Olaf the Glorious
A Story of the Viking Age
Robert Leighton
This Project Gutenberg EBook was produced by Martin Robb.
Preface
Chapter I: The Finding Of Olaf
Chapter II: Sigurd Erikson
Chapter III: Gerda's Prophecy
Chapter IV: The Slaying Of Klerkon
Chapter V: The Story Of The
Norse-Kings
Chapter VI: The Training Of Olaf.
Chapter VII: The Captain Of The
Host
Chapter VIII: The Young Vikings
Chapter IX: The Vikings Of
Jomsburg
Chapter X: The Battle Of
Jomsvikings
Chapter XI: West-Over Sea
Chapter XII: The Battle Of Maldon
Chapter XIII: The Hermit Of The
Scillys
Chapter XIV: Thorir Klakka
Chapter XV: The Evil Earl
Chapter XVI: The Christening Of
Norway
Chapter XVII: Sigrid The Haughty
Chapter XVIII: The "Long Serpent"
Chapter XIX: Sigvaldi's Treachery
Chapter XX: Caught In The Snare
Chapter XXI: The Battle In Svold
Sound
Chapter XXII: Defence Of The "Long
Serpent"
The following narrative is not so much a story as a biography. My hero is not an imaginary one; he was a real flesh and blood man who reigned as King of Norway just nine centuries ago. The main facts of his adventurous career -- his boyhood of slavery in Esthonia, his life at the court of King Valdemar, his wanderings as a viking, the many battles he fought, his conversion to Christianity in England, and his ultimate return to his native land -- are set forth in the various Icelandic sagas dealing with the period in which he lived. I have made free use of these old time records, and have added only such probable incidents as were necessary to give a continuous thread of interest to the narrative.
These sagas, like the epics of Homer, were handed down from generation to generation by word of mouth, and they were not committed to writing until a long time after Olaf Triggvison's death, so that it is not easy to discriminate between the actual facts as they occurred and the mere exaggerated traditions which must surely have been added to the story of his life as it was told by the old saga men at their winter firesides. But in most instances the records corroborate each other very exactly, and it may be taken that the leading incidents of the story are historically true.
The Icelandic sagas have very little to say concerning Olaf Triggvison's unsuccessful invasion of England, and for this part of the story I have gone for my facts to the English chronicles of the time, wherein frequent allusion to him is made under such names as Anlaf, Olave, and Olaff. The original treaty of peace drawn up between King Ethelred the Second and Olaf still exists to fix the date of the invasion, while the famous battle of Maldon, in which the Norse adventurer gained a victory over the East Anglians, is described at length by a nameless contemporary poet, whose "Death of Brihtnoth" remains as one of the finest of early English narrative poems, full of noble patriotism and primitive simplicity.
I have given no dates throughout these pages, but for the convenience of readers who may wish for greater exactness it may be as well to state here that Olaf was born A.D. 963, that he started on his wanderings as a viking in the year 981, that the sea fight between the vikings of Jomsburg and the Norwegians took place in 986, and the battle of Maldon in the year 991. Olaf reigned only five years as King of Norway, being crowned in 995, and ending his reign with his death in the glorious defeat at Svold in the year 1000.
ROBERT LEIGHTON.