it; and in the long days and nights of sailing, given over, it is
likely, to his own thoughts and the unfathomable dialogue with the
ever-moaning Sea; not the worst High School a man could have, and
indeed infinitely preferable to the most that are going even now, for
a high and deep young soul.

His first distinguished expedition was to Sweden: natural to go
thither first, to avenge his poor father's death, were it nothing
more. Which he did, the Skalds say, in a distinguished manner; making
victorious and handsome battle for himself, in entering Maelare Lake;
and in getting out of it again, after being frozen there all winter,
showing still more surprising, almost miraculous contrivance and
dexterity. This was the first of his glorious victories, of which the
Skalds reckon up some fourteen or thirteen very glorious indeed,
mostly in the Western and Southern countries, most of all in England;
till the name of Olaf Haraldson became quite famous in the Viking and
strategic world. He seems really to have learned the secrets of his
trade, and to have been, then and afterwards, for vigilance,
contrivance, valor, and promptitude of execution, a superior fighter.
Several exploits recorded of him betoken, in simple forms, what may be
called a military genius.

The principal, and to us the alone interesting, of his exploits seem
to have lain in England, and, what is further notable, always on the
anti-Svein side. English books do not mention him at all that I can
find; but it is fairly credible that, as the Norse records report, in
the end of Ethelred's reign, he was the ally or hired general of
Ethelred, and did a great deal of sea-fighting, watching, sailing, and
sieging for this miserable king and Edmund Ironside, his son. Snorro
says expressly, London, the impregnable city, had to be besieged again