The reasons for the slow progress of Christianity in Sweden were many, the principal one not being an opposition to the Christian doctrines. The superstitious change easily from one cult to another. The sceptics do not believe more in one god than in another. Of heathen sceptics there were a great many in the North who believed in nothing else than their own strength. But it was the Christian morals which were so difficult for the Swedes to accept. Accustomed to great personal liberty, they could not endure the restraint which Christian morals placed upon the individual. The very spirit of Christianity, with its kindliness and meekness, was not attractive to the Northman, who in his own mental and physical force found a tower of strength. The period of the first attempts at conversion was not well chosen. The whole North was inflamed by the Viking rage for war and plunder. Then followed a period of disinterestedness when the good seed was sown but the field neglected. Later the too arduous zeal of the priests called forth criticism and resistance from the Swedes, so tardy in making a decision and so careful in weighing reasons for and against.
To this must be added the great prestige of the Upsala temple as the heathen arc of worship in the North, and the influence of the scalds and saga men of Iceland. Iceland was discovered in 870, and settled principally by Norsemen from the British Isles and from the western coast of Norway, but also to some extent by Swedes and Danes. Sudden and brilliant was the rise of Icelandic culture, and Icelandic scalds overran the whole territory of the North. At the court of every king and jarl these were at home, sometimes in great numbers, and soon to the exclusion of the native poets. For their poetry, both as to contents and form, they were chiefly dependent upon the heathen myths and traditions, and the result of their popularity must have been a perfect heathen revival in those days of growing scepticism. Through intercourse with Christians in Britain, the Icelanders had borrowed many a noble trait, and their taste found admirers in the old North, where such influence must have been felt through centuries of indirect contact with lands of classical or Christian culture. We are told of the great number of southern coins found in Swedish soil. Which travel further and faster, thoughts or coins, and which are the more impressionable? So although it would be unjust to deprive the Icelandic poetry, the impressive and grand Eddic songs and the more artificial court-poetry, of any of its beauty or originality, it is not right to ascribe all the culture, whose blossom it is, to Iceland, or Iceland and Norway, to the exclusion of Sweden and Denmark, or the Teutonic world at large. Good epic poetry has been written all over Teutondom. In Sweden strophes in the very metre of the majority of Eddic poems have been found on tombstones. In the same manner with the contents of the Eddic poems. Granting important exceptions, we think that the heathen myths have been the same in the East as in the extreme West. The very fact that Icelandic court-poetry was accepted and enjoyed by continental chieftains presupposes a thorough knowledge and mastery of the more popular poetry of Eddic songs of gods and heroes.
Hence the revival of heathendom in the North, by which a king like Olof Skœtkonung for a long time was influenced, finding his chief delight in the association with poets and saga men.
In Norway, Olaf Haraldson had ascended the throne, and he put an end to Swedish dominion in the Norwegian districts. This caused strife, and also considerable annoyance to the provinces touching the frontier. Popular feeling rose high in Sweden, when the demands for a peace guarantee with Norway were disregarded by King Olof. Jarl Ragnvald sided with the people, desiring a union between the Norwegian king and King Olof’s daughter Ingegerd. At a great Thing held in Upsala, in 1018, King Olof listened to Norwegian emissaries pleading for peace and a royal marriage. Jarl Ragnvald complained of the annoyance caused to his people of West Gothland. King Olof became indignant, but was, through the forcible yet dignified appeal for peace by Torgny, the lagman (justice) of Tiundaland, compelled to a promise of peace and a concession of marriage. But the king did not keep his promises. A betrothal was arranged but soon annulled by Olof, and the Norwegian king was in vain expecting his promised bride. At the instigation of Jarl Ragnvald, Olaf Haraldson married King Olof’s illegitimate daughter Astrid. As this was done without the consent of her father, Ragnvald dared not remain in Sweden. He went to Gardarike (Russia), where he died shortly afterward, in 1019, his widow, the princess Ingegerd, in Novgorod becoming the wife of the Russian ruler Jaroslaf.
In Sweden, trouble was brewing against the king, who had broken faith with his people, and in order to avoid open revolt King Olof was forced to divide his power with one of his sons, who, although yet a minor, was solemnly elected king. He had in baptism received the name of Jacob, which so displeased his heathen subjects that it was changed to Anund. King Olof also agreed to maintain peace with Norway, meeting his son-in-law at Konghæll, in Bohuslæn, in 1019, for a peace agreement. King Olof died two years later and was buried by the church of Husaby, where he was baptized. He was the first king who introduced coinage into Sweden. The earliest coins were made of silver by Anglo-Saxons settled in Sigtuma, and resemble closely Anglo-Saxon coins of the same period.
After the death of his father King Anund ruled alone. He entered into an alliance with his brother-in-law of Norway against Canute, who now was king both of Denmark and England. During Canute’s absence, Anund and Olaf invaded Denmark. In the subsequent strife between Olaf and Canute, Anund took no active part. King Olaf had to flee to Russia. Upon his return he gathered an army in Sweden, with the help of Anund, and entered Norway through Jemtland. At Stiklastad he met the much superior Norwegian army, and lost his battle and his life, in 1030. After his death, the sentiment in Norway changed radically, and he was worshipped as a saint throughout the North.
Of Anund’s reign little is known. Adam of Bremen, an ecclesiastic, whose history of the diocese of Hamburg and Bremen, during the period 788-1072, is one of the most important sources of Swedish history in heathen times, says of Anund: “Young in years, he excelled in wisdom and piety all his predecessors; no king was more beloved by the Swedish people than Anund.” The historian gives as his authority the Danish king Svend Estridsen, who as an exile stayed at Anund’s court. Anund died in 1050 and was succeeded by his older half-brother Emund, surnamed the Old. He was the son of a freed woman, the daughter of a Vendish chief. For this reason he had been passed over at the first election. Emund was educated by his mother’s relatives, was baptized, but was not much of a Christian. He was popular neither with the new Christian church nor with the people at large. Emund’s unpopularity with the masses was caused by an agreement with Denmark in regard to the boundaries when he ceded the province of Bleking. Emund died in 1060. With him the old royal line became extinct. A new line comes to the throne of Sweden, where, with the general acceptance of Christianity, a new era commences.