Saint Olaf's--Saint Olave,as we call him--early history savours little of the odour of sanctity,but has rather that "ancient and fish-like smell"which characterised the doings of the Vikings,his ancestors.But those were days when honour rather than disgrace attached to the ideas of booty and plunder,especially in an enemy's country;it was a "spoiling of the Egyptians"sanctioned by custom,and even permitted by the Church,which did not disdain occasionally to share in the profits of a successful cruise,when presented in the decent form of silver candlesticks and other ecclesiastical gauds.As to the ancient historian,he mentions these matters as a thing of course."Here the King landed,burnt,and ravaged;""there the Jarl gained much booty;""this summer,they took a cruise in the Baltic,to gather property,"etc.,much as a modern biographer would speak of a gentleman's successful railroad speculations,his taking shares in a coal mine,or coming into a "nice little thing in the Long Annuities."Nevertheless,there is something significant of his future vocation,in a speech which Olaf makes to his assembled friends and relations,imparting to them his design of endeavouring to regain possession of the throne:"I and my men have nothing for our support save what we captured in war,FOR WHICH WE HAVE HAZARDED BOTH LIFE AND SOUL;for many an innocent man have we deprived of his property,and some of their lives,and foreigners are now sitting in the possessions of my fathers."One sees here a faint glimmer of the Saint's nimbus,over the helmet of the Viking,a dawning perception of the "rights of property,"which,no doubt,must have startled his hearers into the most ardent conservative zeal for the good old marauding customs.
But though years elapsed,and fortunes changed,before this dim light of the early Church became that scorching and devouring flame which,later,spread terror and confusion among the haunts of the still lingering ancient gods,an earnest sense of duty seems to have been ever present with him.If it cannot be denied that he shared the errors of other proselytizing monarchs,and put down Paganism with a stern and bloody hand,no merely personal injury ever weighed with him.How grand is his reply to those who advise him to ravage with fire and sword the rebellious district of Throndhjem,as he had formerly punished numbers of his subjects who had rejected Christianity:--"We had then GOD'S honour to defend;but this treason against their sovereign is a much less grievous crime;it is more in my power to spare those who have dealt ill with me,than those whom God hated."The same hard measure which he meted to others he applied to his own actions:witness that curiously characteristic scene,when,sitting in his high seat,at table,lost in thought,he begins unconsciously to cut splinters from a piece of fir-wood which he held in his hand.The table servant,seeing what the King was about,says to him,(mark the respectful periphrasis!)"IT IS MONDAY,SIRE,TO-MORROW."The King looks at him,and it came into his mind what he was doing on a Sunday.He sweeps up the shavings he had made,sets fire to them,and lets them burn on his naked hand;"showing thereby that he would hold fast by God's law,and not trespass without punishment."But whatever human weaknesses may have mingled with the pure ore of this noble character,whatever barbarities may have stained his career,they are forgotten in the pathetic close of his martial story.
His subjects,--alienated by the sternness with which he administers his own severely religious laws,or corrupted by the bribes of Canute,king of Denmark and England,are fallen from their allegiance.The brave,single-hearted monarch is marching against the rebellious Bonders,at the head of a handful of foreign troops,and such as remained faithful among his own people.On the eve of that last battle,on which he stakes throne and life,he intrusts a large sum of money to a Bonder,to be laid out "on churches,priests,and alms-men,as gifts for the souls of such as may fall in battle AGAINSTHIMSELF,"--strong in the conviction of the righteousness of his cause,and the assured salvation of such as upheld it.
He makes a glorious end.Forsaken by many whom he had loved and served,--yet forgiving and excusing them;rejecting the aid of all who denied that holy Faith which had become the absorbing interest of his life,--but surrounded by a faithful few,who share his fate;"in the lost battle,borne down by the flying"--he falls,transpierced by many wounds,and the last words on his fervent lips are prayer to God.[Footnote:The exact date of the battle of Sticklestad is known:an eclipse of the sun occurred while it was going on.]
Surely there was a gallant saint and soldier.Yet he was not the only one who bore himself nobly on that day.
Here is another episode of that same fatal fight.
A certain Thormod is one of the Scalds (or Poets)in King Olaf's army.The night before the battle he sings a spirited song at the King's request,who gives him a gold ring from his finger in token of his approval.Thormod thanks him for the gift,and says,"It is my prayer,Sire,that we shall never part,either in life or death."When the King receives his death-wound Thormod is near him,--but,wounded himself,and so weak and weary that in a desperate onslaught by the King's men,--nicknamed "Dag's storm,"--HE ONLY STOOD BY HIS COMRADE IN THERANKS,ALTHOUGH HE COULD DO NOTHING.
