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;o II. CONVERSION OF SWEDEN (A.D. 8301130).
ten or twelve years old, a share in the government, with
right of succession to the throne (ibid), while he himself
retired to another province. This was about 1019 A.D.
This arrangement, as described by the Saga, fits in very
well with the account given by Adam from the religious
side, and is creditable to the accuracy of both our sources.
I shall speak of it
presently when I come to the Christian
history. Skotkonung, who had hitherto lived at Upsala,
now retired to West Gothland, very probably to the estates
left vacant by the Jarl and his own daughter, Ingegerd.
He died shortly after, while Haraldson was still king of
Norway. The latter, after ten years of quiet, was called
upon by Knut in 1025 A.D. to show him allegiance, which
he refused. Haraldson, in alliance with his brother-in-
law, Anund Jakob, was defeated somewhere in the south
of Sweden, and took refuge in Russia. In 1030 A.D. he
made an effort to regain his throne. He was again
defeated, and was slain at the Battle of Sticklestead (29th
July), which stands next to Svoldr in the prominence given
to it in northern history. He had made many enemies in
Norway, but, after his death, a revulsion of feeling in his
favour very quickly took place, which was skilfully pro
moted by his English court-bishop, Grimkil. Miracles
were wrought at his tomb at Trondhjem ;
the missionary
labours of Tryggvason came to be attributed to him, and
the stern politician was transformed into the martyr mis
sionary, the St. Olaf who became the patron saint of
Norway, and who was scarcely less venerated in Sweden.
The process was accelerated by the death of Knut in 1035
A.D., when the Danish Empire began to fall to pieces, and
Norway recovered its independence.
I make no apology for the space given to this survey
of the political history. It is not only necessary to enable
us to understand the religious history, but it gives us a
sense of the reality of the characters and persons with whom
we are dealing a reality which can easily be made more
perceptible by the detailed study of the wonderful portraits
drawn by the Icelandic story-tellers in their dark low cham-
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