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66 II. CONVERSION OF SWEDEN (A.D. 8301130).
which Sven had forced her in 999 A.D., and thrown herself
on the protection of Tryggvason (O. T. S. y
chs. 99, 100).
Thyra, who was as proud as Sigrid herself, was eager for
war against her brother.
Under these circumstances a conflict was unavoidable.
The Swedish and Danish kings, now forming one family,
combined with malcontents from Norway. They lay hid
in a
"
vik
"
or fiord and allowed the main body of Trygg-
vason s fleet to go onward, and then came out and attacked
his ship, the "Long Serpent," almost alone, at a place
called Svoldr.15
After a magnificent fight against tre
mendous odds, Tryggvason leapt into the sea and was
drowned ; though the affection of his friends and country
men deemed him to have escaped and to be still alive, and
long expected his return.
Thyra, however, did not share these hopes. She refused
to survive her husband, and starved herself to death.
The abiding sorrow that followed his disappearance, and
the mysterious whisper of the sea, which is still supposed to
sing a sort of dirge for the lost hero, has been well described
in a pathetic ballad by Bjornson. After telling of the
impatience of the Norwegian fleet of six and fifty Dragons
waiting for him to come up, and the murmured questions of
the men, he goes on :
But when the sun, after night was past,
Showed up the sky-line without a mast,
Burst their words like a storm-wind :
44
Oh ! the Long Serpent where is she?
Cometh not Olaf Tryggve s son?"
15
Adam puts the battle in the Sound. He does not agree
with the high estimate of Tryggvason which appears in the
Sagas, but affirms that he put much trust in auguries and divin
ation by lots, and in prognostications from birds, and hints that
he had given up Christianity (ch. 81). But, with all his merits,
Adam writes in the Danish and German interest, his chief
authority being King- Sven Estridsson, grandson of Sven Fork-
beard and nephew of Knut. Saxo also speaks of Olaf s trust in
auguries (ch. x., p. 339). Geijer puts the battle in the bay
between Riigen and Greifswald. He has a charming ballad on
Olaf s supposed survival, Skaldestycken, pp. 143-9, Stkh.,
1869. See above p. 44.
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