Olaf the Glorious: A Story of the Viking Age Part 16

When it was seen that the northmen were gaining the victory on all hands many of the English began to lose courage, and one, a caitiff named G.o.dric, mounted the horse on which Brihtnoth had ridden to the field, so that many thought that it was the Earldorman himself who had fled. After this there was a general retreat, and so the battle of Maldon ended.

Olaf Triggvison made no a.s.sault upon the town, but pitched his tents on the high ground between the two streams where he had landed. He allowed the East Anglians to carry off their dead and give them Christian burial. His own dead numbered over four hundred, and he had them laid in a mound with all their armour and weapons, and built a cairn over them according to the heathen custom.

He lay with his ships off Maldon during the rest of the summer, and raided in Ess.e.x and Suffolk without hindrance.

Now it might be thought that King Ethelred, hearing, as he soon heard, of the taking of Ipswich and of the defeat of the East Anglians at Maldon, would lose no time in gathering an army to expel the invaders.

The spirit of the nation was ready for a vigorous resistance of the northmen, and with a few such men as Brihtnoth to lead them the English might without much difficulty have driven every viking out of the land.

But Ethelred was a man of quite another stamp from the valiant Earldorman of East Anglia, and he adopted the fatal system of looking to gold to do the work of steel.

Olaf Triggvison and a party of his captains returned to the camp one day, after a great boar hunt, and they found that in their absence certain messengers had arrived from Andover, where the king held his court. Olaf directed that the men should be brought to him in his tent, and there he held speech with them. On entering the tent the messengers set down before the viking chief two heavy bags containing the sum of ten thousand pounds in gold, This money, the men said, had been sent by King Ethelred as a gift to the leader of the Nors.e.m.e.n.

"And for what reason should King Ethelred send such a gift to me who have done him no good service, but have only been despoiling his lands and disturbing his peaceful subjects?"

"It is because the king wishes you to cease your ravaging in East Anglia and take away your ships and men," returned the spokesman. "That is the condition he imposes on your accepting the gold."

"And how if I refuse the gold and say that it does not suit my purpose to remove my ships?" asked Olaf. "Will your king then march with his armies against the vikings, and give us the exercise of another good battle?"

The messenger shrugged his shoulders.

"King Ethelred does not doubt that you will take the gold," said he.

"And as to his marching against you, of that matter he has said no word."

"In that case you may leave the money in my keeping," said Olaf. "And I charge you to thank King Ethelred for his generosity. It so happens that this part of the country is already becoming somewhat bare of food and we are wearying for new scenes. I think, therefore, that before the winter days are far advanced we shall weigh anchor and set sail. But our going shall not be one day earlier on account of Ethelred's desire to be rid of us."

The messengers wanted a more definite promise from Olaf that he would not only sail away at this present time but also that he would not again invade the English coasts. But to this Olaf would not agree.

Either the king must be satisfied that the vikings intended to quit the sh.o.r.es of East Anglia in a few weeks' time, or he might take back his gold and suffer his kingdom to be invaded and ravaged at whatever point the Nors.e.m.e.n chose to make a landing.

It seemed for a long time that they could come to no agreement; but finally the matter was so arranged that the gold was delivered into Olaf's hands and the messengers departed, with a mere half promise of peace and the a.s.surance that Olaf would remove his ships within twenty days. Olaf did not hold himself bound to keep these conditions; nevertheless he resolved to abide by them. He had already discovered that his forces were too small to attempt, with any certainty of success, a deliberate conquest of England; and, indeed, even before the arrival of Ethelred's messengers, he had determined to presently withdraw his fleet until such times as he had gathered about him a host large enough and strong enough to lay siege to London. His departure from Maldon was therefore of his own choosing and not the result of any threats upon the part of the English king.

Meanwhile Olaf did not lose sight of the fact that the foolish policy of King Ethelred, instead of having the effect of securing the kingdom against invasion, only set forth a very strong encouragement to the vikings to repeat their incursions as often as they were in want of money. Ethelred and his advisers seem never to have learned this lesson, and for many years after the battle of Maldon the sea rovers, both Danish and Norwegian, continued to harry the English coasts, with the invariable result that, so soon as they had plundered a few monasteries and reduced a few villages to ashes, they were sure to receive the offer of a very handsome bribe as an inducement to put to sea again.

CHAPTER XIII: THE HERMIT OF THE SCILLYS.

On a certain day in the late winter of the next year Olaf Triggvison led his fleet across the turbulent waters of the Pentland Firth, and steered his course for the islands of Orkney. On his way northward along the coasts of England he had many times made a landing to plunder some seaside village and to replenish his stores of food and water. He had harried wide on both sh.o.r.es of the Humber and in Northumberland, had stormed King Ida's fortress of Bamborough, and made a raid upon Berwick. In Scotland, also, he had ravaged and plundered. But of these adventures there remains no record. Before the time of his crossing to the Orkneys he had lost five of his ships and a large number of his men, and from this it may be judged that he had either encountered very stormy weather or suffered some reverse at the hands of his enemies.

The snow still lay deep upon the islands when he entered the wide channel named Scapa Flow, and anch.o.r.ed his fleet under shelter of the high island of Hoy. Many of his vessels were by this time in need of repair, so he crossed the sound and beached them near to where the port of Stromness now lies, and at this place he took up his quarters until the coming of the summer.

The Orkney Islands were then, and for many generations afterwards, peopled by Scandinavian vikings and their families, who paid tax and tribute to Norway. Olaf therefore found himself among men who spoke his own tongue, and who were glad enough to make friends with a chief, of whom it could be said that he had done great and valiant deeds in battle. One thing which more than all else won these people to him was their knowledge that he was the same Ole the Esthonian who, with Vagn Akison, had stood out to the end in the great sea fight against Hakon of Lade. Earl Hakon was now the ruler over the Orkney islanders, but he was beginning to be so bitterly hated by them that they looked upon all his enemies as their own particular friends. For a little time they had centred their hopes in Earl Sigvaldi of Jomsburg, who had lately taken refuge in the Orkneys. But Sigvaldi had now gone back to his stronghold on the Baltic, in the hope of restoring his scattered company of vikings. The coming of Olaf was therefore regarded with great favour by the Orcadian vikings, who thought it possible that he would join them in an attempt to drive Earl Hakon from the Norwegian throne.

In order to delay Olaf's departure from the islands the people got him to help them in building a great temple on the sh.o.r.es of one of their lakes, and, when the temple was finished and duly dedicated to Odin, they proposed to Olaf that he should lead an expedition across to Norway. Olaf replied that he did not consider the time ripe for such an attempt, and that for the present he had other plans in hand; but he bade them, in the meantime, busy themselves with the building of ships.

Now while Olaf was still in Orkney there came one day into Scapa Flow one of the ships of King Sweyn Forkbeard of Denmark. Olaf learned from her captain that the Dane folk had rebelled against Sweyn, for the reason that, having accepted Christianity and compelled his people to follow his example, he had now thrown off the true belief and turned back to the worship of the heathen G.o.ds, demanding that his subjects should again acknowledge Odin and Thor to be greater than the G.o.d of the Christians. Rather than do this, the Danes had resolved to drive their unbelieving king into exile; and Sweyn Forkbeard, having lost his throne, had taken to vikingry.

On hearing this, Olaf Triggvison gave the ship captain a message to take back to his master, bidding Sweyn remember the vow he had sworn at his inheritance feast, and saying that if he had a mind to fulfil that vow he might now make the attempt, for that he--Ole the Esthonian--was now preparing his forces for a great invasion of England, and would be well pleased if Sweyn would join him in the expedition. The place of the gathering of the forces was to be Ipswich, in East Anglia, and the time of meeting was to be the middle of the harvest month in the next summer.

Olaf did not wait in the Orkneys for an answer to this message. His vikings were already growing weary of idleness and eager to be again upon the sea. So the ships were put in readiness, and when a fair wind offered, the anchors were weighed and the sails set, and the fleet sped westward through Roy Sound towards Cape Wrath. Thence they sailed down among the Hebrides--or the Southern Isles, as the Nors.e.m.e.n always called them. Here Olaf had many battles and won many ships from the descendants of Harald Fairhair's rebel subjects, who had made settlements in the Isles. Here, too, he gained some hundreds of men to his following. He harried also in the north parts of Ireland, and had certain battles in the Island of Man. By this time the summer was far spent, so he sailed east away to c.u.mberland and there rested throughout the winter.

His men thought that this part of England, with its mountains and lakes, was so much like their own birthland in distant Norway, that they showed great unwillingness to leave it. Many did, indeed, remain, and the settlements they made in the lake country have left traces which even to the present day may be recognized, not only in the remains of heathen temples and tombs, but also in the names of places and in certain Norse words that occur in the common speech of the c.u.mbrian folk.

From c.u.mberland Olaf sailed south to Wales. There again he harried wide about, and also in Cornwall, and at length he came to the Scilly Isles.

King Athelstane had conquered these islands half a century before, and had established a monastery there, the ruins of which may still be seen.

Now when Olaf Triggvison lay at Scilly, sheltering from a storm that had driven him out of his intended course, he heard that in the isle of Tresco there was a certain soothsayer who was said to be well skilled in the foretelling of things which had not yet come to pa.s.s. Olaf fell a-longing to test the spaeing of this man.

"I will try him by means of a trick," Olaf said one day to Kolbiorn; "and in this wise: You shall go to him instead of me, and say that you are King Ole the Esthonion; and if he believes you, then is he no soothsayer."

Now Olaf was already famed in all lands for being fairer and n.o.bler than all other men, and he chose Kolbiorn as his messenger because he was the fairest and biggest of his men and most resembled himself, and he sent him ash.o.r.e, arrayed in the most beautiful clothing.

Kolbiorn searched long among the trees and rocks before he found the little cave in which the lonely hermit dwelt; and when he entered he saw a gray bearded old man, deep in meditation before a crucifix, and wearing the habit of a Christian priest.

The hermit looked up at the tall figure of his visitor, and waited for him to speak. Kolbiorn answered as Olaf had bidden him, saying that his name was King Ole. But the hermit shook his head.

"King thou art not," said he gravely; "but my counsel to thee is, that thou be true to thy King."

No other word did he speak, and Kolbiorn turned away and fared back to Olaf, who, on hearing of the answer that had been given, longed all the more to meet this hermit, whom he now believed to be verily a soothsayer.

So on the next day, while the wind was high and the waves broke with a heavy roar upon the rocks, Olaf dressed himself very simply, without any body armour, and went ash.o.r.e, attended by two shieldmen. When he entered the hermit's cell he found the old man sitting at an oaken table with a roll of parchment before him, upon which he was inscribing some holy legend. He greeted Olaf most kindly, and when they had spoken together for a while, Olaf asked him what he could say as to how he should speed coming by his rightful inheritance or any other good fortune.

Then the hermit answered:

"In the time that is to come, thou shalt be a very glorious king and do glorious deeds. Many men shalt thou bring to the right troth and to christening, helping thereby both thyself and thy fellow men."

"As to the first part of your prophecy--that I shall become a great king, that I can well believe," returned Olaf; "but that I shall ever help men to christening, I cannot believe, for I am now, and always shall be, a faithful worshipper of the G.o.ds of Asgard and an enemy to all believers in Christ."

"Nevertheless," answered the hermit, "the second part of what I have said is even more certain to come true than the first; and, to the end that my words may be trusted, take this as a token: Hard by thy ship thou shall presently fall into a snare of a host of men, and battle will spring thence, and thou wilt be sorely hurt, and of this wound thou shalt look to die and be borne to ship on shield; yet thou shalt be whole of thy hurt within seven nights and be speedily christened thereafter."

Olaf laughed at the good man, and presently went his way. But as he pa.s.sed downward towards the boat that awaited him among the rocks, he was met by a party of unpeaceful men who fell suddenly upon him with their swords. Olaf called upon his two guards, who had lagged behind, but ere they came to his help he, being without any arms, received a great sword thrust in his chest. His a.s.sailants fled when they saw the two guards approaching from among the trees, and Olaf was left bleeding where he fell. His two men lifted him upon one of their shields, and carried him down to the boat and bore him wounded upon his ship. For six days he lay unconscious, and, as all thought, upon the point of death. But on the seventh night the danger was pa.s.sed, and thereafter he speedily grew well.

Then Olaf deemed that in having foretold this matter so exactly the old hermit had proved himself to be indeed a very wise soothsayer. So he went ash.o.r.e a second time, and the two talked much and long together.

It seemed that Cerdic was the hermit's name. He had once been a bondslave among Nors.e.m.e.n, and had known Olaf's father, King Triggvi, whom Olaf personally resembled. He could speak very well in the Norse tongue, and his soft and gentle voice was very soothing to all who heard it. At first he spoke of the ways of heathen men, of their revengeful spirit and their cruelty in warfare, and he condemned their offering of blood sacrifices and their worship of graven images. Such G.o.ds as Odin and Thor, Njord and Frey, were, he said, but the creations of men's poetic fancy, and had no real existence. Odin was at one time but an earthly man, with all man's faults and sins. The earthquake and the thunder had nothing to do with the rolling of Thor's chariot or the throwing of Thor's hammer. The waves of the ocean would rise in anger or fall into calm peace though the name of Njord had never been spoken; and the seasons would change in their order, fields and pastures would grow, without the favour of Frey.

So spoke the hermit, and then he told the story of the Creation and of Adam's Fall, and showed how Christ had come to preach peace on earth and to save the world. It was a principle of the Christian faith; said Cerdic, that men should remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy, that they should not bow down to graven images, that they should not steal, nor be covetous, nor do murder, nor bear false witness; that they should love their enemies and bless those who cursed them.

Olaf listened in patience to all these things, asking many questions concerning them. At last Cerdic appealed to him and besought him most earnestly to come to repentance and to make himself a faithful follower of Christ, so that he might at the close of his earthly life be worthy to enter into the kingdom of heaven.

Now Olaf Triggvison had until this time lived always in the firm hope that when he died he would be admitted into the shining hall of Valhalla, where he might expect to meet all the great heroes of past times. He believed that Odin would receive him there, and reward him well for all the glorious deeds that he had done. So he was not at all willing to abandon this Norseman's faith in a future life which, as men promised, should be full of warfare by day and of merry carousing by night.

Yet it was evident that Cerdic had not spoken without good effect; for Olaf agreed--as many of the Scandinavians did in these times--that he would at once be christened, on the one condition that, while calling himself a follower of Christ, he should not be expected to abandon either his belief in Odin or his hopes of Valhalla. The holy man of Scilly well knew that this divided faith would not last long, but he was also a.s.sured that in the contest the victory would certainly rest with Christ.

Accordingly Olaf was christened, with all his warriors and shipmen. He lay among the Scilly Isles for many days thereafter, and learned the true faith so well that it remained his guiding light throughout the rest of his life, and made him, as shall presently be seen, one of the most zealous Christians of his time.

Now, as the summer days pa.s.sed by and it drew near to the harvest time, Olaf bethought him of his tryst with King Sweyn Forkbeard, so he raised his anchors and sped out into the open main and round by the forelands, and so north to Ipswich. It was three years since he had first besieged the East Anglian town, and in the interval the folk had returned to their devastated dwellings and built them anew. Olaf now took forcible possession of the town for a second time. He was not yet so entirely a Christian that he had any scruples in attacking Christian folk and turning them out of their homes.