Whatever the procedure employed, there can be no doubt that King Olaf was canonised in the summer of 1031 (August 3d is the date given) by popular act; nor can it be doubted that Elgiva resisted the act—she must have seen that the canonisation meant her own and her son's undoing. For she must surely have realised that political considerations were an important element in the devotion of the Norsemen to their new patron.
There was later a tradition among the monks of Nidaros that Canute at one time planned to establish a monastery in the northern capital.[452] If such an attempt was made, it evidently failed; but it would not be strange if the King should try to establish an institution where loyalty to the empire might be nursed and which might assist in uprooting nationalistic tendencies. If the attempt was made, it was probably soon after the canonisation, when it became important to divert attention from the new cult.
For the worship of Saint Olaf spread with astonishing rapidity not only through Norway but through the entire North and even farther. The Church had saints in great number; but here was one from the very midst of the Scandinavian people. Moreover, Saint Olaf was a saint whom the men of the day could appreciate: he was of their own type, with the strength of Thor and the wisdom of Woden; they had seen him and felt the edge of his ax. So all along the shores that Olaf the Stout had plundered in his earlier heathen days churches arose dedicated to the virile saint of the North.[453]
There were other difficulties, too, that the regents had to contend with. Hunger stalked over the land. The Norwegian people had always been accustomed to hold their kings responsible for the state of the harvest; they were to secure the favour of the gods; a failure of crops meant that this duty had been shirked. The feeling lingered for some time after the disappearance of heathendom. Sweyn was only a youth and was not held responsible; the blame fell upon the hated Queen-mother and the hard years of her rule were known as the "Alfiva-time." The general discontent is expressed in a contemporary fragment attributed to Sighvat:
Alfiva's time our sons will
Long remember; then ate we
Food more fit for oxen,
Shavings the fare of he-goats.
It was not thus when the noble
Olaf governed the Norsemen;
Then could we all boast of
Corn-filled barns and houses.[454]
And Thorarin Praise-tongue in the Shrine-song addressed to Sweyn the son of Canute urges the young regent to seek the favour of the new saint, "the mighty pillar of the book-language":
Pray thou to Olaf that he grant thee
(He is a man of God) all his land rights;
For he can win from God himself
Peace to men and good harvests.[455]
In 1033, a revolt broke out in Norway in the interest of one Trygve, a pretended son of Olaf Trygvesson and an English mother. The attempt failed; the Norse chiefs had other plans. In Russia was Magnus, the illegitimate son of the holy King, now about nine or ten years old; him had the chiefs determined upon as their future leader. Early the next year an embassy was sent to Russia led by the two magnates Einar and Kalf. Here oaths were sworn and plans were laid, and in the following spring (1035) Magnus Olafsson appeared in Norway as the foster son of Kalf who had led his father's banesmen at Stiklestead.