Olaf the Glorious: A Story of the Viking Age

by Robert Leighton

"If King Olaf of Norway can be so false in his gifts, he will be faithless also in his love!" she cried. And she snatched the pieces of the ring and flung them furiously away from her.

Now when the three weeks of his appointment had gone by Olaf Triggvison journeyed east to the trysting place at Konghelle, near the boundary line between Norway and Sweden, and there Queen Sigrid met him. Amazed was Sigrid to see the splendour of the man who offered her marriage. Never before had her eyes rested upon one so tall and handsome and so gloriously attired. Arrived now at his full manhood Olaf looked nobler and more majestic than ever in his life before. His cloak of fine crimson silk clung to his giant frame and showed the muscular moulding of his limbs. His step was light and elastic, and, in spite of his great strength, his movements were gentle and easy as those of a woman. His hands were very large and powerful, yet the touch of them was soft and delicate; and his voice, which could be loud and full as a trumpet blast, could also be lowered to the musical sweetness of a purling brook. His forehead, where his helmet had shielded it from the heat of the sun and from the briny freshness of the sea air, was white and smooth as polished marble; but the lower part of his face was of a clear, rich golden brown. He wore no beard, but the hair was left unshaven on his upper lip and it streamed down on either side of his chin as fine as silk. When he smiled, his white and even teeth gleamed like a row of pearls between the coral redness of his lips. Queen Sigrid, as she beheld him for the first time, had no thought of the ring that he had given her, nor of its falseness.

King Olaf, on his part, was more than a little disappointed with the looks of the queen whose praises had been so often whispered in his ears. He had heard that she was young, yet he now saw that her hair was sprinkled with gray, that her eyes had lost the fire and fervour of youth, and that her brow was wrinkled with age. Younger and more comely was his own mother Astrid than this much exalted queen. But, having given his word that he meant to woo her and wed her, he had too much honour to draw back.

They sat together and talked over the matter of their wedding, and of how they would unite their domains and rule together over all the Swedes and Norsemen. And at last he took her hand and swore by the holy rood that he would be true to her.

Now Sigrid the Haughty was still a heathen, and she liked not to hear King Olaf swear by Christian tokens. So she turned upon him with a quick glance of suspicion and contempt in her eyes.

"Such vows do not please me, King Olaf," she said. "It is told that great Odin once swore on the ring. Will you swear by this ring to be true?" And she rose and took up the ring he had sent as a gift, which ere this time her two smiths had repaired.

"O speak not of Odin to me!" cried the king. "He is dead as the stones in the street. By no other symbol than the cross will I swear. Sorry am I to hear that you, Queen Sigrid, are still a believer in the old dead gods. Since this is so, however, there is little use in my being in this place, for I have made up my mind that the woman who weds me shall be a true Christian and not a worshipper of senseless idols hewn out of trees and rocks. Abandon these things, take christening, and believe in the one true God who made all things and knows all things, and then I will wed with you; but not else, O queen."

Queen Sigrid, astonished that any man dared to speak to her in this wise, looked back at King Olaf in anger.

"Never shall I depart from the troth that I have always held," she cried. "And although you had twice the wealth that you have and were yet more glorious than you are, yet never should I obey such a bidding. No, no, King Olaf. I keep true to my faith and to my vows; and can fare very well without you and your new religion. So go back to your bald headed priests and to your singing of mass. I will have none of them!"

Then the king rose in wrath and his face was darkened with gloom. For a moment he forgot his manliness, and in his anger he struck her across her cheek with his glove.