Olaf made it a law throughout his realm that all men should keep the Sabbath holy, that they should always fast on Fridays, and that they should teach their children the Ten Commandments. He could not hope that grownup people, who had all their lives been accustomed to worship graven images, would all at once become fervent and devout Christians; but he clearly saw the importance of bringing up all the children to a full knowledge of the Christian faith, and accordingly he bade his priests give constant care to the education of the young.
What King Olaf achieved in Norway he achieved also in the outlying parts of his dominions. He sent priests into the lands of the Laps and Fins. It has been told how he sent his priest Thrangbrand to Iceland. He also sent missions to the Orkney Islands, to the Shetlands, and the Faroes, and even to so distant a country as Greenland. All these lands were converted to Christianity during Olaf's brief reign.
But it was not in religious matters alone that Olaf Triggvison exercised his wisdom and his rule. He encouraged fisheries and husbandry and handicrafts, and men who had given up their lives to warfare and vikingry now occupied themselves with useful arts and industries. Himself a rare sailor, he loved all seamen and shipmen and shipbuilders, and so that these might have work to do he encouraged commerce with the lands over sea--with England and Scotland and Ireland, with Russia, Wendland, Friesland, Flanders, and France.
When he had been in England he had learned something of the good laws established in that country by King Alfred the Great. He strove to introduce many of these laws into his own kingdom. Like Alfred the Great, King Olaf recognized the value of a strong navy, and, so soon as he had assured himself of the goodwill of his subjects, he levied taxes upon them, and set about the work of building ships.
The great dragonship which he had taken as a prize of war from Rand the Wizard was the largest and finest vessel in the Norwegian seas at this time. The king determined to have a much larger and finer ship built, one which should surpass in splendour and equipment every vessel that had been launched in Norway or any other land throughout the ages. On the banks of the river Nid, at the place where he had built the town of Nidaros, a great forest of pine trees had been cleared, and there was timber in plenty ready at hand. There had been two most fruitful seasons, with good crops, and the country was rich. Olaf himself possessed more wealth than any monarch in all Scandinavia, and also he was fortunate in having about him a number of men who were highly skilled in the work of designing and building ships. So he had a shipyard prepared under the cliffs of Lade, and he appointed a man named Thorberg Shafting to be his master builder.
Rand's dragonship, which was named the Serpent, was taken as a model of the new ship that was to be made, but all her measurements were exactly doubled, for the new craft was to be twice as long in the keel, twice as broad in the beam, and twice as great in the scantling. Olaf himself helped at the work, and laboured as hard as any other two men. Whenever any difficulty arose he was there to set it right, and all knew that every part of the work must be well done, that every piece of timber must be free from rot, and every nail and rivet made of the best metal or the king would discover the fault and have it undone.
Many men were in the shipyard, some to hew timbers with their heavy axes, some to fashion iron bolts and bars, and others to spin the shining flax into the ropes that were to form the rigging. Burly blacksmiths stood at the roaring forge, wielding huge hammers; sawyers worked in the pits, making the stout beams and ribs and cutting great trunks into thin planks. Black cauldrons of boiling tar smoked and bubbled over the fires. The clattering of hammers, the rasping of saws, the whirring of wheels, and the clamour of men's voices sounded from earliest morning until the setting of the sun; and the work went on apace all day and every day, saving on Sunday, when no man was allowed to touch a nail or lift a hammer.
On a certain morning in the midsummer, King Olaf was down in the shipyard. He wore his coarsest and oldest clothes; his thick, strong arms were bared above the elbows, and his hardened hands were smutched with tar and nail rust. His head was shielded from the hot sun by a little cloth cap that was torn in the crown, and his long hair and his broad back and shoulders were besprinkled with sawdust. Save for his greater tallness and strength he looked not very different from any of the workmen about him; and indeed Kolbiorn Stallare, who stood near him in courtly apparel, might well have been mistaken for the king and the king for the servant.
Olaf had paused in his work, and was talking with Kolbiorn concerning some matter of state. As he stood thus, leaning with one elbow on the long handle of his great sledgehammer, he saw young Einar Eindridson coming towards him, followed by a woman. The woman seemed to be of middle age, and she looked weary with travel. As she came nearer, her eyes rested upon Kolbiorn as though she wished to speak with him.
"Go to her," said the king. And Kolbiorn left Olaf's side and went to meet her.