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; SKOTKONUNG, SIGFRID AND UNWAN. 71
bers sitting round their winter fires, or writing busily on
their vellums, six or seven hundred years ago. If only the
Swedes had had the Icelandic faculty of story telling and of
humorous insight into character, how much richer would
have been the record of their own history !
7. RELIGIOUS HISTORY. SKOTKONUNG (993 A.D. 1021
A.D.) BAPTIZED BY SlGFRID, NEAR SKARA, IOO8 A.D.
We turn now to the religious history, as far as it is re
corded. Skotkonung, by his compact with Sven after the
Battle of Svoldr in the year 1000 A.D., was bound to main
tain and propagate Christianity in his dominions, both in
Norway and Sweden. This brought him into contact with
Tryggvason s bishops who still remained. He found the
most ready welcome in the provinces on each side of the
Gota River, particularly Viken and West Gothland.
The latter was now a Christian province under his first
cousin, Jarl Ragnvald Ulfsson, whose father wa*s brother
of Sigrid Stor-rada. It was probably in this family that the
young king became acquainted with Bishop Sigfrid, from
whom he received baptism at the well of Husaby near Skara
in 1008 A.D., according to the old Swedish tradition.16
Why had he not been baptized before? and who was the
Sigfrid who baptized him? As regards the first question,
I am inclined to presume that his mother, Sigrid, had re
mained a heathen, and that it was her influence which
retarded his baptism. Skotkonung had now married a
Christian wife, Astrid, member of a noble Irish family.
As regards Sigfrid, I think we may accept the tradition
that he was an Englishman, and the same as the
Sigurd who appears in Olaf Tryggvason s Saga as attend
ing him on his journey to the dangerous Salten Fiord in
the north of Norway a place which is still visited by
travellers on account of the rushing tide of which the Saga
speaks (O . T. Saga, chs. 86, 88). The bishop s prayers
L8
The well is still shown and the churchyard contains a re
markable monument, said to be the king s (see S. H.\ Vol. i.,
figs. 326-9).
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