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6. SVEN, KNUT AND OLAF THE SAINT. 69
other opprobrious name. Yet Haraldson was wise
enough to see that an alliance with the proud and noble
royal family of Sweden would be an advantage to him, and
made clever approaches towards Ingegerd, the king s elder
daughter, to which she was quite ready to respond. When
this hope was frustrated by Ingegerd s marriage to the
Prince of Novgorod, he was glad to marry her half-sister
Astrid, daughter of a captive Vendish lady, who was
brought up in the house, as such children usually were, and
only in a slightly lower position than the legitimate children
of the family. This marriage was arranged by the Jarl,
Ragnvald Ulfsson, and his wife, Ingeborg, with whom we
are already acquainted, without Skotkonung s knowledge.
The king was naturally very angry, and the Jarl was glad
to escape from Sweden in the train of the Princess
Ingegerd.
Skotkonung s antipathy to Olaf of Norway was, as I
have said, unpopular in Sweden, and it
nearly cost him his
crown. We see a reflection of the people s feeling in
Ingegerd s petulant jest at her father s pride, after he had
killed five blackcock in one morning, when she reminded
him that the King of Norway had taken five petty kings
and subdued their kingdoms in the same space of time
(St. Olafs Saga, ch. 90). We see it in the very remark
able speech of the lagman, Thorgny, at the Upsala Ting,
reminding the king of the eastern expeditions of his father
and predecessors, and rebuking his haughtiness and his
desire to have Norway under him "
which no Swedish king
before him ever desired
"
(St. Olafs Saga, ch. 81). Very
remarkable, too, both as exhibiting the democratic char
acter of the Swedish constitution and the popular love of
domestic tranquillity, was the peaceful revolution operated
by the parables of the lagman, Emund, of Skara no doubt
a friend of Ragnvald s and the wise counsels of the three
brothers, Arnvid the Blind, Thorvid the Stammerer, and
Freyvid the Deaf (ib. ch. 96). Under the arrangement
made in consequence Skotkonung had to make peace with
Haraldson, and to allow his son, Anund Jakob, who was
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