and plundered over Kent, over Hampshire, Sussex; they stormed far and
wide; world lying all before them where to choose. Wretched Ethelred,
as the one invention he could fall upon, offered them Danegelt (16,000
pounds of silver this year, but it rose in other years as high as
48,000 pounds); the desperate Ethelred, a clear method of quenching
fire by pouring oil on it! Svein and Olaf accepted; withdrew to
Southampton,--Olaf at least did,--till the money was got ready.
Strange to think of, fierce Svein of the Double-beard, and conquest of
England by him; this had at last become the one salutary result which
remained for that distracted, down-trodden, now utterly chaotic and
anarchic country. A conquering Svein, followed by an ably and
earnestly administrative, as well as conquering, Knut (whom Dahlmann
compares to Charlemagne), were thus by the mysterious destinies
appointed the effective saviors of England.

Tryggveson, on this occasion, was a good while at Southampton; and
roamed extensively about, easily victorious over everything, if
resistance were attempted, but finding little or none; and acting now
in a peaceable or even friendly capacity. In the Southampton country
he came in contact with the then Bishop of Winchester, afterwards
Archbishop of Canterbury, excellent Elphegus, still dimly decipherable
to us as a man of great natural discernment, piety, and inborn
veracity; a hero-soul, probably of real brotherhood with Olaf's own.
He even made court visits to King Ethelred; one visit to him at
Andover of a very serious nature. By Elphegus, as we can discover, he
was introduced into the real depths of the Christian faith. Elphegus,
with due solemnity of apparatus, in presence of the king, at Andover,
baptized Olaf anew, and to him Olaf engaged that he would never
plunder in England any more; which promise, too, he kept. In fact,
not long after, Svein's conquest of England being in an evidently