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taste in dress, and his evident proneness to fall too hastily 

 in love, have a value in the portrait, as contrasting with the 

 gloomy colours in which the story sinks at last. The warm, 

 impulsive spirit speaks in every action of his life, from the 

 hour when — a young child, in exile — he strikes his axe into 

 the skull of his foster-father's murderer, to the last grand 

 scene near Svalderoe. You trace it in his absorbing grief 

 for the death of Geyra, the wife of his youth ; the saga says, 

 " he had no pleasure in Vinland after it," and then naively 

 observes, " he therefore provided himself with war-ships, and 

 went a-plundering, ;; one of his first achievements being to 

 go and pull down London Bridge. This peculiar kind of 

 " distraction ' ; (as the French call it) seems to have had the 

 desired effect, as is evident in the romantic incident of his 

 second marriage, when the Irish Princess Gyda chooses 

 him — apparently an obscure stranger — to be her husband, 

 out of a hundred wealthy and well-born aspirants to her 

 hand. But neither Gyda's love, nor the rude splendours of 

 her father's court, can make Olaf forgetful of his claims 

 upon the throne of Norway — the inheritance of his father ; 

 and when that object of his just ambition is attained, and 

 he is proclaimed King by general election of the Bonders, 

 as his ancestor Harald Haarfager had been, his character 

 deepens in earnestness as the sphere of his duties is en- 

 larged. All the energies of his ardent nature are put forth 

 in the endeavour to convert his subjects to the true Faith. 

 As he himself expresses it, " he would bring it to this, — 

 that all Norway should be Christian or die!" In the 

 same spirit he meets his heretic and rebellious subjects at 

 the Thing of Lade, and boldly replies, when they require 

 him to sacrifice to the false gods, " If I turn with you to 

 offer sacrifice, then shall it be the greatest sacrifice that 

 can be made ; I will not offer slaves, nor malefactors to 

 your gods, — I will sacrifice men; — and they shall be the 

 noblest men among you ! " It was soon after this that he 

 despatched the exemplary Thangbrand to Iceland. 



With a front not less determined does he face his country's 



