think of them, Heathenism had got itself smashed dead; and was no more
heard of in that country. Olaf himself was evidently a highly devout
and pious man;--whosoever is born with Olaf's temper now will still
find, as Olaf did, new and infinite field for it! Christianity in
Norway had the like fertility as in other countries; or even rose to a
higher, and what Dahlmann thinks, exuberant pitch, in the course of
the two centuries which followed that of Olaf. Him all testimony
represents to us as a most righteous no less than most religious king.
Continually vigilant, just, and rigorous was Olaf's administration of
the laws; repression of robbery, punishment of injustice, stern
repayment of evil-doers, wherever he could lay hold of them.

Among the Bonder or opulent class, and indeed everywhere, for the poor
too can be sinners and need punishment, Olaf had, by this course of
conduct, naturally made enemies. His severity so visible to all, and
the justice and infinite beneficence of it so invisible except to a
very few. But, at any rate, his reign for the first ten years was
victorious; and might have been so to the end, had it not been
intersected, and interfered with, by King Knut in his far bigger orbit
and current of affairs and interests. Knut's English affairs and
Danish being all settled to his mind, he seems, especially after that
year of pilgrimage to Rome, and association with the Pontiffs and
Kaisers of the world on that occasion, to have turned his more
particular attention upon Norway, and the claims he himself had there.
Jarl Hakon, too, sister's son of Knut, and always well seen by him,
had long been busy in this direction, much forgetful of that oath to
Olaf when his barge got canted over by the cable of two capstans, and
his life was given him, not without conditions altogether!

About the year 1026 there arrived two splendid persons out of England,