OLAF TRYGGVESON, KING OF NORWAY. By THOMAS CARLYLE.

[Earliest of the Norwegian kings who succeeded in implanting Christianity in the soil of Norse paganism. Exact date of birth unknown; died 1000 A.D. Son of Tryggve, a former under-king, or jarl, of Norway, slain by Hakon Jarl, who had usurped the supreme power about 975. Olaf spent his early years as a sea-rover, and became the most celebrated viking of his age. He conquered and slew Hakon in 995, and became king. During his reign of five years he revolutionized his kingdom. He lost his life in a great sea-battle with the combined fleets of Denmark and Norway. The facts of his career are mostly drawn from the saga of Snorro Sturleson.]

Tryggveson made a stout and, in effect, victorious and glorious struggle for himself as king. Daily and hourly vigilant to do so, often enough by soft and even merry methods—for he was a witty, jocund man, and had a fine ringing laugh in him, and clear, pregnant words ever ready—or, if soft methods would not serve, then by hard and even hardest he put down a great deal of miscellaneous anarchy in Norway, was especially busy against heathenism (devil-worship and its rites); this, indeed, may be called the focus and heart of all his royal endeavor in Norway, and of all the troubles he now had with his people there. For this was a serious, vital, all-comprehending matter; devil-worship, a thing not to be tolerated one moment longer than you could by any method help! Olaf’s success was intermittent, of varying complexion, but his effort, swift or slow, was strong and continual, and, on the whole, he did succeed. Take a sample of that wonderful conversion process:

Once, in beginning a parliamentary address, so soon as he came to touch upon Christianity the Bonders rose in murmurs, in vociferations and jingling of arms, which quite drowned the royal voice; declared they had taken arms against King Hakon the Good to compel him to desist from his Christian proposals, and they did not think King Olaf a higher man than him (Hakon the Good). The king then said, “He purposed coming to them next Yule to their great sacrificial feast to see for himself what their customs were,” which pacified the Bonders for this time. The appointed place of meeting was again a Hakon-Jarl Temple, not yet done to ruin, chief shrine in those Trondhjem parts, I believe; there should Tryggveson appear at Yule. Well, but before Yule came, Tryggveson made a great banquet in his palace at Trondhjem, and invited far and wide all manner of important persons out of the district as guests there. Banquet hardly done, Tryggveson gave some slight signal, upon which armed men strode in, seized eleven of these principal persons, and the king said: “Since he himself was to become a heathen again and do sacrifice, it was his purpose to do it in the highest form, namely, that of human sacrifice, and this time not of slaves and malefactors, but of the best men in the country!” In which stringent circumstances the eleven seized persons and company at large gave unanimous consent to baptism, straightway received the same, and abjured their idols, but were not permitted to go home till they had left, in sons, brothers, and other precious relatives, sufficient hostages in the king’s hands.

By unwearied industry of this and better kinds, Tryggveson had trampled down idolatry so far as form went—how far in substance may be greatly doubted. But it is to be remembered withal that always on the back of these compulsory adventures there followed English bishops, priests, and preachers, whereby to the open-minded conviction, to all degrees of it, was attainable, while silence and passivity became the duty or necessity of the unconvinced party. In about two years Norway was all gone over with a rough harrow of conversion. Heathenism, at least, constrained to be silent and outwardly conformable.

Olaf Tryggveson, though his kingdom was the smallest of the Norse three, had risen to a renown over all the Norse world, which neither he of Denmark nor he of Sweden could pretend to rival. A magnificent, far-shining man, more expert in all “bodily exercises,” as the Norse called them, than any man had ever been before him or after was. Could keep five daggers in the air, always catching the proper fifth by its handle, and sending it aloft again; could shoot supremely, throw a javelin with either hand; and, in fact, in battle usually threw two together. These, with swimming, climbing, leaping, were the then admirable fine arts of the North, in all which Tryggveson appears to have been the Raphael and the Michael Angelo at once. Essentially definable, too, if we look well into him, as a wild bit of real heroism in such rude guise and environment—a high, true, and great human soul. A jovial burst of laughter in him withal; a bright, airy, wise way of speech; dressed beautifully and with care; a man admired and loved exceedingly by those he liked; dreaded as death by those he did not like. “Hardly any king,” says Snorro, “was ever so well obeyed; by one class out of zeal and love, by the rest out of dread.” His glorious course, however, was not to last long.

Tryggveson had already ships and navies that were the wonder of the North. Especially in building war-ships—the Crane, the Serpent, last of all, the Long Serpent—he had, for size, for outward beauty, and inward perfection of equipment, transcended all example.

A new sea expedition undertaken by Olaf became an object of attention to all neighbors; especially Queen Sigrid the Proud and Svein Double-Beard,[20] her now king, were attentive to it.

“This insolent Tryggveson,” Queen Sigrid would often say, and had long been saying, to her Svein, “to marry thy sister without leave had or asked of thee; and now flaunting forth his war navies as if he, king only of paltry Norway, were the big hero of the North! Why do you suffer it, you kings really great?”

By such persuasions and reiterations King Svein of Denmark, King Olaf of Sweden, and Jarl Eric, now a great man there, grown rich by prosperous sea-robbery and other good management, were brought to take the matter up, and combine strenuously for destruction of King Olaf Tryggveson on this grand Wendland expedition of his.

King Olaf Tryggveson, unacquainted with all this, sailed away in summer with his splendid fleet, went through the belts with prosperous winds, under bright skies, to the admiration of both shores. Such a fleet, with its shining Serpents, long and short, and perfection of equipment and appearance, the Baltic never saw before.

Olaf’s chief captains, seeing the enemy’s fleet come out and how the matter lay, strongly advised King Olaf to elude this stroke of treachery, and with all sail hold on his course, fight being now on so unequal terms. Snorro says the king, high on the quarter-deck where he stood, replied: “Strike the sails! never shall men of mine think of flight. I never fled from battle. Let God dispose of my life; but flight I will never take!” And so the battle arrangements immediately began, and the battle with all fury went loose, and lasted hour after hour till almost sunset, if I well recollect. “Olaf stood on the Serpent’s quarter-deck,” says Snorro, “high over the others. He had a gilt shield and a helmet inlaid with gold; over his armor he had a short red coat, and was easily distinguished from other men.”

The Danish fleet, the Swedish fleet, were both of them quickly dealt with, and successively withdrew out of shotrange. And then Jarl Eric came up and fiercely grappled with the Long Serpent, or rather with her surrounding comrades, and gradually, as they were beaten empty of men, with the Long Serpent herself. The fight grew ever fiercer, more furious. Eric was supplied with new men from the Swedes and Danes; Olaf had no such resource, except from the crews of his own beaten ships; and at length this also failed him, all his ships, except the Long Serpent, being beaten and emptied. Olaf fought on unyielding. Eric twice boarded him, was twice repulsed. Olaf kept his quarter-deck, unconquerable, though left now more and more hopeless, fatally short of help. A tall young man, called Einar Tamberskelver, very celebrated and important afterward in Norway, and already the best archer known, kept busy with his bow. Twice he nearly shot Jarl Eric in his ship. “Shoot me that man!” said Jarl Eric to a bowman near him; and, just as Tamberskelver was drawing his bow the third time, an arrow hit it in the middle and broke it in two. “What is this that has broken?” asked King Olaf. “Norway from thy hand, king,” answered Tamberskelver. Tryggveson’s men, he observed with surprise, were striking violently on Eric’s, but to no purpose; nobody fell. “How is this?” asked Tryggveson. “Our swords are notched and blunted, king; they do not cut.” Olaf stepped down to his arm-chest, delivered out new swords, and it was observed, as he did it, blood ran trickling from his wrist, but none knew where the wound was. Eric boarded a third time. Olaf, left with hardly more than one man, sprang overboard (one sees that red coat of his still glancing in the evening sun), and sank in the deep waters to his long rest.

Rumor ran among his people that he still was not dead; grounding on some movement by the ships of that traitorous Sigwald, they fancied Olaf had dived beneath the keels of his enemies, and got away with Sigwald, as Sigwald himself evidently did. “Much was hoped, supposed, spoken,” says one old mourning Skald; “but the truth was, Olaf Tryggveson was never seen in Norseland more.” Strangely he remains still a shining figure to us—the wildly beautifulest man in body and in soul that one has ever heard of in the North.