Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - II. The Conversion of Sweden (830—1130 A.D.)
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
Below is the raw OCR text
from the above scanned image.
Do you see an error? Proofread the page now!
Här nedan syns maskintolkade texten från faksimilbilden ovan.
Ser du något fel? Korrekturläs sidan nu!
This page has never been proofread. / Denna sida har aldrig korrekturlästs.
68 II. CONVERSION OF SWEDEN (A.D. 8301130).
new possessions. It was, therefore, a matter of great dis
pleasure to him when the young son of his mother s old
suitor, Harald Grenske, namesake and godson of Olaf
Tryggvason, appeared to claim the crown of Norway, to
which he had no particular title. Skotkonung s half-
brother, Knut, was for ten years occupied in England with
consolidating his power there, and the Swedish king could
not make war on Norway alone, especially as such a war, for
the purpose of conquest, was against the traditions of his
country, and unacceptable to the feelings of the Swedes.
He had, therefore, for the time, to make the best of a dis
agreeable position. The new claimant of the throne of
Norway was a remarkable man. "
He was no Olaf Trygg
vason come back, as the people hoped
"
(writes Mr.
Vigfusson),
"
this short, thick-set, ruddy young man, that
carried his head slightly stooping, like the hard thinker he
was. Here was a lover of order, who drove the courts,
enforced the laws with the strong hand, and who, as other
kings in like case, ruled through poor men he could trust
rather than the nobles whom he suspected; who was the
organizer of the public and the Church law, and the severe
scourge of those that broke it; in short, as a man of Henry
II. s type rather than that of Tryggvason, essentially a
secular business-like hard-working man such was Nor
way s saint that was to be
"
(C. P. ., Vol. ii., p. 116).
This young man had become a Viking at the age of
twelve, and in that capacity was an ally of King Ethelred
in England, though a very troublesome and expensive one.
After his victories in Norway he reigned for ten years as
acknowledged sovereign till 1025 A.D. He not only
annoyed Skotkonung by depriving him of his Norwegian
possessions, but gave him just offence by attacking him in
his own country in Lake Malar, and perhaps disgusted him
even more by the cleverness with which he escaped from the
trap in which he seemed to be caught, by cutting a canal for
his ships in an unexpected place.
Skotkonung could never bear to hear him spoken of, and
always called him "
Digre
"
(that thick fellow), or some
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
