got sure notice of anendless multitude of ships, war-ships, armed merchant ships, all kindsof shipping-craft, down to fishermen's boats, just getting under wayagainst him, under the command of Erling Skjalgson, --the powerfulest ofhis subjects, once much a friend of Olaf's but now gone against him tothis length, thanks to Olaf's severity of justice, and Knut's abundancein gold and promises for years back. To that complexion had it come withErling; sailing with this immense assemblage of the naval people andpopulace of Norway to seize King Olaf, and bring him to the great Knutdead or alive. 

Erling had a grand new ship of his own, which far outsailed the generalmiscellany of rebel ships, and was visibly fast gaining distance on Olafhimself, --who well understood what Erling's puzzle was, between the tailof his game (the miscellany of rebel ships, namely) that could not comeup, and the head or general prize of the game which was crowding allsail to get away; and Olaf took advantage of the same. "Lower yoursails!" said Olaf to his men (though we must go slower). 

"Ho you, we have lost sight of them!" said Erling to his, and put on allhis speed; Olaf going, soon after this, altogether invisible, --behind alittle island that he knew of, whence into a certain fjord or bay (Bayof Fungen on the maps), which he thought would suit him. "Halt here, andget out your arms, " said Olaf, and had not to wait long till Erling camebounding in, past the rocky promontory, and with astonishment beheldOlaf's fleet of twelve with their battle-axes and their grappling-ironsall in perfect readiness. These fell on him, the unready Erling, simultaneous, like a cluster of angry bees; and in a few minutes clearedhis ship of men altogether, except Erling himself. Nobody asked hislife, nor probably would have got it if he had. Only Erling stillstood erect on a high place on the poop, fiercely defensive, and verydifficult to get at. "Could not be reached at all, " says Snorro, "exceptby spears or arrows, and these he warded off with untiring dexterity;no man in Norway, it was said, had ever defended himself so long aloneagainst many, "--an almost invincible Erling, had his cause been good. Olaf himself noticed Erling's behavior, and said to him, from theforedeck below, "Thou hast turned against me to-day, Erling. " "Theeagles fight breast to breast, " answers he. This was a speech of theking's to Erling once long ago, while they stood fighting, not as now, but side by side. The king, with some transient thought of possibilitygoing through his head, rejoins, "Wilt thou surrender, Erling?" "Thatwill I, " answered he; took the helmet off his head; laid down sword andshield; and went forward to the forecastle deck. The king pricked, Ithink not very harshly, into Erling's chin or beard with the point ofhis battle-axe, saying, "I must mark thee as traitor to thy Sovereign, though. " Whereupon one of the bystanders, Aslak Fitiaskalle, stupidlyand fiercely burst up; smote Erling on the head with his axe; so thatit struck fast in his brain and was instantly the death of Erling. "Ill-luck attend thee for that stroke; thou hast struck Norway out of myhand by it!" cried the king to Aslak; but forgave the poor fellow, whohad done it meaning well. The insurrectionary Bonder fleet arriving soonafter, as if for certain victory, was struck with astonishment at thisErling catastrophe; and being now without any leader of authority, made not the least attempt at battle; but, full of discouragement andconsternation, thankfully allowed Olaf to sail away on his northwardvoyage, at discretion; and themselves went off lamenting, with Erling'sdead body. 

This small victory was the last that Olaf had over his many enemiesat present. He sailed along, still northward, day after day; severalimportant people joined him; but the news from landward grew daily moreominous: Bonders busily arming to rear of him; and ahead, Hakon stillmore busily at Trondhjem, now near by, "--and he will end thy days, King, if he have strength enough!" Olaf paused; sent scouts to ahill-top: "Hakon's armament visible enough, and under way hitherward, about the Isle of Bjarno, yonder!" Soon after, Olaf himself saw theBonder armament of twenty-five ships, from the southward, sail past inthe distance to join that of Hakon; and, worse still, his own ships, oneand another (seven in all), were slipping off on a like errand! Hemade for the Fjord of Fodrar, mouth of the rugged strath calledValdal, --which I think still knows Olaf and has now an "Olaf's Highway, "where, nine centuries ago, it scarcely had a path. Olaf entered thisfjord, had his land-tent set up, and a cross beside it, on the smalllevel green behind the promontory there. Finding that his twelve poorships were now reduced to five, against a world all risen upon him, hecould not but see and admit to himself that there was no chance left;and that he must withdraw across the mountains and wait for a bettertime. 

His journey through that wild country, in these forlorn and straitenedcircumstances, has a mournful dignity and homely pathos, as describedby Snorro: how he drew up his five poor ships upon the beach, packed alltheir furniture away, and with his hundred or so of attendants and theirjourney-baggage, under guidance of some friendly Bonder, rode up intothe desert and foot of the mountains; scaled, after three days' effort(as if by miracle, thought his attendants and thought Snorro), thewell-nigh precipitous slope that led across, never without miraculousaid from Heaven and Olaf could baggage-wagons have ascended that path!In short, How he fared along, beset by difficulties and the mournfulestthoughts; but patiently persisted, steadfastly trusted in God; and wasfixed to return, and by God's help try again. An evidently very piousand devout man; a good man struggling with adversity, such as the gods, we may still imagine with the ancients, do look down upon as theirnoblest sight. 

He got to Sweden, to the court of his brother-in-law; kindly and noblyenough received there, though gradually, perhaps, ill-seen by the nowauthorities of Norway. So that, before long, he quitted Sweden; left hisqueen there with her only daughter, his and hers, the only child theyhad; he himself had an only son, "by a bondwoman, " Magnus by name, whocame to great things afterwards; of whom, and of which, by and by. Withthis bright little boy, and a selected escort of attendants, he movedaway to Russia, to King Jarroslav; where he might wait secure againstall risk of hurting kind friends by his presence. He seems to have beenan exile altogether some two years, --such is one's vague notion; forthere is no chronology in Snorro or his Sagas, and one is reduced toguessing and inferring. He had reigned over Norway, reckoning from thefirst days of his landing there to those last of his leaving it acrossthe Dovrefjeld, about fifteen years, ten of them shiningly victorious. 

The news from Norway were naturally agitating to King Olaf and, in thefluctuation of events there, his purposes and prospects varied much. He sometimes thought of pilgriming to Jerusalem, and a henceforthexclusively religious life; but for most part his pious thoughtsthemselves gravitated towards Norway, and a stroke for his old place andtask there, which he steadily considered to have been committed to himby God. Norway, by the rumors, was evidently not at rest. Jarl Hakon, under the high patronage of his uncle, had lasted there but a littlewhile. I know not that his government was especially unpopular, norwhether he himself much remembered his broken oath. It appears, however, he had left in England a beautiful bride; and considering farther thatin England only could bridal ornaments and other wedding outfit of asufficiently royal kind be found, he set sail thither, to fetch her andthem himself. One evening of wildish-looking weather he was seenabout the northeast corner of the Pentland Frith; the night rose to betempestuous; Hakon or any timber of his fleet was never seen more. Hadall gone down, --broken oaths, bridal hopes, and all else; mouse andman, --into the roaring waters. There was no farther Opposition-line; thelike of which had lasted ever since old heathen Hakon Jarl, down to thishis grandson Hakon's _finis_ in the Pentland Frith. With this Hakon'sdisappearance it now disappeared. 

Indeed Knut himself, though of an empire suddenly so great, was but atemporary phenomenon. Fate had decided that the grand and wise Knut wasto be short-lived; and to leave nothing as successors but an ineffectualyoung Harald Harefoot, who soon perished, and a still stupiderfiercely-drinking Harda-Knut, who rushed down of apoplexy (here inLondon City, as I guess), with the goblet at his mouth, drinking healthand happiness at a wedding-feast, also before long. 

Hakon having vanished in this dark way, there ensued a pause, both onKnut's part and on Norway's. Pause or interregnum of some months, tillit became certain, first, whether Hakon were actually dead, secondly, till Norway, and especially till King Knut himself, could decide what todo. Knut, to the deep disappointment, which had to keep itself silent, of three or four chief Norway men, named none of these three or fourJarl of Norway; but bethought him of a certain Svein, a bastard son ofhis own, --who, and almost still more his English mother, much desired acareer in the world fitter for him, thought they indignantly, thanthat of captain over Jomsburg, where alone the father had been able toprovide for him hitherto. Svein was sent to Norway as king or vice-kingfor Father Knut; and along with him his fond and vehement mother. Neither of whom gained any favor from the Norse people by the kind ofmanagement they ultimately came to show. 

Olaf on news of this change, and such uncertainty prevailing everywherein Norway as to the future course of things, whether Svein wouldcome, as was rumored of at last, and be able to maintain himself if hedid, --thought there might be something in it of a chance for himselfand his rights. And, after lengthened hesitation, much prayer, piousinvocation, and consideration, decided to go and try it. The finalgrain that had turned the balance, it appears, was a half-waking morningdream, or almost ocular vision he had of his glorious cousin OlafTryggveson, who severely admonished, exhorted, and encouraged him; anddisappeared grandly, just in the instant of Olaf's awakening; so thatOlaf almost fancied he had seen the very figure of him, as it meltedinto air. "Let us on, let us on!" thought Olaf always after that. Heleft his son, not in Russia, but in Sweden with the Queen, who provedvery good and carefully helpful in wise ways to him:--in Russia Olaf hadnow nothing more to do but give his grateful adieus, and get ready. 

His march towards Sweden, and from that towards Norway and the passesof the mountains, down Vaerdal, towards Stickelstad, and the crisisthat awaited, is beautifully depicted by Snorro. It has, all of it, the description (and we see clearly, the fact itself had), a kind ofpathetic grandeur, simplicity, and rude nobleness; something Epic orHomeric, without the metre or the singing of Homer, but with all thesincerity, rugged truth to nature, and much more of piety, devoutness, reverence for what is forever High in this Universe, than meets usin those old Greek Ballad-mongers. Singularly visual all of it, too, brought home in every particular to one's imagination, so that it standsout almost as a thing one actually saw. 

Olaf had about three thousand men with him; gathered mostly as he faredalong through Norway. Four hundred, raised by one Dag, a kinsman whom hehad found in Sweden and persuaded to come with him, marched usually ina separate body; and were, or might have been, rather an importantelement. Learning that the Bonders were all arming, especially inTrondhjem country, Olaf streamed down towards them in the closest orderhe could. By no means very close, subsistence even for three thousandbeing difficult in such a country. His speech was almost always freeand cheerful, though his thoughts always naturally were of a high andearnest, almost sacred tone; devout above all. Stickelstad, a smallpoor hamlet still standing where the valley ends, was seen by Olaf, andtacitly by the Bonders as well, to be the natural place for offeringbattle. There Olaf issued out from the hills one morning: drew himselfup according to the best rules of Norse tactics, rules of littlecomplexity, but perspicuously true to the facts. I think he had a clearopen ground still rather raised above the plain in front; he could seehow the Bonder army had not yet quite arrived, but was pouring forward, in spontaneous rows or groups, copiously by every path. This was thoughtto be the biggest army that ever met in Norway; "certainly not muchfewer than a hundred times a hundred men, " according to Snorro; greatBonders several of them, small Bonders very many, --all of willingmind, animated with a hot sense of intolerable injuries. "King Olaf hadpunished great and small with equal rigor, " says Snorro; "which appearedto the chief people of the country too severe; and animosity rose to thehighest when they lost relatives by the King's just sentence, althoughthey were in reality guilty. He again would rather renounce his dignitythan omit righteous judgment. The accusation against him, of beingstingy with his money, was not just, for he was a most generous mantowards his friends. But that alone was the cause of the discontentraised against him, that he appeared hard and severe in hisretributions. Besides, King Knut offered large sums of money, and thegreat chiefs were corrupted by this, and by his offering them greaterdignities than they had possessed before. " On these grounds, against theintolerable man, great and small were now pouring along by every path. 

Olaf perceived it would still be some time before the Bonder army wasin rank. His own Dag of Sweden, too, was not yet come up; he was to havethe right banner; King Olaf's own being the middle or grand one; someother person the third or left banner. All which being perfectly rankedand settled, according to the best rules, and waiting only the arrivalof Dag, Olaf bade his men sit down, and freshen themselves with a littlerest. There were religious services gone through: a matins-worship suchas there have been few; sternly earnest to the heart of it, and deep asdeath and eternity, at least on Olaf's own part. For the rest Thormodsang a stave of the fiercest Skaldic poetry that was in him; all thearmy straightway sang it in chorus with fiery mind. The Bonder of thenearest farm came up, to tell Olaf that he also wished to fight for him"Thanks to thee; but don't, " said Olaf; "stay at home rather, that thewounded may have some shelter. " To this Bonder, Olaf delivered all themoney he had, with solemn order to lay out the whole of it in massesand prayers for the souls of such of his enemies as fell. "Such of thyenemies, King?" "Yes, surely, " said Olaf, "my friends will all eitherconquer, or go whither I also am going. "

At last the Bonder army too was got ranked; three commanders, one ofthem with a kind of loose chief command, having settled to take chargeof it; and began to shake itself towards actual advance. Olaf, inthe mean while, had laid his head on the knees of Finn Arneson, histrustiest man, and fallen fast asleep. Finn's brother, Kalf Arneson, once a warm friend of Olaf, was chief of the three commanders on theopposite side. Finn and he addressed angry speech to one another fromthe opposite ranks, when they came near enough. Finn, seeing the enemyfairly approach, stirred Olaf from his sleep. "Oh, why hast thou wakenedme from such a dream?" said Olaf, in a deeply solemn tone. "What dreamwas it, then?" asked Finn. "I dreamt that there rose a ladder herereaching up to very Heaven, " said Olaf; "I had climbed and climbed, and got to the very last step, and should have entered there hadst thougiven me another moment. " "King, I doubt thou art _fey_; I do not quitelike that dream. "

The actual fight began about one of the clock in a most bright last dayof July, and was very fierce and hot, especially on the part of Olaf'smen, who shook the others back a little, though fierce enough they too;and had Dag been on the ground, which he wasn't yet, it was thoughtvictory might have been won. Soon after battle joined, the sky grew ofa ghastly brass or copper color, darker and darker, till thick nightinvolved all things; and did not clear away again till battle was nearending. Dag, with his four hundred, arrived in the darkness, and made afurious charge, what was afterwards, in the speech of the people, called"Dag's storm. " Which had nearly prevailed, but could not quite; victoryagain inclining to the so vastly larger party. It is uncertain still howthe matter would have gone; for Olaf himself was now fighting with hisown hand, and doing deadly execution on his busiest enemies to rightand to left. But one of these chief rebels, Thorer Hund (thought to havelearnt magic from the Laplanders, whom he long traded with, and mademoney by), mysteriously would not fall for Olaf's best strokes. Beststrokes brought only dust from the (enchanted) deer-skin coat of thefellow, to Olaf's surprise, --when another of the rebel chiefs rushedforward, struck Olaf with his battle-axe, a wild slashing wound, andmiserably broke his thigh, so that he staggered or was supported back tothe nearest stone; and there sat down, lamentably calling on God tohelp him in this bad hour. Another rebel of note (the name of him longmemorable in Norway) slashed or stabbed Olaf a second time, as did thena third. Upon which the noble Olaf sank dead; and forever quitted thisdoghole of a world, --little worthy of such men as Olaf one sometimesthinks. But that too is a mistake, and even an important one, should wepersist in it. 

With Olaf's death the sky cleared again. Battle, now near done, endedwith complete victory to the rebels, and next to no pursuit or result, except the death of Olaf everybody hastening home, as soon as the bigDuel had decided itself. Olaf's body was secretly carried, after dark, to some out-house on the farm near the spot; whither a poor blindbeggar, creeping in for shelter that very evening, was miraculouslyrestored to sight. And, truly with a notable, almost miraculous, speed, the feelings of all Norway for King Olaf changed themselves, and wereturned upside down, "within a year, " or almost within a day. Superlativeexample of _Extinctus amabitur idem. _ Not "Olaf the Thick-set" anylonger, but "Olaf the Blessed" or Saint, now clearly in Heaven; such thename and character of him from that time to this. Two churches dedicatedto him (out of four that once stood) stand in London at this moment. And the miracles that have been done there, not to speak of Norway andChristendom elsewhere, in his name, were numerous and great for longcenturies afterwards. Visibly a Saint Olaf ever since; and, indeed, in_Bollandus_ or elsewhere, I have seldom met with better stuff to make aSaint of, or a true World-Hero in all good senses. 

Speaking of the London Olaf Churches, I should have added that from oneof these the thrice-famous Tooley Street gets its name, --where thoseThree Tailors, addressing Parliament and the Universe, sublimely styledthemselves, "We, the People of England. " Saint Olave Street, Saint OleyStreet, Stooley Street, Tooley Street; such are the metamorphoses ofhuman fame in the world!

The battle-day of Stickelstad, King Olaf's death-day, is generallybelieved to have been Wednesday, July 31, 1033. But on investigation, itturns out that there was no total eclipse of the sun visible in Norwaythat year; though three years before, there was one; but on the 29thinstead of the 31st. So that the exact date still remains uncertain;Dahlmann, the latest critic, inclining for 1030, and its indisputableeclipse. [15]

CHAPTER XI. MAGNUS THE GOOD AND OTHERS. 

St. Olaf is the highest of these Norway Kings, and is the last that muchattracts us. For this reason, if a reason were not superfluous, we mighthere end our poor reminiscences of those dim Sovereigns. But we will, nevertheless, for the sake of their connection with bits of EnglishHistory, still hastily mention the Dames of one or two who follow, and who throw a momentary gleam of life and illumination on events andepochs that have fallen so 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 inNorway, nor seems to have deserved any. His English mother and he werefound to be grasping, oppressive persons; and awoke, almost from theinstant that Olaf was suppressed and crushed away from Norway intoHeaven, universal odium more and more in that country. Well-deservedly, as still appears; for their taxings and extortions of malt, of herring, of meal, smithwork and every article taxable in Norway, were extreme;and their service to the country otherwise nearly imperceptible. Inbrief their one basis there was the power of Knut the Great; and that, like all earthly things, was liable to sudden collapse, --and it sufferedsuch in a notable degree. King Knut, hardly yet of middle age, andthe greatest King in the then world, died at Shaftesbury, in 1035, asDahlmann thinks [16], --leaving two legitimate sons and a busy, intriguingwidow (Norman Emma, widow of Ethelred the Unready), mother of theyounger of these two; neither of whom proved to have any talent or anycontinuance. In spite of Emma's utmost efforts, Harald, the elder son ofKnut, not hers, got England for his kingdom; Emma and her Harda-Knuthad to be content with Denmark, and go thither, much against their will. Harald in England, --light-going little figure like his father beforehim, --got the name of Harefoot here; and might have done good work amonghis now orderly and settled people; but he died almost within year andday; and has left no trace among us, except that of "Harefoot, " from hisswift mode of walking. Emma and her Harda-Knut now returned joyfulto England. But the violent, idle, and drunken Harda-Knut did no goodthere; and, happily for England and him, soon suddenly ended, by strokeof apoplexy at a marriage festival, as mentioned above. In Denmark hehad done still less good. And indeed, --under him, in a year or two, thegrand imperial edifice, laboriously built by Knut's valor and wisdom, had already tumbled all to the ground, in a most unexpected andremarkable way. As we are now to indicate with all brevity. 

Svein's tyrannies in Norway had wrought such fruit that, within the fouryears after Olaf's death, the chief men in Norway, the very slayers ofKing Olaf, Kalf Arneson at the head of them, met secretly once or twice;and unanimously agreed that Kalf Arneson must go to Sweden, or to Russiaitself; seek young Magnus, son of Olaf home: excellent Magnus, to beking over all Norway and them, instead of this intolerable Svein. Whichwas at once done, --Magnus brought home in a kind of triumph, all Norwaywaiting for him. Intolerable Svein had already been rebelled against:some years before this, a certain young Tryggve out of Ireland, authentic son of Olaf Tryggveson, and of that fine Irish Princess whochose him in his low habiliments and low estate, and took him over toher own Green Island, --this royal young Tryggve Olafson had invaded theusurper Svein, in a fierce, valiant, and determined manner; and thoughwith too small a party, showed excellent fight for some time; tillSvein, zealously bestirring himself, managed to get him beaten andkilled. But that was a couple of years ago; the party still too small, not including one and all as now! Svein, without stroke of sword thistime, moved off towards Denmark; never showing face in Norway again. Hisdrunken brother, Harda-Knut, received him brother-like; even gave himsome territory to rule over and subsist upon. But he lived only a shortwhile; was gone before Harda-Knut himself; and we will mention him nomore. 

Magnus was a fine bright young fellow, and proved a valiant, wise, andsuccessful King, known among his people as Magnus the Good. He was onlynatural son of King Olaf but that made little difference in those timesand there. His strange-looking, unexpected Latin name he got in thisway: Alfhild, his mother, a slave through ill-luck of war, though noblyborn, was seen to be in a hopeful way; and it was known in the King'shouse how intimately Olaf was connected with that occurrence, andhow much he loved this "King's serving-maid, " as she was commonlydesignated. Alfhild was brought to bed late at night; and all the world, especially King Olaf was asleep; Olaf's strict rule, then and always, being, Don't awaken me:--seemingly a man sensitive about his sleep. Thechild was a boy, of rather weakly aspect; no important person present, except Sigvat, the King's Icelandic Skald, who happened to be stillawake; and the Bishop of Norway, who, I suppose, had been sent for inhurry. "What is to be done?" said the Bishop: "here is an infant inpressing need of baptism; and we know not what the name is: go, Sigvat, awaken the King, and ask. " "I dare not for my life, " answered Sigvat;"King's orders are rigorous on that point. " "But if the child dieunbaptized, " said the Bishop, shuddering; too certain, he and everybody, where the child would go in that case! "I will myself give him a name, "said Sigvat, with a desperate concentration of all his faculties; "heshall be namesake of the greatest of mankind, --imperial Carolus Magnus;let us call the infant Magnus!" King Olaf, on the morrow, asked rathersharply how Sigvat had dared take such a liberty; but excused Sigvat, seeing what the perilous alternative was. And Magnus, by such accident, this boy was called; and he, not another, is the prime origin andintroducer of that name Magnus, which occurs rather frequently, notamong the Norman Kings only, but by and by among the Danish and Swedish;and, among the Scandinavian populations, appears to be rather frequentto this day. 

Magnus, a youth of great spirit, whose own, and standing at hisbeck, all Norway now was, immediately smote home on Denmark; desirousnaturally of vengeance for what it had done to Norway, and the sacredkindred of Magnus. Denmark, its great Knut gone, and nothing but adrunken Harda-Knut, fugitive Svein and Co. , there in his stead, wasbecome a weak dislocated Country. And Magnus plundered in it, burnt it, beat it, as often as he pleased; Harda-Knut struggling what he could tomake resistance or reprisals, but never once getting any victory overMagnus. Magnus, I perceive, was, like his Father, a skilful as wellas valiant fighter by sea and land; Magnus, with good battalions, andprobably backed by immediate alliance with Heaven and St. Olaf, aswas then the general belief or surmise about him, could not easily bebeaten. And the truth is, he never was, by Harda-Knut or any other. Harda-Knut's last transaction with him was, To make a firm Peace andeven Family-treaty sanctioned by all the grandees of both countries, whodid indeed mainly themselves make it; their two Kings assenting: Thatthere should be perpetual Peace, and no thought of war more, betweenDenmark and Norway; and that, if either of the Kings died childlesswhile the other was reigning, the other should succeed him in bothKingdoms. A magnificent arrangement, such as has several times beenmade in the world's history; but which in this instance, what is verysingular, took actual effect; drunken Harda-Knut dying so speedily, andMagnus being the man he was. One would like to give the date of thisremarkable Treaty; but cannot with precision. Guess somewhere about1040: [17] actual fruition of it came to Magnus, beyond question, in1042, when Harda-Knut drank that wassail bowl at the wedding in Lambeth, and fell down dead; which in the Saxon Chronicle is dated 3d June ofthat year. Magnus at once went to Denmark on hearing this event; wasjoyfully received by the headmen there, who indeed, with their fellowsin Norway, had been main contrivers of the Treaty; both Countrieslonging for mutual peace, and the end of such incessant broils. 

Magnus was triumphantly received as King in Denmark. The onlyunfortunate thing was, that Svein Estrithson, the exile son of Ulf, Knut's Brother-in-law, whom Knut, as we saw, had summarily killed twelveyears before, emerged from his exile in Sweden in a flattering form;and proposed that Magnus should make him Jarl of Denmark, and generaladministrator there, in his own stead. To which the sanguine Magnus, inspite of advice to the contrary, insisted on acceding. "Too powerful aJarl, " said Einar Tamberskelver--the same Einar whose bow was heard tobreak in Olaf Tryggveson's last battle ("Norway breaking from thy hand, King!"), who had now become Magnus's chief man, and had long beenamong the highest chiefs in Norway; "too powerful a Jarl, " said Einarearnestly. But Magnus disregarded it; and a troublesome experience hadto teach him that it was true. In about a year, crafty Svein, bringingends to meet, got himself declared King of Denmark for his own behoof, instead of Jarl for another's: and had to be beaten and driven out byMagnus. Beaten every year; but almost always returned next year, for anew beating, --almost, though not altogether; having at length got onedreadful smashing-down and half-killing, which held him quiet for awhile, --so long as Magnus lived. Nay in the end, he made good his point, as if by mere patience in being beaten; and did become King himself, and progenitor of all the Kings that followed. King Svein Estrithson;so called from Astrid or Estrith, his mother, the great Knut's sister, daughter of Svein Forkbeard by that amazing Sigrid the Proud, who_burnt_ those two ineligible suitors of hers both at once, and got aswitch on the face from Olaf Tryggveson, which proved the death of thathigh man. 

But all this fine fortune of the often beaten Estrithson was posteriorto Magnus's death; who never would have suffered it, had he been alive. Magnus was a mighty fighter; a fiery man; very proud and positive, among other qualities, and had such luck as was never seen before. Luckinvariably good, said everybody; never once was beaten, --which proves, continued everybody, that his Father Olaf and the miraculous power ofHeaven were with him always. Magnus, I believe, did put down a greatdeal of anarchy in those countries. One of his earliest enterpriseswas to abolish Jomsburg, and trample out that nest of pirates. Whichhe managed so completely that Jomsburg remained a mere reminiscencethenceforth; and its place is not now known to any mortal. 

One perverse thing did at last turn up in the course of Magnus: a newClaimant for the Crown of Norway, and he a formidable person withal. This was Harald, half-brother of the late Saint Olaf; uncle orhalf-uncle, therefore, of Magnus himself. Indisputable son of theSaint's mother by St. Olaf's stepfather, who was, himself descendedstraight from Harald Haarfagr. This new Harald was already much heard ofin the world. As an ardent Boy of fifteen he had fought at King Olaf'sside at Stickelstad; would not be admonished by the Saint to go away. Got smitten down there, not killed; was smuggled away that night fromthe field by friendly help; got cured of his wounds, forwarded toRussia, where he grew to man's estate, under bright auspices andsuccesses. Fell in love with the Russian Princess, but could not gether to wife; went off thereupon to Constantinople as _Vaeringer_(Life-Guardsman of the Greek Kaiser); became Chief Captain of theVaeringers, invincible champion of the poor Kaisers that then were, and filled all the East with the shine and noise of his exploits. Anauthentic _Waring_ or _Baring_, such the surname we now have derivedfrom these people; who were an important institution in those Greekcountries for several ages: Vaeringer Life-Guard, consisting ofNorsemen, with sometimes a few English among them. Harald hadinnumerable adventures, nearly always successful, sing the Skalds;gained a great deal of wealth, gold ornaments, and gold coin; had evenQueen Zoe (so they sing, though falsely) enamored of him at one time;and was himself a Skald of eminence; some of whose verses, by no meansthe worst of their kind, remain to this day. 

This character of Waring much distinguishes Harald to me; the onlyVaeringer of whom I could ever get the least biography, true orhalf-true. It seems the Greek History-books but indifferently correspondwith these Saga records; and scholars say there could have been noconsiderable romance between Zoe and him, Zoe at that date being 60years of age! Harald's own lays say nothing of any Zoe, but are stillfull of longing for his Russian Princess far away. 

At last, what with Zoes, what with Greek perversities and perfidies, andtroubles that could not fail, he determined on quitting Greece; packedup his immensities of wealth in succinct shape, and actually returnedto Russia, where new honors and favors awaited him from old friends, andespecially, if I mistake not, the hand of that adorable Princess, crownof all his wishes for the time being. Before long, however, he decidedfarther to look after his Norway Royal heritages; and, for that purpose, sailed in force to the Jarl or quasi-King of Denmark, the often-beatenSvein, who was now in Sweden on his usual winter exile after beating. Svein and he had evidently interests in common. Svein was charmed to seehim, so warlike, glorious and renowned a man, with masses of money abouthim, too. Svein did by and by become treacherous; and even attempted, one night, to assassinate Harald in his bed on board ship: but Harald, vigilant of Svein, and a man of quick and sure insight, had providentlygone to sleep elsewhere, leaving a log instead of himself among theblankets. In which log, next morning, treacherous Svein's battle-axe wasfound deeply sticking: and could not be removed without difficulty! Butthis was after Harald and King Magnus himself bad begun treating; withthe fairest prospects, --which this of the $vein battle-axe naturallytended to forward, as it altogether ended the other copartnery. 

Magnus, on first hearing of Vaeringer Harald and his intentions, madeinstant equipment, and determination to fight his uttermost againstthe same. But wise persons of influence round him, as did the likesort round Vaeringer Harald, earnestly advised compromise and peaceableagreement. Which, soon after that of Svein's nocturnal battle-axe, was the course adopted; and, to the joy of all parties, did provea successful solution. Magnus agreed to part his kingdom with UncleHarald; uncle parting his treasures, or uniting them with Magnus'spoverty. Each was to be an independent king, but they were to govern incommon; Magnus rather presiding. He, to sit, for example, in the HighSeat alone; King Harald opposite him in a seat not quite so high, thoughif a stranger King came on a visit, both the Norse Kings were to sitin the High Seat. With various other punctilious regulations; which thefiery Magnus was extremely strict with; rendering the mutual relation avery dangerous one, had not both the Kings been honest men, and Haralda much more prudent and tolerant one than Magnus. They, on the whole, never had any weighty quarrel, thanks now and then rather to Haraldthan to Magnus. Magnus too was very noble; and Harald, with his wideexperience and greater length of years, carefully held his heat oftemper well covered in. 

Prior to Uncle Harald's coming, Magnus had distinguished himself as aLawgiver. His Code of Laws for the Trondhjem Province was considereda pretty piece of legislation; and in subsequent times got the name of_Gray-goose_ (Gragas); one of the wonderfulest names ever given to awise Book. Some say it came from the gray color of the parchment, somegive other incredible origins; the last guess I have heard is, thatthe name merely denotes antiquity; the witty name in Norway for a mangrowing old having been, in those times, that he was now "becoming agray-goose. " Very fantastic indeed; certain, however, that Gray-goose isthe name of that venerable Law Book; nay, there is another, still morefamous, belonging to Iceland, and not far from a century younger, theIceland _Gray-goose. _ The Norway one is perhaps of date about 1037, theother of about 1118; peace be with them both! Or, if anybody is inclinedto such matters let him go to Dahlmann, for the amplest information andsuch minuteness of detail as might almost enable him to be an Advocate, with Silk Gown, in any Court depending on these Gray-geese. 

Magnus did not live long. He had a dream one night of his Father Olaf'scoming to him in shining presence, and announcing, That a magnificentfortune and world-great renown was now possible for him; but thatperhaps it was his duty to refuse it; in which case his earthly lifewould be short. "Which way wilt thou do, then?" said the shiningpresence. "Thou shalt decide for me, Father, thou, not I!" and told hisUncle Harald on the morrow, adding that he thought he should nowsoon die; which proved to be the fact. The magnificent fortune, soquestionable otherwise, has reference, no doubt, to the Conquestof England; to which country Magnus, as rightful and actual King of_Denmark_, as well as undisputed heir to drunken Harda-Knut, by treatylong ago, had now some evident claim. The enterprise itself was reservedto the patient, gay, and prudent Uncle Harald; and to him it did provefatal, --and merely paved the way for Another, luckier, not likelier!

Svein Estrithson, always beaten during Magnus's life, by and by got anagreement from the prudent Harald to _be_ King of Denmark, then; and endthese wearisome and ineffectual brabbles; Harald having other work todo. But in the autumn of 1066, Tosti, a younger son of our EnglishEarl Godwin, came to Svein's court with a most important announcement;namely, that King Edward the Confessor, so called, was dead, and thatHarold, as the English write it, his eldest brother would give him, Tosti, no sufficient share in the kingship. Which state of matters, ifSvein would go ahead with him to rectify it, would be greatly to theadvantage of Svein. Svein, taught by many beatings, was too wise forthis proposal; refused Tosti, who indignantly stepped over intoNorway, and proposed it to King Harald there. Svein really had acquiredconsiderable teaching, I should guess, from his much beating and hardexperience in the world; one finds him afterwards the esteemed friendof the famous Historian Adam of Bremen, who reports various wisehumanities, and pleasant discoursings with Svein Estrithson. 

As for Harald Hardrade, "Harald the Hard or Severe, " as he was nowcalled, Tosti's proposal awakened in him all his old Vaeringer ambitiousand cupidities into blazing vehemence. He zealously consented; and atonce, with his whole strength, embarked in the adventure. Fitted out twohundred ships, and the biggest army he could carry in them; and sailedwith Tosti towards the dangerous Promised Land. Got into the Tyne andtook booty; got into the Humber, thence into the Ouse; easily subduedany opposition the official people or their populations could make;victoriously scattered these, victoriously took the City of York in aday; and even got himself homaged there, "King of Northumberland, "as per covenant, --Tosti proving honorable, --Tosti and he going withfaithful strict copartnery, and all things looking prosperous andglorious. Except only (an important exception!) that they learnt forcertain, English Harold was advancing with all his strength; and, ina measurable space of hours, unless care were taken, would be in Yorkhimself. Harald and Tosti hastened off to seize the post of StamfordBridge on Derwent River, six or seven miles east of York City, andthere bar this dangerous advent. Their own ships lay not far off inOuse River, in case of the worst. The battle that ensued the next day, September 20, 1066, is forever memorable in English history. 

Snorro gives vividly enough his view of it from the Icelandic side: Aring of stalwart Norsemen, close ranked, with their steel tools in hand;English Harold's Army, mostly cavalry, prancing and pricking all around;trying to find or make some opening in that ring. For a long time tryingin vain, till at length, getting them enticed to burst out somewherein pursuit, they quickly turned round, and quickly made an end, of thatmatter. Snorro represents English Harold, with a first party of thesehorse coming up, and, with preliminary salutations, asking if Tosti werethere, and if Harald were; making generous proposals to Tosti; but, in regard to Harald and what share of England was to be his, answeringTosti with the words, "Seven feet of English earth, or more if herequire it, for a grave. " Upon which Tosti, like an honorable man andcopartner, said, "No, never; let us fight you rather till we all die. ""Who is this that spoke to you?" inquired Harald, when the cavaliers hadwithdrawn. "My brother Harold, " answers Tosti; which looks rather like aSaga, but may be historical after all. Snorro's history of the battle isintelligible only after you have premised to it, what he never hints at, that the scene was on the east side of the bridge and of the Derwent;the great struggle for the bridge, one at last finds, was after thefall of Harald; and to the English Chroniclers, said struggle, which wasabundantly severe, is all they know of the battle. 

Enraged at that breaking loose of his steel ring of infantry, NorseHarald blazed up into true Norse fury, all the old Vaeringer andBerserkir rage awakening in him; sprang forth into the front of thefight, and mauled and cut and smashed down, on both hands of him, everything he met, irresistible by any horse or man, till an arrow cuthim through the windpipe, and laid him low forever. That was the end ofKing Harald and of his workings in this world. The circumstance thathe was a Waring or Baring and had smitten to pieces so many Orientalcohorts or crowds, and had made love-verses (kind of iron madrigals) tohis Russian Princess, and caught the fancy of questionable Greek queens, and had amassed such heaps of money, while poor nephew Magnus hadonly one gold ring (which had been his father's, and even his father's_mother's_, as Uncle Harald noticed), and nothing more whatever of thatprecious metal to combine with Harald's treasures:--all this is new tome, naturally no hint of it in any English book; and lends some gleam ofromantic splendor to that dim business of Stamford Bridge, now fallenso dull and torpid to most English minds, transcendently important as itonce was to all Englishmen. Adam of Bremen says, the English got asmuch gold plunder from Harald's people as was a heavy burden for twelvemen; [18] a thing evidently impossible, which nobody need try to believe. Young Olaf, Harald's son, age about sixteen, steering down the Ouse atthe top of his speed, escaped home to Norway with all his ships, andsubsequently reigned there with Magnus, his brother. Harald's body didlie in English earth for about a year; but was then brought to Norwayfor burial. He needed more than seven feet of grave, say some;Laing, interpreting Snorro's measurements, makes Harald eight feet instature, --I do hope, with some error in excess!

CHAPTER XII. OLAF THE TRANQUIL, MAGNUS BAREFOOT, AND SIGURD THECRUSADER. 

The new King Olaf, his brother Magnus having soon died, bore rule inNorway for some five-and-twenty years. Rule soft and gentle, not likehis father's, and inclining rather to improvement in the arts andelegancies than to anything severe or dangerously laborious. Aslim-built, witty-talking, popular and pretty man, with uncommonlybright eyes, and hair like floss silk: they called him Olaf _Kyrre_ (theTranquil or Easygoing). 

The ceremonials of the palace were much improved by him. Palace stillcontinued to be built of huge logs pyramidally sloping upwards, withfireplace in the middle of the floor, and no egress for smoke or ingressfor light except right overhead, which, in bad weather, you could shut, or all but shut, with a lid. Lid originally made of mere opaque board, but changed latterly into a light frame, covered (_glazed_, so to speak)with entrails of animals, clarified into something of pellucidity. Allthis Olaf, I hope, further perfected, as he did the placing of the courtladies, court officials, and the like; but I doubt if the luxury of aglass window were ever known to him, or a cup to drink from that wasnot made of metal or horn. In fact it is chiefly for his son's sake Imention him here; and with the son, too, I have little real concern, butonly a kind of fantastic. 

This son bears the name of Magnus _Barfod_ (Barefoot, or Bareleg); andif you ask why so, the answer is: He was used to appear in the streetsof Nidaros (Trondhjem) now and then in complete Scotch Highland dress. Authentic tartan plaid and philibeg, at that epoch, --to the wonder ofTrondhjem and us! The truth is, he had a mighty fancy for those Hebridesand other Scotch possessions of his; and seeing England now quiteimpossible, eagerly speculated on some conquest in Ireland as nextbest. He did, in fact, go diligently voyaging and inspecting amongthose Orkney and Hebridian Isles; putting everything straight there, appointing stringent authorities, jarls, --nay, a king, "Kingdom of theSuderoer" (Southern Isles, now called _Sodor_), --and, as first king, Sigurd, his pretty little boy of nine years. All which done, and somequarrel with Sweden fought out, he seriously applied himself to visitingin a still more emphatic manner; namely, to invading, with his bestskill and strength, the considerable virtual or actual kingdom he hadin Ireland, intending fully to enlarge it to the utmost limits of theIsland if possible. He got prosperously into Dublin (guess A. D. 1102). Considerable authority he already had, even among those poor IrishKings, or kinglets, in their glibs and yellow-saffron gowns; still more, I suppose, among the numerous Norse Principalities there. "King Murdog, King of Ireland, " says the Chronicle of Man, "had obliged himself, everyYule-day, to take a pair of shoes, hang them over his shoulder, as yourservant does on a journey, and walk across his court, at bidding and inpresence of Magnus Barefoot's messenger, by way of homage to the saidKing. " Murdog on this greater occasion did whatever homage could berequired of him; but that, though comfortable, was far from satisfyingthe great King's ambitious mind. The great King left Murdog; left hisown Dublin; marched off westward on a general conquest of Ireland. Marched easily victorious for a time; and got, some say, into the wildsof Connaught, but there saw himself beset by ambuscades and wild Irishcountenances intent on mischief; and had, on the sudden, to draw up forbattle;--place, I regret to say, altogether undiscoverable to me; knownonly that it was boggy in the extreme. Certain enough, too certain andevident, Magnus Barefoot, searching eagerly, could find no firm footingthere; nor, fighting furiously up to the knees or deeper, any result buthonorable death! Date is confidently marked "24 August, 1103, "--as ifpeople knew the very day of the month. The natives did humanely giveKing Magnus Christian burial. The remnants of his force, without furthermolestation, found their ships on the Coast of Ulster; and sailedhome, --without conquest of Ireland; nay perhaps, leaving royal Murdogdisposed to be relieved of his procession with the pair of shoes. 

Magnus Barefoot left three sons, all kings at once, reigning peaceablytogether. But to us, at present, the only noteworthy one of them wasSigurd; who, finding nothing special to do at home, left his brothersto manage for him, and went off on a far Voyage, which has rendered himdistinguishable in the crowd. Voyage through the Straits of Gibraltar, on to Jerusalem, thence to Constantinople; and so home through Russia, shining with such renown as filled all Norway for the time being. AKing called Sigurd Jorsalafarer (Jerusalemer) or Sigurd the Crusaderhenceforth. His voyage had been only partially of the Viking type;in general it was of the Royal-Progress kind rather; Vikingism onlyintervening in cases of incivility or the like. His reception inthe Courts of Portugal, Spain, Sicily, Italy, had been honorable andsumptuous. The King of Jerusalem broke out into utmost splendor andeffusion at sight of such a pilgrim; and Constantinople did itshighest honors to such a Prince of Vaeringers. And the truth is, Sigurdintrinsically was a wise, able, and prudent man; who, surviving both hisbrothers, reigned a good while alone in a solid and successful way. Heshows features of an original, independent-thinking man; somethingof ruggedly strong, sincere, and honest, with peculiarities that areamiable and even pathetic in the character and temperament of him;as certainly, the course of life he took was of his own choosing, andpeculiar enough. He happens furthermore to be, what he least of allcould have chosen or expected, the last of the Haarfagr Genealogy thathad any success, or much deserved any, in this world. The last of theHaarfagrs, or as good as the last! So that, singular to say, it is inreality, for one thing only that Sigurd, after all his crusadings andwonderful adventures, is memorable to us here: the advent of anIrish gentleman called "Gylle Krist" (Gil-christ, Servant of Christ), who, --not over welcome, I should think, but (unconsciously) big with theabove result, --appeared in Norway, while King Sigurd was supreme. Let usexplain a little. 

This Gylle Krist, the unconsciously fatal individual, who "spoke Norseimperfectly, " declared himself to be the natural son of whilom MagnusBarefoot; born to him there while engaged in that unfortunate "Conquestof Ireland. " "Here is my mother come with me, " said Gilchrist, "whodeclares my real baptismal name to have been Harald, given me by thatgreat King; and who will carry the red-hot ploughshares or do anyreasonable ordeal in testimony of these facts. I am King Sigurd'sveritable half-brother: what will King Sigurd think it fair to do withme?" Sigurd clearly seems to have believed the man to be speaking truth;and indeed nobody to have doubted but he was. Sigurd said, "Honorablesustenance shalt thou have from me here. But, under pain of extirpation, swear that, neither in my time, nor in that of my young son Magnus, wilt thou ever claim any share in this Government. " Gylle swore; andpunctually kept his promise during Sigurd's reign. But during Magnus's, he conspicuously broke it; and, in result, through many reigns, andduring three or four generations afterwards, produced unspeakablecontentions, massacrings, confusions in the country he had adopted. There are reckoned, from the time of Sigurd's death (A. D. 1130), about ahundred years of civil war: no king allowed to distinguish himself by asolid reign of well-doing, or by any continuing reign at all, --sometimesas many as four kings simultaneously fighting;--and in Norway, from sireto son, nothing but sanguinary anarchy, disaster and bewilderment;a Country sinking steadily as if towards absolute ruin. Of all whichfrightful misery and discord Irish Gylle, styled afterwards KingHarald Gylle, was, by ill destiny and otherwise, the visible origin: anillegitimate Irish Haarfagr who proved to be his own destruction, andthat of the Haarfagr kindred altogether!

Sigurd himself seems always to have rather favored Gylle, who was acheerful, shrewd, patient, witty, and effective fellow; and had at firstmuch quizzing to endure, from the younger kind, on account of his Irishway of speaking Norse, and for other reasons. One evening, for example, while the drink was going round, Gylle mentioned that the Irish had awonderful talent of swift running and that there were among them peoplewho could keep up with the swiftest horse. At which, especially fromyoung Magnus, there were peals of laughter; and a declaration from thelatter that Gylle and he would have it tried to-morrow morning! Gylle invain urged that he had not himself professed to be so swift a runneras to keep up with the Prince's horses; but only that there were men inIreland who could. Magnus was positive; and, early next morning, Gyllehad to be on the ground; and the race, naturally under heavy bet, actually went off. Gylle started parallel to Magnus's stirrup; ran likea very roe, and was clearly ahead at the goal. "Unfair, " said Magnus;"thou must have had hold of my stirrup-leather, and helped thyselfalong; we must try it again. " Gylle ran behind the horse this secondtime; then at the end, sprang forward; and again was fairly in ahead. "Thou must have held by the tail, " said Magnus; "not by fair running wasthis possible; we must try a third time!" Gylle started ahead of Magnusand his horse, this third time; kept ahead with increasing distance, Magnus galloping his very best; and reached the goal more palpablyforemost than ever. So that Magnus had to pay his bet, and otherdamage and humiliation. And got from his father, who heard of it soonafterwards, scoffing rebuke as a silly fellow, who did not know theworth of men, but only the clothes and rank of them, and well deservedwhat he had got from Gylle. All the time King Sigurd lived, Gylle seemsto have had good recognition and protection from that famous man; and, indeed, to have gained favor all round, by his quiet social demeanor andthe qualities he showed. 

CHAPTER XIII. MAGNUS THE BLIND, HARALD GYLLE, AND MUTUAL EXTINCTION OFTHE HAARFAGRS. 

On Sigurd the Crusader's death, Magnus naturally came to the throne;Gylle keeping silence and a cheerful face for the time. But it was notlong till claim arose on Gylle's part, till war and fight arose betweenMagnus and him, till the skilful, popular, ever-active and shifty Gyllehad entirely beaten Magnus; put out his eyes, mutilated the poor bodyof him in a horrid and unnamable manner, and shut him up in a convent asout of the game henceforth. There in his dark misery Magnus lived nowas a monk; called "Magnus the Blind" by those Norse populations; KingHarald Gylle reigning victoriously in his stead. But this also was onlyfor a time. There arose avenging kinsfolk of Magnus, who had no Irishaccent in their Norse, and were themselves eager enough to bear rulein their native country. By one of these, --a terribly stronghanded, fighting, violent, and regardless fellow, who also was a Bastard ofMagnus Barefoot's, and had been made a Priest, but liked it unbearablyill, and had broken loose from it into the wildest courses at home andabroad; so that his current name got to be "Slembi-diakn, " Slim or IllDeacon, under which he is much noised of in Snorro and the Sagas: bythis Slim-Deacon, Gylle was put an end to (murdered by night, drunk inhis sleep); and poor blind Magnus was brought out, and again set to actas King, or King's Cloak, in hopes Gylle's posterity would never rise tovictory more. But Gylle's posterity did, to victory and also to defeat, and were the death of Magnus and of Slim-Deacon too, in a frightful way;and all got their own death by and by in a ditto. In brief, these twokindreds (reckoned to be authentic enough Haarfagr people, both kinds ofthem) proved now to have become a veritable crop of dragon's teeth;who mutually fought, plotted, struggled, as if it had been their life'sbusiness; never ended fighting and seldom long intermitted it, till theyhad exterminated one another, and did at last all rest in death. Oneof these later Gylle temporary Kings I remember by the name of HaraldHerdebred, Harald of the Broad Shoulders. The very last of them Ithink was Harald Mund (Harald of the _Wry-Mouth_), who gave rise to twoImpostors, pretending to be Sons of his, a good while after the poorWry-Mouth itself and all its troublesome belongings were quietlyunderground. What Norway suffered during that sad century may beimagined. 

CHAPTER XIV. SVERRIR AND DESCENDANTS, TO HAKON THE OLD. 

The end of it was, or rather the first abatement, and _beginnings_ ofthe end, That, when all this had gone on ever worsening for some fortyyears or so, one Sverrir (A. D. 1177), at the head of an armed mob ofpoor people called _Birkebeins_, came upon the scene. A strange enoughfigure in History, this Sverrir and his Birkebeins! At first a meremockery and dismal laughing-stock to the enlightened Norway public. Nevertheless by unheard-of fighting, hungering, exertion, and endurance, Sverrir, after ten years of such a death-wrestle against men and things, got himself accepted as King; and by wonderful expenditure of ingenuity, common cunning, unctuous Parliamentary Eloquence or almost PopularPreaching, and (it must be owned) general human faculty and valor(or value) in the over-clouded and distorted state, did victoriouslycontinue such. And founded a new Dynasty in Norway, which ended onlywith Norway's separate existence, after near three hundred years. 

This Sverrir called himself a Son of Harald Wry-Mouth; but was inreality the son of a poor Comb-maker in some little town of Norway;nothing heard of Sonship to Wry-Mouth till after good success otherwise. His Birkebeins (that is to say, _Birchlegs;_ the poor rebelliouswretches having taken to the woods; and been obliged, besides theirintolerable scarcity of food, to thatch their bodies from the cold withwhatever covering could be got, and their legs especially with birchbark; sad species of fleecy hosiery; whence their nickname), --hisBirkebeins I guess always to have been a kind of Norse _Jacquerie_:desperate rising of thralls and indigent people, driven mad by theirunendurable sufferings and famishings, --theirs the _deepest_ stratumof misery, and the densest and heaviest, in this the general misery ofNorway, which had lasted towards the third generation and looked as ifit would last forever:--whereupon they had risen proclaiming, in thisfurious dumb manner, unintelligible except to Heaven, that the samecould not, nor would not, be endured any longer! And, by their Sverrir, strange to say, they did attain a kind of permanent success; and, frombeing a dismal laughing-stock in Norway, came to be important, and fora time all-important there. Their opposition nicknames, "_Baglers_ (fromBagall, _baculus_, bishop's staff; Bishop Nicholas being chief Leader), ""_Gold-legs_, " and the like obscure terms (for there was still aconsiderable course of counter-fighting ahead, and especially ofcounter-nicknaming), I take to have meant in Norse prefigurement sevencenturies ago, "bloated Aristocracy, " "tyrannous-_Bourgeoisie_, "--till, in the next century, these rents were closed again!

King Sverrir, not himself bred to comb-making, had, in his fifth year, gone to an uncle, Bishop in the Faroe Islands; and got some considerableeducation from him, with a view to Priesthood on the part of Sverrir. But, not liking that career, Sverrir had fled and smuggled himselfover to the Birkebeins; who, noticing the learned tongue, and othermiraculous qualities of the man, proposed to make him Captain of them;and even threatened to kill him if he would not accept, --which thus atthe sword's point, as Sverrir says, he was obliged to do. It was afterthis that he thought of becoming son of Wry-Mouth and other higherthings. 

His Birkebeins and he had certainly a talent of campaigning which hashardly ever been equalled. They fought like devils against any oddsof number; and before battle they have been known to march six daystogether without food, except, perhaps, the inner barks of trees, and insuch clothing and shoeing as mere birch bark:--at one time, somewhere inthe Dovrefjeld, there was serious counsel held among them whetherthey should not all, as one man, leap down into the frozen gulfs andprecipices, or at once massacre one another wholly, and so finish. Oftheir conduct in battle, fiercer than that of _Baresarks_, where wasthere ever seen the parallel? In truth they are a dim strange object toone, in that black time; wondrously bringing light into it withal; andproved to be, under such unexpected circumstances, the beginning ofbetter days!

Of Sverrir's public speeches there still exist authentic specimens;wonderful indeed, and much characteristic of such a Sverrir. Acomb-maker King, evidently meaning several good and solid things;and effecting them too, athwart such an element of Norwegianchaos-come-again. His descendants and successors were a comparativelyrespectable kin. The last and greatest of them I shall mention is HakonVII. , or Hakon the Old; whose fame is still lively among us, from theBattle of Largs at least. 

CHAPTER XV. HAKON THE OLD AT LARGS. 

In the Norse annals our famous Battle of Largs makes small figure, oralmost none at all among Hakon's battles and feats. They do say indeed, these Norse annalists, that the King of Scotland, Alexander III. (whohad such a fate among the crags about Kinghorn in time coming), wasvery anxious to purchase from King Hakon his sovereignty of the WesternIsles, but that Hakon pointedly refused; and at length, being againimportuned and bothered on the business, decided on giving a refusalthat could not be mistaken. Decided, namely, to go with a bigexpedition, and look thoroughly into that wing of his Dominions; whereno doubt much has fallen awry since Magnus Barefoot's grand visitthither, and seems to be inviting the cupidity of bad neighbors! "Allthis we will put right again, " thinks Hakon, "and gird it up into a safeand defensive posture. " Hakon sailed accordingly, with a strong fleet;adjusting and rectifying among his Hebrides as he went long, and landingwithal on the Scotch coast to plunder and punish as he thought fit. The Scots say he had claimed of them Arran, Bute, and the Two Cumbraes("given my ancestors by Donald Bain, " said Hakon, to the amazementof the Scots) "as part of the Sudoer" (Southern Isles):--so far fromselling that fine kingdom!--and that it was after taking both Arran andBute that he made his descent at Largs. 

Of Largs there is no mention whatever in Norse books. But beyond anydoubt, such is the other evidence, Hakon did land there; land and fight, not conquering, probably rather beaten; and very certainly "retiring tohis ships, " as in either case he behooved to do! It is further certainhe was dreadfully maltreated by the weather on those wild coasts; andaltogether credible, as the Scotch records bear, that he was so at Largsvery specially. The Norse Records or Sagas say merely, he lost manyof his ships by the tempests, and many of his men by land fighting invarious parts, --tacitly including Largs, no doubt, which was the lastof these misfortunes to him. "In the battle here he lost 15, 000 men, saythe Scots, we 5, 000"! Divide these numbers by ten, and the excellentlybrief and lucid Scottish summary by Buchanan may be taken as theapproximately true and exact. [19] Date of the battle is A. D. 1263. 

To this day, on a little plain to the south of the village, now town, of Largs, in Ayrshire, there are seen stone cairns and monumental heaps, and, until within a century ago, one huge, solitary, upright stone;still mutely testifying to a battle there, --altogether clearly, to thisbattle of King Hakon's; who by the Norse records, too, was in theseneighborhoods at that same date, and evidently in an aggressive, highkind of humor. For "while his ships and army were doubling the Mullof Cantire, he had his own boat set on wheels, and therein, splendidlyenough, had himself drawn across the Promontory at a flatter part, " nodoubt with horns sounding, banners waving. "All to the left of me ismine and Norway's, " exclaimed Hakon in his triumphant boat progress, which such disasters soon followed. 

Hakon gathered his wrecks together, and sorrowfully made for Orkney. It is possible enough, as our Guide Books now say, he may have goneby Iona, Mull, and the narrow seas inside of Skye; and that the_Kyle-Akin_, favorably known to sea-bathers in that region, may actuallymean the Kyle (narrow strait) of Hakon, where Hakon may have droppedanchor, and rested for a little while in smooth water and beautifulenvironment, safe from equinoctial storms. But poor Hakon's heart wasnow broken. He went to Orkney; died there in the winter; never beholdingNorway more. 

He it was who got Iceland, which had been a Republic for four centuries, united to his kingdom of Norway: a long and intricate operation, --muchpresided over by our Snorro Sturleson, so often quoted here, who indeedlost his life (by assassination from his sons-in-law) and out of greatwealth sank at once into poverty of zero, --one midnight in his owncellar, in the course of that bad business. Hakon was a great Politicianin his time; and succeeded in many things before he lost Largs. Snorro'sdeath by murder had happened about twenty years before Hakon's by brokenheart. He is called Hakon the Old, though one finds his age wasbut fifty-nine, probably a longish life for a Norway King. Snorro'snarrative ceases when Snorro himself was born; that is to say, at thethreshold of King Sverrir; of whose exploits and doubtful birth it isguessed by some that Snorro willingly forbore to speak in the hearing ofsuch a Hakon. 

CHAPTER XVI. EPILOGUE. 

Haarfagr's kindred lasted some three centuries in Norway; Sverrir'slasted into its third century there; how long after this, among theneighboring kinships, I did not inquire. For, by regal affinities, consanguinities, and unexpected chances and changes, the threeScandinavian kingdoms fell all peaceably together under Queen Margaret, of the Calmar Union (A. D. 1397); and Norway, incorporated now withDenmark, needed no more kings. 

The History of these Haarfagrs has awakened in me many thoughts: OfDespotism and Democracy, arbitrary government by one and self-government(which means no government, or anarchy) by all; of Dictatorship withmany faults, and Universal Suffrage with little possibility ofany virtue. For the contrast between Olaf Tryggveson, and aUniversal-Suffrage Parliament or an "Imperial" Copper Captain has, inthese nine centuries, grown to be very great. And the eternal Providencethat guides all this, and produces alike these entities with theirepochs, is not its course still through the great deep? Does not itstill speak to us, if we have ears? Here, clothed in stormy enoughpassions and instincts, unconscious of any aim but their ownsatisfaction, is the blessed beginning of Human Order, Regulation, and real Government; there, clothed in a highly different, but againsuitable garniture of passions, instincts, and equally unconscious asto real aim, is the accursed-looking ending (temporary ending) of Order, Regulation, and Government;--very dismal to the sane onlooker for thetime being; not dismal to him otherwise, his hope, too, being steadfast!But here, at any rate, in this poor Norse theatre, one looks withinterest on the first transformation, so mysterious and abstruse, ofhuman Chaos into something of articulate Cosmos; witnesses the wildand strange birth-pangs of Human Society, and reflects that withoutsomething similar (little as men expect such now), no Cosmos of humansociety ever was got into existence, nor can ever again be. 

The violences, fightings, crimes--ah yes, these seldom fail, and theyare very lamentable. But always, too, among those old populations, therewas one saving element; the now want of which, especially the unlamentedwant, transcends all lamentation. Here is one of those strange, piercing, winged-words of Ruskin, which has in it a terrible truth forus in these epochs now come:--

"My friends, the follies of modern Liberalism, many and great thoughthey be, are practically summed in this denial or neglect of the qualityand intrinsic value of things. Its rectangular beatitudes, and sphericalbenevolences, --theology of universal indulgence, and jurisprudence whichwill hang no rogues, mean, one and all of them, in the root, incapacityof discerning, or refusal to discern, worth and unworth in anything, and least of all in man; whereas Nature and Heaven command you, at yourperil, to discern worth from unworth in everything, and most of all inman. Your main problem is that ancient and trite one, 'Who is best man?'and the Fates forgive much, --forgive the wildest, fiercest, cruelestexperiments, --if fairly made for the determination of that. 

"Theft and blood-guiltiness are not pleasing in their sight; yet thefavoring powers of the spiritual and material world will confirm to youyour stolen goods, and their noblest voices applaud the lifting of Yourspear, and rehearse the sculpture of your shield, if only your robbingand slaying have been in fair arbitrament of that question, 'Who is bestman?' But if you refuse such inquiry, and maintain every man for hisneighbor's match, --if you give vote to the simple and liberty to thevile, the powers of those spiritual and material worlds in due timepresent you inevitably with the same problem, soluble now only wrongside upwards; and your robbing and slaying must be done then to findout, 'Who is worst man?' Which, in so wide an order of merit, is, indeed, not easy; but a complete Tammany Ring, and lowest circle in theInferno of Worst, you are sure to find, and to be governed by. " [20]

All readers will admit that there was something naturally royal in theseHaarfagr Kings. A wildly great kind of kindred; counts in it two Heroesof a high, or almost highest, type: the first two Olafs, Tryggveson andthe Saint. And the view of them, withal, as we chance to have it, I haveoften thought, how essentially Homeric it was:--indeed what is "Homer"himself but the _Rhapsody_ of five centuries of Greek Skalds andwandering Ballad-singers, done (i. E. "stitched together") by somebodymore musical than Snorro was? Olaf Tryggveson and Olaf Saint please mequite as well in their prosaic form; offering me the truth of them asif seen in their real lineaments by some marvellous opening (throughthe art of Snorro) across the black strata of the ages. Two high, almostamong the highest sons of Nature, seen as they veritably were; fairlycomparable or superior to god-like Achilleus, goddess-wounding Diomedes, much more to the two Atreidai, Regulators of the Peoples. 

I have also thought often what a Book might be made of Snorro, did therebut arise a man furnished with due literary insight, and indefatigablediligence; who, faithfully acquainting himself with the topography, the monumental relies and illustrative actualities of Norway, carefullyscanning the best testimonies as to place and time which thatcountry can still give him, carefully the best collateral records andchronologies of other countries, and who, himself possessing the highestfaculty of a Poet, could, abridging, arranging, elucidating, reduceSnorro to a polished Cosmic state, unweariedly purging away his muchchaotic matter! A modern "highest kind of Poet, " capable of unlimitedslavish labor withal;--who, I fear, is not soon to be expected in thisworld, or likely to find his task in the _Heimskringla_ if he did appearhere. 

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: J. G. Dahlmann, _Geschichte von Dannemark_, 3 vols. 8vo. Hamburg, 1840-1843. ]

[Footnote 2: "Settlement, " dated 912, by Munch, Henault, &c. The SaxonChronicle says (anno 876): "In this year Rolf overran Normandy with hisarmy, and he reigned fifty winters. "]

[Footnote 3: Dahlmann, ii. 87. ]

[Footnote 4: Dahlmann, ii. 93. ]

[Footnote 5: _Laing's Snorro_, i. 344. ]

[Footnote 6: G. Buchanani _Opera Omnia_, i. 103, 104 (Curante Ruddimano, Edinburgi, 1715). ]

[Footnote 7: His Long Serpent, judged by some to be of the size of afrigate of forty-five guns (Laing). ]

[Footnote 8: This sermon was printed by Hearne; and is given also byLangebek in his excellent Collection, _Rerum Danicarum Scriptores MediiAEri. _ Hafniae. 1772-1834. ]

[Footnote 9: Kennet, i. 67; Rapin, i. 119, 121 (from the _SaxonChronicle_ both). ]

[Footnote 10: Knut born A. D. 988 according to Munch's calculation (ii. 126). ]

[Footnote 11: Snorro, Laing's Translation, ii. P. 31 et seq. , willminutely specify. ]

[Footnote 12: Snorro, ii. Pp. 24, 25. ]

[Footnote 13: Snorro, ii. Pp. 156-161. ]

[Footnote 14: Snorro, ii. Pp. 252, 253. ]

[Footnote 15: _Saxon Chronicle_ says expressly, under A. D. 1030: "Inthis year King Olaf was slain in Norway by his own people, and wasafterwards sainted. "]

[Footnote 16: _Saxon Chronicle_ says: "1035. In this year died KingCnut. . . . He departed at Shaftesbury, November 12, and they conveyed himthence to Winchester, and there buried him. "]

[Footnote 17: Munch gives the date 1038 (ii. 840), Adam of Bremen 1040. ]

[Footnote 18: Camden, Rapin, &c. Quote. ]

[Footnote 19: _Buchanani Hist. _ i. 130. ]

[Footnote 20: _Fors Clavigera_, Letter XIV. Pp. 8-10. ]