Canute the Great Part 2

After the death of King Eric, new interests and new plans began to germinate in the fertile mind of Sweyn the Viking. Late in life the Swedish King seems to have married a young Swedish woman who is known to history as Sigrid the Haughty. Sigrid belonged to a family of great wealth and prominence; her father Tosti was a famous viking who had harvested his treasures on an alien sh.o.r.e. Eric had not long been dead before wooers in plenty came to seek the hand of the rich dowager. So importunate did they become that the Queen to get rid of them is said to have set fire to the house where two of them slept. Olaf Trygvesson was acceptable, but he imposed an impossible condition: Sigrid must become a Christian. When she finally refused to surrender her faith, the King is said to have stricken her in the face with his gauntlet. The proud Queen never forgave him.

Soon afterwards Sigrid married Sweyn Forkbeard who had dismissed his earlier consort, Queen Gunhild, probably to make room for the Swedish dowager. We do not know what motives prompted this act, but it was no doubt urged by state-craft. In this way the wily Dane cemented an alliance with a neighbouring state which had but recently been hostile.[46]

The divorced Queen was a Polish princess of an eminent Slavic family; she was the sister of Boleslav Chrobri, the mighty Polish duke who later a.s.sumed the royal t.i.tle. When Gunhild retired to her native Poland, she may have taken with her a small boy who can at that time scarcely have been more than two or three years old, perhaps even younger. The boy was Canute, the King's younger son, though the one who finally succeeded to all his father's power and policies. The only information that we have of Canute's childhood comes from late and not very reliable sources: it is merely this, that he was not brought up at the Danish court, but was fostered by Thurkil the Tall, one of the chiefs at Jomburg and brother of Earl Sigvaldi.[47] The probabilities favour the accuracy of this report. It was customary in those days to place boys with foster-fathers; prominent n.o.bles or even plain franklins received princes into their households and regarded the charge as an honoured trust. Perhaps, too, a royal child would be safer among the warriors of Jomburg than at the court of a stepmother who had employed such drastic means to get rid of undesirable wooers. The character of his early impressions and instruction can readily be imagined: Canute was trained for warfare.

When the young prince became king of England Thurkil was exalted to a position next to that of the ruler himself. After the old chief's death, Canute seems to have heaped high honours on Thurkil's son Harold in Denmark. We cannot be sure, but it seems likely that this favour is to be ascribed, in part, at least, to Canute's affection for his foster-father and his foster-brother.

In those same years another important marriage was formed in Sweyn's household: the fugitive Eric, the son of Earl Hakon whose power was now wielded by the viking Olaf, had come to Denmark, where Sweyn Forkbeard received him kindly and gave him his daughter Gytha in marriage. Thus there was formed a hostile alliance against King Olaf with its directing centre at the Danish court. In addition to his own resources and those of his stepson in Sweden, Sweyn could now count on the a.s.sistance of the dissatisfied elements in Norway who looked to Eric as their natural leader.

It was not long before a pretext was found for an attack. Thyra, Sweyn's sister, the widow of Styrbjorn, had been married to Mieczislav, the Duke of Poland. In 992, she was widowed the second time. After a few years, perhaps in 998, Olaf Trygvesson made her queen of Norway. Later events would indicate that this marriage, which Olaf seems to have contracted without consulting the bride's brother, was part of a plan to unite against Sweyn all the forces that were presumably hostile,--Poles, Jomvikings, and Nors.e.m.e.n.[48]

The saga writers, keenly alive to the influence of human pa.s.sion on the affairs of men, emphasise Sigrid's hatred for Olaf and Thyra's anxiety to secure certain possessions of hers in Wendland as important causes of the war that followed. Each is said to have egged her husband to the venture, though little urging can have been needed in either case. In the summer of 1000, a large and splendid Norwegian fleet appeared in the Baltic. In his negotiations with Poles and Jomvikings, Olaf was apparently successful: Sigvaldi joined the expedition and Slavic ships were added to the Norse armament. Halldor the Unchristian tells us that these took part in the battle that followed: "The Wendish ships spread over the bay, and the thin beaks gaped with iron mouths upon the warriors."[49]

Sweyn's opportunity had come and it was not permitted to pa.s.s. He mustered the Danish forces and sent messages to his stepson in Sweden and to his son-in-law Eric. Sigvaldi was also in the alliance. Plans were made to ambush the Norse King on his way northward. The confederates gathered their forces in the harbour of Swald, a river mouth on the Pomeranian coast a little to the west of the isle of Rugen.

Sigvaldi's part was to feign friendship for Olaf and to lead him into the prepared trap. The plan was successfully carried out. A small part of King Olaf's fleet was lured into the harbour and attacked from all sides. The fight was severe but numbers prevailed. Olaf's own ship, the famous _Long Serpent_, was boarded by Eric Hakonsson's men, and the King in the face of sure capture leaped into the Baltic.[50]

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE LARGER AARHUS STONE]

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE SJaeLLE STONE (Runic monument raised to Gyrth, Earl Sigvaldi's brother.)]

The victors had agreed to divide up Norway and the agreement was carried out. Most of the coast lands from the Naze northwards were given to Earl Eric. The southern sh.o.r.es, the land from the Naze eastwards, fell to King Sweyn. Seven shires in the Throndhjem country and a single shire in the extreme Southeast were a.s.signed to the Swedish King; but only the last-mentioned shire was joined directly to Sweden; the northern regions were given as a fief to Eric's younger brother Sweyn who had married the Swede-king's daughter. Similarly Sweyn Forkbeard enfeoffed his son-in-law Eric, but the larger part he kept as his own direct possession.[51]

The battle of Swald was of great importance to the policies of the Knytlings. The rival Norse kingdom was destroyed. Once more the Danish King had almost complete control of both sh.o.r.es of the waterways leading into the Baltic. Danish hegemony in the North was a recognised fact.

But all of Norway was not yet a Danish possession--that ambition was not realised before the reign of Canute. And England was still unconquered.

[Ill.u.s.tration: DANISH COINS FROM THE REIGN OF CANUTE, MINTED AT ODENSE, VIBORG, HEATHBY.]

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Saxo Grammaticus, _Gesta Danorum_, 321.

[2] The saga writers call the members of the Danish dynasty the Knytlings, from its foremost representative Canute (Knut).

[3] Saxo, _Gesta Danorum_, 318.

[4] Wimmer, _De danske Runemindesmaerker_, I., ii., 71-72.

[5] _Danmarks Riges Historie_, i., 293.

[6] Wimmer, _De danske Runemindesmaerker_, I., ii., 15.

[7] Wimmer, _De danske Runemindesmaerker_, I., ii., 28-29.

[8] _Ibid._, 72.

[9] _Danmarks Riges Historie_, i., 335-336. Saxo, _Gesta Danorum_, 338.

Saxo places the ordeal in the reign of Harold's successor.

[10] Adamus, _Gesta Hammenburgensis Ecclesicae Pontific.u.m_, ii., c. 26.

[11] _Danmarks Riges Historie_, i., 322-324.

[12] Snorre, _Saga of Hakon the Good_, cc. 3, 4, 5, 10.

[13] Snorre, _Olaf Trygvesson's Saga_, c. 15. See also Munch, _Del norske Folks Historie_, I., ii., 53.

[14] Thietmar, _Chronicon_, ii., c. 20.

[15] Snorre, _Olaf Trygvesson's Saga_, cc. 24, 26-28.

[16] _Danmarks Riges Historie_, i., 340-341.

[17] Snorre, _Olaf Trygvesson's Saga_, cc. 35-52.

[18] _Gesta Danorum_, 327.

[19] Adamus, _Gesta_, ii., c. 26. Saxo, _Gesta_, 332.

[20] _Gesta_, ii., cc. 3, 26.

[21] _Gesta_, 325.

[22] Wimmer, _De danske Runemindesmaerker_, I., ii., 78 ff.

[23] The American sh.o.r.es were evidently too far distant for successful colonisation; but the visits to the far West clearly did not cease with the journeys of Leif and his a.s.sociates. Vineland is mentioned in a runic monument from the eleventh century which records an expedition to the West that seems to have ended disastrously:

"They came out [upon the ocean] and over wide stretches [of land] and in need of dry clothes for changes and of food toward Vineland and over icy wastes in the wilderness. Evil may deprive one of good fortune so that death comes early."

This inscription, which is the earliest doc.u.ment that mentions the New World, was found at Honen in South-eastern Norway. The original has been lost, but copies are extant. The translation is from Bugge's rendering into modern Norse. (_Norges Historie_, I., ii., 285.)

[24] Bugge, _Vihingerne_, i., 135 ff.

[25] "All along the Irish coast from Belfast to Dublin and Limerick there still remains an unbroken series of Norse place names, princ.i.p.ally the names of firths, islands, reefs, and headlands, which show that at such points the fairway has been named by Northmen." _Norges Historie_, I., ii., 87; see also pp. 73-76. (Bugge.)

[26] Of this process and its results Normandy furnishes the best ill.u.s.tration. The population of Rollo's duchy soon came to be a mixture of races with French as the chief element, though in some sections, as the Cotentin and the Bessin, the inhabitants clung to their Scandinavian speech and customs for a long time. Steenstrup, _Normannerne_, i., 175-179.

[27] Simeon of Durham, _Opera Omnia_, ii., 393. The area varied at different periods; but the earlier Danelaw seems to have comprised fifteen shires. See Steenstrup, _Normannerne_, iv., 36-37.

[28] Steenstrup, _Normannerne_, iv., 40-43.

[29] _Saga Book of the Viking Club_, VI., i., 23 (Bugge). See also Collingwood, _Scandinavian Britain_, 109. The federation was later enlarged till it included Seven Boroughs. _Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_, 1015.

[30] The Danish antiquarian Worsaae found more than four hundred Norse place names in Yorkshire alone. While his list cannot be regarded as final, it will probably be found to be fairly correct. The subject of English place names has not yet been fully investigated. Recent studies are those by F.M. Stenton, _The Place Names of Berkshire_ (Reading, 1911), H.C. Wyld and T.O. Hirst, _The Place Names of Lancashire_ (London, 1911), and F.W. Moorman, _The Place Names of the West Riding of Yorkshire_ (Leeds, 1910).

[31] Steenstrup, _Normannerne_, iii., 228.

[32] _Historians of the Church of York_, i., 454.