The Story of Norway

by Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen

[A] Hjort means a stag.

The dog did actually overtake Thore, and the king cut him down with his own hands. Olaf strove in vain to get on the track of Raud, but the weather was so terrible that he did not venture to go to sea. He began to suspect, after a while, that it was Raud himself who, by his witchcraft, had aroused the elements; and after having waited for several days and nights for a change in the weather, he called Bishop Sigurd to him and asked his advice. The bishop, it is told, raised up a crucifix, surrounded by lighted tapers, in the prow of the king's ship, "The Crane," and stood himself beside it, clad in sacerdotal vestments, praying and scattering holy water. Instantly the storm ceased about "The Crane," though it still roared wildly under the heavens, and the smoke of the lashed waves stood like a wall on either side. The men now seized the oars and rowed in toward the island where Raud was living, "The Crane" keeping the lead and the other ships following in the smooth water in her wake. Raud was surprised while asleep, and as he still refused to become a Christian, was tortured until he died. The king forced an adder down his throat, according to the legend; and it cut its way through his side, killing him by its poison.

There is much in this story which is obviously legendary. But there is one circumstance which stamps the adventure itself as essentially true, viz.: the detailed description of Raud's ship, "The Serpent," which the king took, and which figures later in the battle of Svolder. One may be reluctant to believe that a man so chivalrous and noble as Olaf Tryggvesson on other occasions proved himself to be, can have been guilty of the cruelty which is here attributed to him. This instance is, however, not a solitary one. Eyvind Kinriva, when he refused to be baptized, had glowing coals put upon his stomach, at the king's command, and expired under horrible tortures. Olaf's fanaticism led him to believe that praise rather than censure was due to him for thus punishing the enemies of God. It is, indeed, probable that a man of gentler calibre, and more squeamish in the selection of his means, would never have accomplished even the nominal Christianization of Norway. In fact, so great was Olaf's zeal, and so single his purpose, that he subordinated all other concerns to this one great object, the thought of which filled him with a noble enthusiasm.

Even before he had secured the allegiance of the surviving chief of Haalogaland, Haarek of Thjotta, who, with all his household, accepted the Christian faith, he sent messengers to the Faeroe Isles, Iceland, and Greenland, and commanded the chieftains there to renounce their old religion. Sigmund Bresteson, the Earl of the Faeroe Isles, whom he summoned to him, arrived in Norway (999) and was baptized. Thangbrand, who was sent to Iceland to preach the gospel, had at first a considerable success, baptizing such important chiefs as Hall of the Side, and Gissur the White, and the great lawyer Njaal of Bergthor's knoll. The pugnacious priest, however, soon got into difficulties by his readiness to draw his sword, killed several men, was outlawed, and compelled to leave the island. In Norway, where Olaf had given him the church at Moster, he had, previous to his departure for Iceland, found it inconvenient to live on his income, and in order to increase his revenue, had been in the habit of making forays into the neighboring shires, replenishing his stores at the expense of the heathen. This freebooting propensity incensed the king, and Thangbrand's missionary expedition to Iceland was undertaken as a penance for his misbehavior. It had, however, far greater results than either Olaf or the priest could have anticipated. The public sentiment in Iceland, after Thangbrand's flight, changed with astonishing rapidity in favor of the new faith, which was legally accepted at the Althing June, A.D. 1000.

OLD LOOM FROM THE FAEROE ISLES.

Olaf's great achievement, as the first successful propagandist of Christianity on the throne of Norway, surrounded his name with a halo which dazzled his biographers and disposed them to exalt him beyond his deserts. For all that, it is a fact that his contemporaries, many of whom had small reason to love him, were no less dazzled by his brilliant personality than his biographers. In the first place, his manly beauty and his resemblance to Haakon the Good, which was frequently commented upon, predisposed the people in his favor. Secondly, his natural kindliness and winning manners attracted every one who came in contact with him. Last, but not least, his extraordinary skill in athletic sports and the use of arms was greatly admired. He could, as Snorre relates, use his right and his left hand equally well in shooting; he could play with three spears at once, so that one was always in the air; he could run forward and backward on the oars of a ship while the men were rowing. In daily intercourse he was affable and generous, fond of a joke, and easily moved to laughter and to wrath. In anger he could do things which he later regretted; and we have seen how, when fired with holy zeal, he committed acts which he ought to have regretted, though there is no evidence that he did. His love of splendor in attire and surroundings may be accounted a weakness, but it served, nevertheless, to endear him to his people.

Although surrounded by enemies on all sides, Norway suffered but little from foreign wars during the brief reign of Olaf Tryggvesson. Gudröd, the last surviving son of Erik Blood-Axe, made an attack upon Viken in the summer of 999, but was defeated and slain in the king's absence by his brothers-in-law, Thorgeir and Hyrning. Much more dangerous to King Olaf proved the hostility of Sigrid the Haughty, who was watching for an opportunity to take revenge upon him. Although he must have been well aware of the risks, he did not hesitate to furnish this opportunity. His queen, Thyra, had great estates in Wendland and Denmark, and was dissatisfied, because she was deprived of the revenues which they had formerly brought her. Whenever he spoke to her, she always contrived to bring in something about these estates, and by appeals to his vanity egg him on to war with her brother Sweyn Forkbeard, who withheld from her her rightful property. When these tactics failed, she resorted to prayers and tears, until her husband's patience was wellnigh exhausted. If only for the sake of domestic peace, an expedition to Wendland began to be discussed as an approaching possibility. One Sunday in March—it was Palm Sunday—the king met a man in the street who sold spring vegetables. He bought a bunch and brought it to the queen, remarking that these vegetables were large, considering the earliness of the season. The queen, who was, as usual, weeping for her estates in Wendland, thrust the vegetables contemptuously away, and with the tears streaming down her face, cried: "Greater gifts did my father, Harold Gormsson, give me when, as a child, I got my first teeth; he came hither to Norway and conquered it; while thou, for fear of my brother Sweyn, darest not journey through Denmark in order to get me what belongs to me, and of which I have been shamefully robbed."

To this King Olaf wrathfully replied: "Never shall I be afraid of thy brother Sweyn, and if we meet, he shall succumb."

Summons was now sent through all the shires of the land, calling upon the chieftains to join the king with as many ships as were by law required of them. He had himself just finished a ship of extraordinary size and beauty, called "The Long-Serpent," the fame of which spread through all the lands of the North. It was 56 Norwegian ells, or about 112 feet from prow to stern, had 52 oars on either side, and could accommodate 600 warriors. The crew was made up of picked men, none of whom must be over 60 and less than 20 years of age. Only one exception was permitted to this rule in the case of Einar Eindridsson surnamed Thambarskelver, who was but 18 years old, but the most skilful archer in all Norway. With his bow, called Thamb, from which he derived his surname, he could shoot a blunt arrow through a raw ox-hide, depending from a pole.