Note 130 — SECTION III. HISTORICAL NOTES.[111]

Fat and ferocious Ólafr Helgi (Olaf II., or the Saint), when succeeding to the throne of Norway, doomed to death and slavery, to exile and confiscation, all who opposed the new faith. The blood of martyred pagans was not the seed of their Church; and persecution, vigorously carried out, took, as usual, wide effect. After his death at the battle of Stikklestad, he became the tutelar saint of Norway, the “Lamb” of the calendar. His remains ranked as relics in the ancient cathedral at Throndhjem, till Protestantism, or rather Lutheranism, under Gustavus Vasa (A.D. 1527), and Christian II. (1536), replaced Romanism in the Scandinavian peninsula. The Royal Order of Norway, founded in 1847 by the late king, Oscar I., bears his name. London has boasted of four “St Olaves;” and Tooley Street of the Tailors, according to Mr Peter Cunningham, notes the site of the first church. To retain due reverence for such a “Saint,” we must believe with Pliny (Epist., viii. 24): “Reverere gloriam veterem, et hanc ipsam senectutem, quæ in homine venerabilis, in urbibus sacra. Sit apud te honor antiquitati, sit ingentibus factis, sit fabulis quoque.”