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58 II. CONVERSION OF SWEDEN (A.D. 8301130).
kingdoms of Norway, in which he succeeded under the
inspiration of love,
7
and reigned for fifty years.
About this time it would seem that Christianity was in
troduced into the island of Gotland, although we do not
know the means. Apparently it was from some other
direction than the Bremen mission. The antiquary, Dr.
Ekhoff, has found the remains of three stone churches in
the foundations of the twelfth century church of St.
Clement at Visby, the earliest of which may go back to
about 900 A.D.
A later archbishop, Unni, was more personally interested
in the mission than Rimbert had been, and actually died
of sickness at Birka in 936 A.D. But he stood rather alone ;
and, if we may judge Adam of Bremen s apostrophe to
bishops of his own day, Unni s example did not much
appeal to his countrymen. Adam turns to those who sit
at home and place first amongst the advantages of the
episcopate the brief delights of glory, gain, gluttony and
sleep, and bids them look at the example of this poor and
modest but really great and glorious priest of Christ, who,
braving all the perils of land and sea, and making his way
among the fierce tribes of the North, laid down his life for
Christ in the most distant regions of the world (ch. 49).
Yet we know no details of Unni s work. His successor at
Bremen was Adaldag, a young man of high birth, who
sat for the long period of fifty-three years (935 A.D. 988
A.D.), and had himself been a missionary to the Slavs.
He ordained many bishops for Denmark, and a Dane of
good birth, Odinkar, for Sweden (ch. 69). But we only
hear of the latter that he was a good and able man, and we
hear of no congregation of the mission in Sweden except at
Birka.
The Bremen mission had not become extinct, but it had
made little progress. Sweden needed other help, and it
came to it, in a somewhat unexpected way, from England.
7
He was anxious to win a girl called Gyda, daughter of King
Eirik of Hordaland, who returned answer that she would never
come to him unless he subjected to himself the whole of Norway
as fully as Kings Gorm of Denmark and Eirik of Sweden had
done (Harald Harfager s Saga, ch. 3).
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