Winter approaching, Omund of Sweden returned home with his armament. For some time longer, Olaf remained to watch the motions of the Danes; but he had some reason to know that a spirit of discontent prevailed among his followers. When summoned to the council their opinions were divided, in cases where unanimity was most required. It was evident that some of them were bought by Canute’s gold, or by the hope of his favour. Many, too, of the Norwegians even—the bravest of that nation—were in the armament of the Dane. As so little dependence was, after Omund’s departure, to be placed in his fleet, Olaf sent it to the Swedish ports, and returned, by way of West Gothland, into Vikia. At Sarfsburg he determined to pass the winter; and he endeavoured, by presents, to secure the attachment of his chief nobles; but he found that his own partisans were fewer, and those of his enemy more numerous, than he had anticipated. In some districts he could not venture without a strong armed force. As he dared not venture into the north, and was unsafe in the uplands, he proceeded to Tunsberg; from thence he despatched messengers into all the provinces, to hasten the levy of ships and men. Those in his immediate neighbourhood obeyed his mandate, rather through fear than love; by the more distant provinces it was derided. That the hearts of the people were not with him was manifest; the great preparations of Canute, which resounded throughout the kingdom, were either beheld with indifference, or openly desired. To what causes must this almost universal defection be ascribed? Undoubtedly to many. By the admirers of this king—that is, by the Roman Catholics—it has been contended, that the chief was the attachment of the Norwegians to their ancient idolatry. That this was a great cause cannot be disputed; but we may hesitate before we admit it as the principal. Olaf Trygveson was no less zealous than he; yet that monarch was in no danger from a foreign invader, and, to the very last, was supported by a loyal people. The truth is, Olaf the Saint had turned his friends into enemies, by the capriciousness of his conduct. If his predecessor was a furious bigot, he was, at least, beloved by his immediate attendants, and feared by his people. To his domestics the saint was often austere, not very liberal, and frequently tyrannical. In proof of this, we may adduce the confession of his greatest favourites, that, whatever the urgency of the occasion, they dared not awake him when asleep.[[252]] The man who thus inspired fear, even in his own palace, could not be loved. Then he was rigid, imprudently rigid, in the administration of justice. It was, indeed, better to err on this side than on that of laxity; still he should have made some allowance for times and circumstances, and have been satisfied with pecuniary mulcts where he exacted mutilation or death. Add, that he had not the commanding talents of the son of Trygve; that he was frequently fickle alike in his attachments and designs; that he was oppressive in his exactions; that he violated the pledges which he had given to respect the privileges of the native chiefs; and we have the key to the universal disaffection of which he was soon to become the victim.[[253]]

|1028 to 1029.|

In the spring of 1028, Canute, with a powerful armament, sailed for Norway. Disembarking on the coast of Agder, he commanded the people to assemble in a provincial Thing,—a command which was promptly obeyed. Here he was acknowledged king of Norway, and no voice was raised against his election. On his way to Nidaros,—the modern Drontheim,—wherever he landed the people flocked in multitudes to receive him, and to pay him homage. On reaching that city, where Olaf had so much resided, and where he was so much detested, Canute was joyfully acknowledged the sole monarch of the country. During all this time, Olaf remained at Tunsberg, in the vain expectation of succour from some portion of his subjects. At length he sailed round the southern coast, rather as a spy than a monarch; and he had the satisfaction of vanquishing one of his rebellious jarls: but this was no advantage, for it exasperated the kindred of the fallen chief, who forced him precipitately to retire. Proceeding northward, he found that his own subjects (Canute had returned to Denmark in the full confidence that the new conquest was secure) were on the deep to intercept him. As their force was so much superior to his, he hastily disembarked, in the resolution to pass overland into Sweden. But the project was not without danger; every moment the countrymen might rise and deliver him into the hands of his enemies. To escape this evil he traversed the most solitary paths, with a celerity to which his fear gave additional wings. Continuing his way into the dales and Hedmark, he had some reason to fear for his life. Though he had many kinsmen in the uplands, the majority of the people were his enemies, and were ready to seize him. As yet, however, he had a considerable guard,—about 300 men,—and open force, in a rural, secluded district, might be resisted. But when he perceived that his followers were daily diminishing, he had no alternative but to flee into Sweden. Hako the jarl, Canute’s lieutenant for the whole of Norway, would soon pursue him; and expedition was therefore doubly necessary. Accompanied by his queen, Astridda, and a few companions whose fidelity no misfortunes could shake, he passed into Vermeland, and was thus free from the apprehension of pursuit. His expedition saved him; for had he remained any longer in Norway he must have fallen into the hands of the jarl Hako, who was pursuing him with a force which he could not have resisted. There he passed the winter. When summer arrived, leaving his queen and his daughter in Sweden, he proceeded to Holmgard in Gardarik, to solicit the aid of the king, or rather of Ingigerda the queen.[[254]]

|1029.|

By the king and queen of Holmgard the regal fugitive was received with much hospitality. Seeing the distraction of Norway, they endeavoured, by the offer of a considerable province, to prevail on him to remain in the country. This would have been his wisest policy; but his heart yearned to the country of his birth, and he indulged the hope of being recalled by his subjects. His was not a strong mind; but in devotion—or we should rather say in the external offices of his church—he sought for consolation. But ambition was his prevailing quality. Night and day he meditated the means of returning; and, with a mind so impressed, we cannot be surprised that his dreams assumed the colour of his waking thoughts. A royal shade accosted him, exhorted him to return, and promised him success. Had Olaf been an enlightened man, or known much of that religion which he so zealously professed, he would have understood that a vision recommending all the horrors of civil war could not be from heaven. In about a year he left Gardarik, and sailed to Sweden. Here he learned that Hako the jarl was dead, and no successor yet nominated by Canute. This he thought a favourable opportunity for the vindication of his rights, and he proceeded to the Swedish court to solicit aid. By Emund he was nobly received; but the information which reached him from Norway did not induce him to hasten his departure. When the local governors heard of his arrival in Sweden, they sent forth the arrow of war, in the determination of resisting his entrance. The spies whom he sent into the country were unanimous in their report that the popular mind was indisposed to him,—that he should abandon the intention of returning. These representations, however, were counterbalanced by his hopes: in a few months after his arrival in Sweden, he procured 400 men from Emund, with permission to raise as many more as chose to join him, and proceeded through the centre of Sweden towards Norway.[[255]]

|1030.|

On the confines of that kingdom, being joined by his kindred and their vassals, he found that his whole force amounted to 1200 men. With this force, had there existed any attachment to his cause, he might have triumphed; but as he proceeded through the northern districts of Drontheim, nobody joined him. In some places, indeed, he forced the inhabitants to assemble, and compelled those who were still pagan to receive baptism. Thus the time which he should have turned to his advantage he lost by his injudicious zeal, and thereby afforded his enemies leisure to organise the means of resistance. In another respect he was less imprudent. Seeing the refusal of the countrymen to join him, he was exhorted by his followers, of whom many were Swedish banditti, to burn their houses, to lay waste their fields, to cut them down wherever they could be found. He had the humanity to refuse his sanction to this atrocious proposal. He had, he said, one regal prerogative left,—the power of forgiving. On entering the district of Sticklestadt, he perceived a large force drawn up to oppose him. Arranging his own followers in order of battle, he exhorted them to fight manfully for their religion, their king, their families. On the other, Sigurd, the bishop, who was in the army of Canute, no less strongly exhorted his party to drive this invader from the kingdom. The character which the prelate drew of that monarch was not an enviable one. From his youth he had been remarkable for his robberies and executions; he had exiled or put to death the noblest of his chiefs; he had acted with singular treachery towards the upland kings,—whose privileges, contrary to his solemn pledges, he had violated, and whose persons he had afterwards mutilated; to all men, high or low, he had been tyrannical; he had lost all his friends; and he was now followed only by the enemies of Norway, or by professed bandits. This description was not overcharged, and it may be admitted as a fair estimate of his character. The battle now engaged, and Olaf fought with much courage; but in the end he fell, and most of his kinsmen with him.[[256]]

That the moral portrait of Olaf may be finished, and his claims to sanctity appreciated, we have yet to add that he had a concubine, and by her a bastard,—Magnus the Good,—four years after his marriage with Astridda. The circumstances connected with the birth of this prince are worthy of relation. Alfhilda, the royal concubine, was observed to be pregnant; and everybody knew that this was the result of her intercourse with Olaf. One night she was seized by the pains of labour, which were unusually severe; both her life and that of her infant were despaired of before it was brought into the world. Even after that event, so precarious was its existence, that the priest who was present insisted on its immediate baptism, and desired Sigvat the poet to awake the king for the purpose of knowing what name was to be given it. Nothing can better illustrate the tyranny of Olaf than the fact that Sigvat, favourite as he had long been, durst not fulfil this commission, at a time when mother and child were apparently on the brink of the grave. “Who dares awake him?” replied Sigvat. “But the infant must be baptized,” rejoined the priest. “I would rather incur the responsibility of naming the child,” said the poet, “than of awaking the king.” The name was Magnus. The next morning Olaf was in a great rage with Sigvat, whom he summoned before him, and asked how he could have the presumption to impose a name on his royal son. “Was it not better,” replied the poet, “to give the child to God rather than to the devil? Had he died without baptism, he must have been the devil’s. For my boldness I can but lose my head; and, if I do so, I must trust to God’s mercy!” “But why didst thou call the child Magnus?” demanded Olaf: “I have no kindred of that name.” “Because it was the name of Charlemagne.” “Thou art a fortunate man,” said the king. “Nor is this strange, as fortune is the companion of wisdom. Yet it is strange when the imprudent man turns his very rashness into the source of advantage.” In the sequel this Magnus became king of Norway.[[257]]

As nobody can be admitted into the calendar of saints without the operation of miracles, which the church requires as evidence of sanctity, we may be prepared for those of Olaf. That he healed incurable diseases, restored sight to the blind, assisted the warriors who invoked his aid, is asserted by the gravest Icelandic writers. One which we give in the Appendix, and which is by far the most imaginative of the number[[258]] may enable the reader to judge of what materials they consist. The sanctity of Olaf rests on a foundation of equal solidity with his miracles. Yet all the Roman Catholics in Europe are taught, from their infancy, to believe in both. How far his character, as given in the text, agrees with that which Alban Butler has drawn from that immense heap of rubbish, the Acta Sanctorum, may also be seen in the Appendix.[[259]]