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5- OLAF TRYGGVASON. 65
which was something like a Swedish king s
"
Ericsgata
"
a tour to acquire recognition of his election, but at the
same time to establish the new religion. Unfortunately,
Wineland, in Massachusetts, was not discovered till a few
years later by one of his followers. Otherwise this great
continent of America might have looked to Olaf Trygg-
vason and one of his English bishops, John, or Sigfrid, or
Grimkil, as the first missionaries of the Christian faith.
13
I am afraid that antiquaries will not allow us to think
that the old circular building at Newport in Rhode Island 14
is an old Norse church or baptistery, but the discovery of
Wineland is quite independent of this identification.
We cannot doubt that it was with Tryggvason s good
will, and very probably at his instigation, that one of his
bishops from England, Sigfrid, whom the Norwegians
called Sigurd, extended his labours to West Gothland,
where Olaf s sister, Ingeborg, had married the Jarl or
regent on condition of his becoming a Christian (O. T.
Saga, chs. 106-7). WG shall hear more of Sigfrid later.
But all this zeal for conversion, which was clearly very
genuine, was to come to an untimely end. Sigrid never
forgave the rebuff to which she had been so rudely exposed,
and used all her influence, whether on her second husband,
Sven, or on her son, the Swedish Olof, to make her threat
effective. Sven himself had several grudges against
Tryggvason, who had not helped him when he was in
need, and had recently married his sister, Thyra, against
his will. Thyra, for her part, had run away from a dis
agreeable marriage with the Vendish king, Burislaf, into
13
On the discovery of Vinland, see. S. Laing s Heimskringla,
Vol. i., pp. 192-230, ed. 2, 1889.
14
There is a picture of this circular building in S. H. 1
,
Vol. i.,
p. 291, fig. 348. It is now generally said to have been built by
Governor Arnold in the seventeenth century as a windmill
(Baedeker: U.S.A., p. 250, ed. 4, 1909), and to have been
copied from one at Chesterton in England, designed by Inigo
Jones (Richman : Rhode Island, its Making and its Meaning,
Vol. ii., p. 151, quoted in a letter by Rev. Walter Lowrie, of
St. Paul s, Rome, sent me by the kindness of Commendatore
Rivoira).
5
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