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5- OLAF TRYGGVASON. 61
suitors, as she was now regent for her son. Among them
were Harald Grenske, father of St. Olaf, and a king from
Russia, whom she caused to be burnt in the house in which
they were resting after a drinking bout, in order, as she
said, to make these petty kings tired of coming to court her
(ib. p. 135; Olaf Tryggvason s Saga, ch. 48). She was
more ready to listen to the famous Olaf Tryggvason, who
had now fairly settled himself on the throne of Norway.
But, when the latter asked her to be baptized, she refused,
and he struck her on the face with his glove, calling her an
old heathen jade.
9
Sigrid replied,
"
This may some day
be thy death
"
(O. T. 5., ch. 68; ib. p. 150). Many here
will remember how Longfellow gave poetical expression to
this and many other scenes from Olaf s life in his Tales
of a Wayside Inn.
Soon after this she accepted the addresses of Sven Fork-
beard, who was at this time an ally of her son Olof, and
bore him the famous Knut, our English Canute, about the
year 995 A.D. Others, however, make her marriage with
Sven later, and some suppose Knut to have had another
mother.10
5. OLAF TRYGGVASON FIRST TO REIGN AS A CHRISTIAN
KING IN NORWAY (995 A.D. 1000 A.D.).
The exact chronology of this period is not easy to make
out in detail, but we receive much light on it from our own
Saxon chronicles, which write at some length both of Sven
and Anlaf, by whom they mean Olaf Tryggvason. Both
are, in their different ways, links between Scandinavian
and English Christianity. Olaf Tryggvason was the first
Christian king who actually reigned w7
ith full acceptance as
a Christian king in Norway, but two of his predecessors
9
Saxo x., p. 340, says that Olaf invited her to come on board
his ship. As she was climbing the ladder she was let down
into the water and nearly drowned, and the Norwegians only
neighed at her in derision. In any case, Olaf behaved with
great discourtesy.
10
See the Dictionary of National Biograpliy, s.n. Siveyn.
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