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Olaf the Glorious A Story of the Viking Age By: Robert Leighton (1859-1934) |
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BY ROBERT LEIGHTON PREFACE
The following narrative is not so much a story as a biography. My
hero is not an imaginary one; he was a real flesh and blood man who
reigned as King of Norway just nine centuries ago. The main facts
of his adventurous career his boyhood of slavery in Esthonia, his
life at the court of King Valdemar, his wanderings as a viking, the
many battles he fought, his conversion to Christianity in England,
and his ultimate return to his native land are set forth in the
various Icelandic sagas dealing with the period in which he lived. I
have made free use of these old time records, and have added only
such probable incidents as were necessary to give a continuous
thread of interest to the narrative. These sagas, like the epics
of Homer, were handed down from generation to generation by word
of mouth, and they were not committed to writing until a long time
after Olaf Triggvison's death, so that it is not easy to discriminate
between the actual facts as they occurred and the mere exaggerated
traditions which must surely have been added to the story of his
life as it was told by the old saga men at their winter firesides.
But in most instances the records corroborate each other very
exactly, and it may be taken that the leading incidents of the
story are historically true. The Icelandic sagas have very little to say concerning Olaf
Triggvison's unsuccessful invasion of England, and for this part
of the story I have gone for my facts to the English chronicles
of the time, wherein frequent allusion to him is made under such
names as Anlaf, Olave, and Olaff. The original treaty of peace
drawn up between King Ethelred the Second and Olaf still exists to
fix the date of the invasion, while the famous battle of Maldon,
in which the Norse adventurer gained a victory over the East
Anglians, is described at length by a nameless contemporary poet,
whose "Death of Brihtnoth" remains as one of the finest of early
English narrative poems, full of noble patriotism and primitive
simplicity. I have given no dates throughout these pages, but for the convenience
of readers who may wish for greater exactness it may be as well
to state here that Olaf was born A.D. 963, that he started on his
wanderings as a viking in the year 981, that the sea fight between
the vikings of Jomsburg and the Norwegians took place in 986, and
the battle of Maldon in the year 991. Olaf reigned only five years
as King of Norway, being crowned in 995, and ending his reign with
his death in the glorious defeat at Svold in the year 1000. ROBERT LEIGHTON. CHAPTER I: THE FINDING OF OLAF
It happened in the beginning of the summer that Sigurd Erikson
journeyed north into Esthonia to gather the king's taxes and tribute.
His business in due course brought him into a certain seaport that
stood upon the shores of the great Gulf of Finland. He was a very handsome man, tall and strong, with long fair hair and
clear blue eyes. There were many armed servants in his following,
for he was a person of great consequence, and was held in high
honour throughout the land. He rode across the marketplace and there alighted from his horse,
and turned his eyes towards the sea. Before him stretched the
rippling, sunlit bay with its wooded holms. A fleet of fishing boats
was putting out with the flood tide, and some merchant vessels lay
at anchor under shelter of the green headland. Nearer to the strand a long dragonship, with a tall gilded prow
rising high above the deck tent, was moored against a bank of hewn
rock that served as a wharf. At sight of the array of white shields
along this vessel's bulwarks his eyes brightened, for he knew that
she was a viking ship from his own birth land in distant Norway,
and he was glad. Not often did it chance that he could hold speech
with the bold warriors of the fiords. Close by the ship there was a noisy crowd of men and boys. He
strode nearer to them, and heard the hoarse voices of the vikings
calling out in loud praise of a feat that had been performed
by someone in their midst... Continue reading book >>
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