|794 to 1001.|
On the death of Ragnar, the throne of Sweden fell to one of his sons, Biorn I., surnamed Jarnasido. Of him we know little more than that, in his reign, the first attempts were made to christianise the Swedes. Biorn was not averse from toleration; and he allowed St. Anscar to teach, baptize, and preach unmolested. But the good thus effected was transient: Anscar returned to Germany, to procure from pope and emperor some amplification of his authority; and, during his absence, the mission entirely failed. When Anscar paid a second visit to this kingdom, he found a king named Olaf in possession of the throne. Who was he? Olaf Trætelia had been dead near two centuries, and Olaf Skotkonung did not reign until above a century afterwards. Either, therefore, we have a sad confusion in chronology, or there must have reigned a king whom modern criticism does not acknowledge. The probability is, that Olaf was a king of Gothia, who, in the numerous insurrections of the period, had seized on the royal authority in Sweden, no less than in the more southern provinces. Eric I., the son of Biorn, is next classed among the Swedish kings; and, after him, Eric II., surnamed Raefilson, who was, probably, either a Gothic king, or an usurper. Emund and Biorn II.—the one ruler of the Gothlands, the other of Sweden—next ascended the throne, and were followed by Eric III., the son of Emund; but the reigns of all were short, and they have left no records for posterity. Indeed, the number of kings during the ninth century is so considerable, that we are compelled to infer the existence of separate kingdoms amongst the Goths, while we are unable to distinguish the two dynasties of kings. Biorn III. (923) enjoyed a long reign; Eric IV., surnamed the Victorious (993), one still longer; and Eric V., surnamed Arsaell (1001), closes the list of pagan kings:—not that he was a pagan; on the contrary, as we shall perceive in the chapter devoted to the introduction of Christianity into the north, he died for the new faith. But he had been reared a pagan; at his death the greater part of the kingdom was pagan; and it was reserved for his son, Olaf Skotkonung, to render Christianity the established religion of Sweden and Gothland.[156]
The confusion at this period of Swedish history, viz., from the close of the eighth to that of the tenth century, is greater than at any former period. No fewer than sixteen kings are said, by different historians, to have swayed the Swedish sceptre in little more than two centuries. The cause of this confusion is very obvious. Not only were the kings of Gothland, when that province happened to have a separate king, enumerated with those of the Swedes, but the successors of Olaf Trætelia were equally confounded with them: in other words, the royal chiefs of three contemporary states have been classed as kings of the Swedes only—as the sovereigns of Upsal. This confusion has rendered it scarcely possible to distinguish either the royal names of each state, or the actions attributed to them. We may, however, assert, with confidence, that Olaf Trætelia, and Ingel (or Ingiald), his son, were not kings of the Swedes; on the contrary, they were sovereigns of a state far to the west—Vermeland and Raumarik.[157] If, as some historians assert, a king named Charles reigned at this time in Sweden, his seat could not have been Upsal; it must have been some town of East or West Gothland. The same may, we think, be asserted of Emund, who reigned in the south, while Biorn reigned at Upsal, or Birca. But Eric IV., surnamed the Victorious, was certainly king of both the Goths and the Swedes. The successful wars in which he engaged, and which procured him that epithet, are too obscure to be distinguished from the chaotic events of this period. Eric V., surnamed Arsaell, or the Happy-born, the father of Olaf Skotkonung, was also king of the two provinces. He embraced Christianity, and was baptized in public at Upsal, together with many of his nobles. It was, probably, as much for this reason, as for the extraordinary abundance which Sweden enjoyed in his time, that he obtained the epithet that posterity has attached to his name. There is much obscurity over this monarch’s reign. By some writers he is said to have been so alarmed at the murmurs of his people, for his abandonment of the old religion, that, to pacify them, he reverted to it. By others, again, it is asserted that he stedfastly adhered to the new faith; that he laboured, with some success, to withdraw his subjects from the errors of idolatry; that he went so far as to demolish the heathen temples; that at Sigtuna he met with little opposition; but that, when he ventured to lay hands on the magnificent temple of Upsal, the people arose and put him to death. To reconcile these contradictions would be a vain attempt. All that yet remains to be communicated respecting this, and one or two preceding reigns, may be found in the chapter devoted to the origin of Christianity in these regions.[158]
CHAP. III.
NORWAY.
ABOUT A.C. 70 TO A.D. 1030.
NEW KINGDOM OF THE YNGLINGS IN VERMELAND.—KINGS FROM OLAF TRÆTELIA TO HALFDAN THE BLACK.—HALFDAN THE TRUE FOUNDER OF THE NORWEGIAN MONARCHY.—HARALD HARFAGER.—ERIC OF THE BLOODY AXE.—HAKO THE GOOD.—HARALD GRAAFELD.—HAKO THE JARL.—SURPRISING ADVENTURES OF OLAF TRYGVESON.—HIS EARLY PIRATICAL EXPLOITS.—HIS ROMANTIC FORTUNES.—HE BECOMES KING OF NORWAY.—HIS DESTRUCTION OF THE IDOLS.—HIS INTOLERANT BIGOTRY AND CRUEL PERSECUTIONS.—HIS TRAGICAL DEATH, OR, ACCORDING TO SOME WRITERS, HIS MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE FROM THE WORLD.—OLAF THE SAINT.—HIS ADVENTURES OF A PIRATE.—HIS ACCESSION TO THE CROWN OF NORWAY.—HIS PERSECUTING CHARACTER.—HIS QUARRELS AND SUBSEQUENT ALLIANCE WITH SWEDEN.—IS DRIVEN INTO EXILE BY CANUTE THE GREAT.—HE RETURNS, AND IS SLAIN.—HIS PRETENDED SANCTITY.
That Norway had its chiefs with the regal title, if not prior to our Saviour’s birth, many centuries before the fall of the Ynglings in Sweden, is undoubted. We find allusions to them in Danish and Swedish history, and in chronicles which, though of a later period, were derived from sources now lost. The country was full of them. Most of them, as we have already observed[159], boasted of their descent from an old Finnish race, which, though half mythologic, had, in primeval times, produced many chiefs of illustrious name. But of their deeds we have no evidence beyond the little supplied by the uncertain voice of tradition; and that little is so exaggerated by fable as to be useless. We will not rescue their names from oblivion: our narrative must accompany the fates of the Ynglings from their first settlement in Vermeland in Sweden, to their conquest of Norway. In regard to the latter country, we shall only observe that when Olaf Trætelia laid the foundation of a new power, it had as many reguli as at any former period. To subjugate them in succession, and to incorporate their petty states into one great monarchy, was the constant aim of his successors.[160]
|630 to 640.|
The province of Vermeland, to which Olaf Trætelia retired, and in which he laid the foundation of a new state, was, as we have before observed, situated to the north of the Vener Lake. Here the assiduity with which he and his followers cleared the ground of its forests procured him, at Upsal, the scornful application of Trætelia, or Wood-cutter. But he despised the ridicule, and persevered. By degrees, many thousands of the people, whom attachment to the Ynglings, or the hope of greater freedom in the woods, rendered discontented at Upsal, or Sigtuna, or Birca, hastened to join him. Some writers assert that he returned for a season to his capital, and ruled the Swedes as his ancestors had done. But this statement is unsupported by any ancient authority, and is hostile to reason.