people shouted for joy, the banners waved, the war-horns played their
loudest; and thus, after five years of wandering, the boy comes
back in triumph to the home he left when but a wild and adventurous
little fellow of twelve.

The hero of nine great sea-fights, and of many smaller ones, before
he was seventeen, young Olaf Haraldson was a remarkable boy, even
in the days when all boys aimed to be battle-tried heroes. Toughened
in frame and fibre by his five years of sea-roving, he had become
strong and self-reliant, a man in action though but a boy in years.

"I am come," he said to his mother and his step-father, "to take
the heritage of my forefathers. But not from Danish nor from Swedish
kings will I supplicate that which is mine by right. I intend rather
to seek my patrimony with battle-axe and sword, and I will so lay
hand to the work that one of two things shall happen: Either I
shall bring all this kingdom of Norway under my rule, or I shall
fall here upon my inheritance in the land of my fathers."

These were bold words for a boy of seventeen. But they were not
idle boastings. Before a year had passed, young Olaf's pluck and
courage had won the day, and in harvest-time, in the year 1015,
being then but little more than eighteen years old, he was crowned
King of Norway in the Drontheim, or "Throne-home," of Nidaros, the
royal city, now called on your atlas the city of Drontheim. For
fifteen years King Olaf the Second ruled his realm of Norway.
The old record says that he was "a good and very gentle man"; but
history shows his goodness and gentleness to have been of a rough
and savage kind. The wild and stern experiences of his viking days
lived again even in his attempts to reform and benefit his land.