Olaf the Glorious: A Story of the Viking Age

by Robert Leighton

"Why, then, should I care to wed with thee?" he cried; "thou withered old heathen jade!"

With these taunting words on his lips he turned and strode from the chamber. But while the wooden stairway was still creaking under his tread, Queen Sigrid called after him in bitterest anger:

"Go, then, O proud and stubborn king. Go where you will. But remember this, that the insult you have offered me and the blow you have struck me shall be your death!"

So Olaf departed, ere yet he had broken bread, and he went north into Viken, while Queen Sigrid the Haughty went east into Sweden.

King Sweyn Forkbeard of Denmark had by this time regained full possession of his kingdom, and was contemplating an invasion of England which should be more complete and decisive than the attempt which he had made in company with the viking whom he had known as Ole the Esthonian. Sweyn had now, of course, discovered that this man Ole and King Olaf of Norway were one and the same person, and he began to be very jealous of the glory that was gathering about Olaf's name. A new cause for jealousy had now arisen.

Sweyn, it will be remembered, had married the Princess Gunnhild, daughter of Burislaf, King of the Wends. But in these days even now told of it befell that Queen Gunnhild was stricken with an illness and died. King Sweyn, ever ambitious of winning great dominion, had a mind to take unto himself a new wife in the person of Queen Sigrid of Sweden. He was on the point of setting out to woo her when he heard by chance that King Olaf Triggvison was already bent upon a similar journey. Envy and jealousy and bitter hatred welled up in Sweyn's breast against his rival, and he swore by Thor's hammer that sooner or later he would lower King Olaf to the dust.

But in good time King Sweyn heard of the quarrel that had befallen between Queen Sigrid and her young Norwegian suitor. So he at once fared north into Sweden to essay his own fortune with the haughty queen. He gained a ready favour with Sigrid by speaking all manner of false and malicious scandal against the man whom she had so lately rejected. Sigrid probably saw that by marrying the King of Denmark she might the more easily accomplish her vengeance upon Olaf Triggvison. She therefore accepted Forkbeard's proposals, and they were wedded in accordance with the rites and customs of their pagan faith.

Earl Erik, the son of the late Earl Hakon, was at this time the guest and friend of Sigrid's son, Olaf the Swede King; and these three--King Sweyn Forkbeard of Denmark, King Olaf of Sweden, and Earl Erik of Lade--had each a private cause of enmity against Olaf Triggvison. It was they who, two years afterwards, united their forces in the great sea fight in which Olaf the Glorious lost his life.

CHAPTER XVIII: THE "LONG SERPENT".

King Olaf had now ruled over Norway for three years. In that brief time he had done more for the country than any king who had gone before him. He had succeeded in establishing Christianity--not very thoroughly, it is true, for during the rest of his reign, and for long enough afterwards, there was plenty of heathenism in Norway; but he did all that he could to make men Christians, as far as he knew how himself, and, by his own example of a pure and upright life, he did much to deepen the feeling that, even in a social sense, the Christian religion' offered advantages which had never before been enjoyed in the land. It was noticed almost immediately that there was less bloodshed among the people than formerly, and that the peasants lived in greater security. The doctrine of peace upon earth was set forth as one of the first principles of Olaf's mission, and he was never tired of showing that, while Odin and Thor took pleasure in bloodshed and rejoiced in war, Christ the White was a lover of peace, and accorded no merit to the manslayer.