Olaf the Glorious: A Story of the Viking Age

by Robert Leighton

"Now will I avenge the insult you offered my mother!" cried Olaf Sigridson, "and you who struck her on the cheek with your glove shall be struck dead with a weapon of well tempered steel instead of foxskin."

"Guard well your head," returned Triggvison, "lest I knock off your helmet. The man who taught you the use of the sword might have been better employed, for in truth he has taught you very little."

"He has taught me enough to enable me to slay such a man as you!" cried the Swede, gathering his strength for a mighty blow.

"That remains to be proved," retorted Olaf Triggvison. "Wait! you have got the wrong foot foremost!"

But without heeding, the Swede king brought down his sword with a great sweep, aiming at Olaf Triggvison's head. As with a lightning flash Olaf raised his sword to meet the blow. His opponent's blade was broken in two halves, while at the same moment he fell severely wounded upon the deck.

"Swedish sword blades are good," said Olaf Triggvison, "but the swords of the Norsemen are better."

He thought that he had made an end of the King of Sweden. But some of the Swedish soldiers who had been watching the duel rushed forward, and, raising their fallen king, carried him off on board another of his ships, while Olaf Triggvison went aft along the crowded decks, and men fell beneath his blows, as the ripe grain falls before the mower's scythe. It happened to the Swedes, as to the Danes, that notwithstanding their superior numbers they found that they were ill matched in skill and prowess with the Norsemen. Their picked champions were speedily killed or wounded, their best ships were disabled, and although they had indeed reduced Olaf Triggvison's forces by about half, yet they had not succeeded in boarding any one of his ships, much less in carrying any of them off as prizes. As King Sweyn had retreated, so did King Olaf of Sweden. His ships were called off from the combat and withdrawn out of range of the Norsemen's arrows. He had won no fame by his daring attack, but only ignominious defeat, and he was fain to escape alive, albeit very badly wounded.

Thus Olaf Triggvison had made both the Danes and the Swedes take to flight, and it had all befallen as he had said.

And now it must be told how Earl Erik Hakonson fared in that fight. True to the agreement which he and the two allied kings had come to over their dice throwing on the morning of that same fateful day, he had stood apart from the battle while Sweyn had vainly striven to make a prize of the Long Serpent; and during the midday and until the retreat of King Sweyn he had engaged no more in the conflict than to direct his arrows from afar into the thick of Olaf Triggvison's host. Now, Earl Erik was wise in warfare, and a man of keen judgment. He had fought with his father in the great battle against Sigvaldi and the vikings of Jomsburg, and from what he had seen on that day of Olaf Triggvison's prowess, and from what he had since heard of Olaf's warfare in England and other lands, he had made a very true estimate of the man who now fought in defence of the Long Serpent. He had also seen Sweyn Forkbeard in the thick of battle, and Olaf of Sweden no less. He was, therefore, well able to judge that neither the king of the Danes nor the king of the Swedes was capable of overcoming so brave and mighty a warrior as the king of the Norsemen, or of wresting the Long Serpent from the man who had built her and who knew so well how to defend his own. Pride in his own countryman may have had some share in the forming of this opinion. But Earl Erik had fought against the men of every land in Scandinavia. He had a firm belief that the men of Norway were braver and bolder, stronger in body, more skilful in the use of their weapons, and had greater powers of endurance than any of their neighbours. And it may be that in this he was right. He at least saw cause for thinking that the only men who could succeed in vanquishing King Olaf's Norsemen were the Norsemen of Earl Erik Hakonson. Earl Erik's vikings and berserks, eagerly watching the fray, had seen how the Danish ships had one after another been driven off, disabled and defeated. They had watched every movement of the tall and splendid form of the Norse king as he fought in his shining armour and his bright red tunic on the Serpent's lypting. For a time they had not been certain whether Olaf Triggvison was at the stem or on the poop of his great dragonship, for it was seen that at each of these important points there was a tall chief whose prowess and whose attire alike distinguished him from all other men; and these two champions so resembled one the other that it was not easy to tell which was Kolbiorn Stallare and which King Olaf. But Earl Erik had not a moment's doubt. He would have known Olaf Triggvison had a score of such men as Kolbiorn been at his side. Earl Erik was the eldest son of the evil Earl Hakon who had fled from Thrandheim at the time of Olaf's coming into Norway, and been slain while taking refuge at the farmstead of Rimul, and Erik had naturally hoped that on his father's death he would succeed to the throne. Olaf Triggvison had shattered all his plans of future glory; and during the five years that had already passed of King Olaf's reign he thirsted for such an opportunity as now presented itself, not only of avenging his father's death but also, it might be, of placing himself upon the throne of Norway. His only uneasiness at the present moment arose from his fear lest King Olaf should be overcome in the battle ere he had himself encountered him face to face and hand to hand.

While the King of Sweden and his forces were engaged with their attack upon Olaf's centre of battle, Earl Erik adopted a plan which, although seemingly more hopeless, was in the end more successful than any that had yet been attempted by either the Danes or the Swedes. He saw that while the Long Serpent continued to be supported on either side by five strong and well manned dragonships she was practically unassailable. Her poop and her prow were the only points of her hull that were exposed, and these towered so high above the bulwarks of all other vessels that to attempt to board her was both useless and dangerous. Herein lay the secret of Olaf's successful defence, the proof of his forethought and wisdom in building the Serpent so much larger and higher than all other vessels in his fleet. Earl Erik, indeed, had observed that every ship that had approached her, either fore or aft, had been in its turn completely cleared of men or forced to withdraw out of the conflict.