and folly, however, soon made the people of Norway wish their own king back amongst them, for Svend let himself be ruled by bad counsels, and did not obey his father's commands that he should try to win the regard and respect of the nation. It was soon whispered abroad that the corpse of the slain Olaf was working miracles, and these reports took such hold of the minds of the people, that they sent for Olaf's son, Magnus, to be their king, hoping thus to make what amends they could for their sin against the father. In the meanwhile Olaf's body was carefully moved from the battle-field at Stiklestad, where a peasant had buried it after the fight, and carried to the cathedral church at Nidaros, the present town of Throndhjem (Drontheim). Here the remains were laid in a tomb, which then, and for many ages afterwards, was visited by pilgrims from all parts of the Scandinavian lands, in the belief that great miracles were wrought at the spot.1

When young Prince Magnus returned from the court of his uncle, Jaroslav Duke of Russia, the Norwegians received him with joy, and Svend of Denmark was forced to leave the kingdom. This was the Magnus who became King of Denmark in 1042 on the death of Knud's son Harthaknud, and who showed great kindness to Knud's nephew, Svend Estridsen, leaving him to rule over the Danish kingdom in his name. As we have read in a former chapter,2 Magnus having met with a poor return for his friendship, had to go to war with the ungrateful Svend, and was killed in a battle against him near Halsted in the year 1047, after having, with his last breath, begged his people to help Svend to become King of Denmark, while the Danes being

1 St. Olaf was believed by the people of the North in those early times to have possessed many of the powers which had been ascribed to the god Thor, and to have been gifted with his bodily strength and his red beard. St. Olaf's shrine of silver, weighing 3,200 ounces, and inlaid with precious stones, was for many ages carefully preserved at Throndhjem, and carried by sixty men in solemn procession on the Saint's festival, July 29, on the election of a king of Norway, or other great occasions. At length it was seized by the Danes and carried away, and when the Swedes in our Queen Elizabeth's time made war on Denmark and Norway, and took the town of Throndhjem, they found no relics of the Saint but his helmet and spurs. These they took and brought to Stockholm, where they are still preserved in the church of St. Nicholas.

See Chap. iv., p. 57.

G

willing to receive him, Svend secured the Danish crown for himself through the generous conduct of his former rival.

Sweden. Before we close this chapter, and begin the story of Svend's reign in Denmark, we must try to get some idea of what had been passing in Sweden during the time that the seamen of Norway and Denmark were spreading themselves far and wide over hitherto unknown lands. There is not much to learn in regard to the Swedish people of old on account of the quarrels between the Svea and the Göta, and the confused state of public affairs. We know, however, that the former people were for some ages ruled over by descendants of Ragnar Lodbrog's son or grandson, Björn Jernside (Ironsides), amongst whom the most noteworthy was Erik Sejrsol, or the Victorious, who began to reign in the middle of the tenth century, and died in the year 993. This prince in 983 defeated his nephew, Styrbjörn, and a great number of vikingar from the pagan brotherhood of Jomsborg, in a three-days' fight at Fyrisval off the Swedish coast. From that time till his death he is said to have ruled in peace over Sweden, and even at one time to have had Denmark under his power and to have driven the Danish King Svend Tveskæg out of his kingdom. The truth of this account seems very doubtful, but the story is recorded by the writer, Adam of Bremen, who was the friend and scribe of King Svend Estridsen of Denmark. Erik Sejersol, at his death in 993, left one son Olaf, known as the "Lap-king," because he was an infant in arms when he received the homage of the people. The mother of this young prince was Sigrid, called "Storaade," or the Proud, who after the death of King Erik became the wife of Svend Tveskog of Denmark, for whom she secured considerable power in Sweden during the childhood of her son, the little King Olaf.

Olaf the Lap-King.-Olaf the Lap-King, who reigned from 993 to 1024, was the first Christian King of Sweden, and is believed to have received baptism about the year 1000. He had been instructed in Christianity by Siegfred, an Englishman who may be called the second apostle of the North. good man devoted a long life to the work of converting the pagan Swedes, and died at a great age, among the people of Smäland, with whom he had begun his labours. But while

This

the Lap-king became a Christian, most of his people remained heathens, and although they allowed Olaf to erect a bishopric at Skara-the mother-see of the North-they forced him to leave them free to follow their own religion, in return for which they gave him the choice of any district in Sweden in which he liked to build Christian churches. He made choice of West Gothland, which thenceforth continued to be the chief seat of Christianity, while "Svithjód," the lands of the Svea, would not receive Christian teachers within their boundaries, or take Christian kings for their rulers for more than a century later.

Olaf the Lap-King's reign was troubled by constant quarrels with Norway, towards whose king, Olaf the Saint, he had borne ill-will since the latter had invaded the coasts of Sweden in the course of a viking cruise. The Swedish peasants of that age had great power in the state, and were not backward in using it; for when the king refused their request that he should make peace with Norway and give his daughter in marriage to the young Norwegian King Olaf, they threatened to dethrone him. In a long speech before the Thing at Uppsala a great Lagman or law-explainer, called Thorgny, set before the king what he was to do, and ended by informing him that, unless he made his acts conform to the wishes of his people, they would do by him what their forefathers had done when five of their kings had, like him, been puffed up with pride and tried to follow their own evil wishes. As these kings had been publicly drowned in a deep morass Olaf had no wish to bring a similar fate upon himself, and he, therefore, in the presence of all the men of the Thing, promised that he would rule his actions by their wishes: "For such," he added, "has ever been the custom with the kings of the Svea." But in spite of his promises Olaf soon afterwards gave his daughter in marriage to the Russian Grand Duke, Jaroslav of Novogorod, who was a near kinsman of his, and this act would certainly have cost him his crown had not the Svea, in their jealousy of the men of Gothland, taken their king's part when the Göta proposed in the year 1022 to put him aside. They declared that as the Göta had always been second to the Svea in olden times, they would not allow them to put themselves first in

deciding who should be king over them. The Göta yielded, and the end of the dispute was that Olaf remained king, and his son Anund was made joint ruler with him. After the death of Anund, his brother, Edmund Gammal, or the Old, reigned in Sweden, and with him ended the race of the Uppsala kings, who through Sigurd Ring traced their descent to Odin's pontiff Njord. Edmund was a bad king, who let the Christians be persecuted in the land, and who is believed to have died. after a short reign about the year 1055, although the exact date is not known.

PART III.

NORTHERN DISCOVERIES.

Erik the Red.-During the last half of the tenth century, when the people of Norway were struggling to resist Christianity, and their kings were striving to put down the old pagan faith of the country, restless men continued, as they had done under Harald Haarfager, to seek new homes in which they might worship as they liked, and escape falling under the power of the laws. Then it was that a Norwegian, known as Erik "Raudi," or the Red, son of Thorwald Jarl, having been made an outlaw both in Norway and in Iceland on account of a murder of which he had been guilty, set sail in search of some quiet spot, where he might do what pleased him without having to fear the consequences of his acts.

In the course of his cruising in the northern seas, he came to a land which he named " Greenland," in the hope perhaps of making others believe that it was a fruitful country. This discovery of his was made in 983, during the time of our king Æthelred the Unready, and a few years later he induced a number of Icelanders, who like him were tired of living in a land where laws were enforced, to join him in the new country, and thus Greenland was settled by people from Norway and Iceland. Erik Raudi, or the Red, had one son Leif, who in early youth had served under King Olaf Trygvasson and gone with him to Gaul and Italy, and after sharing in many of the

daring adventures of the Norwegian prince, had returned with him to Norway and became a Christian. On the death of the king, Leif determined to convert his father's new colony, and in the year 1000 he came back to Greenland, bringing with him several monks, who at once began to baptise the people, till soon there was not a pagan left among them.

This colony of Greenland had a very strange and sad fate, of which we must speak now, although the history of its troubles really belongs to a much later period. Unlike its sister colony, Iceland, it was after a time wholly destroyed, and so thoroughly lost sight of that at the present day it is a matter of doubt whether the settlements made by Erik and his son Leif were on the east or the west coasts of Greenland. It is, however, believed that both the eastern and western shores were early settled, and that they continued to be occupied by a flourishing colony till near the middle of the fourteenth century. Then in the reign of our Edward III., the plague known as the "Black Death," which had been raging for many years in every part of Northern Europe, reached Greenland, and nearly killed all the people. The few persons who escaped the ravages of this frightful disease were soon afterwards cut off by some hostile wild natives, who, taking advantage of their small numbers, fell upon them and killed them. It is supposed that the settlements on the east coasts, known as the "Oestre Bygd," were not quite destroyed at the time that those of the "Vestre Bygd" were cut off, but before the reign of our Edward IV. (in 1460) they too had ceased to exist. For ages afterwards no one made any attempt to explore the coasts on which these old northern settlers had met with so sad an end, but in the early part of last century, when George I. was King of England, a Norwegian clergyman, called Hans Egede, obtained ships and money from the Danish king, Frederick IV., to proceed to Greenland in order that he might try to convert the native Greenlanders, who had been neglected by the Mother-Country since the days of the Black Death of 1350. Hans Egede and his wife Gertude laboured with zeal to convert and civilize the poor neglected natives from the time of their landing in Greeniand, in 1721, till the death of Hans in 1736, when their son Paul Egede took up the good work that they had begun.