XII.] HARALD HARDRADA. 231 



easily taught to accept " the irrevocable," if not without 

 regret, at least with a philosophy which repudiates all super- 

 fluous methods of showing it. Decent is the usual and 

 appropriate term applied to our churchyard solemnities, and 

 we are not only " content to dwell in decencies for ever/' 

 but to die, and be buried in them. 



The cathedral loses a little of its poetical physiognomy on 

 a near approach. Modern restoration has done something 

 to spoil the outside, and modern refinement a good deal to 

 degrade the interior with pews and partitions ; but it is a 

 very fine building, and worthy of its metropolitan dignity. 

 I am told that the very church built by Magnus the Good, 

 — son of Saint Olave — over his father's remains, and finished 

 by his uncle Haraid Hardrada, is, or rather was, included in 

 the walls of the cathedral ; and though successive catastro- 

 phes by fire have perhaps left but little of the original 

 building standing, I like to think that some of these huge 

 stones were lifted to their place under the eyes of Haraid 

 the Stern. It was on the eve of his last fatal expedition against 

 our own Harold of England that the shrine of St. Olave was 

 opened by the king, who, having clipped the hair and nails 

 of the dead saint (most probably as relics, efficacious for the 

 protection of himself and followers), then locked the shrine, 

 and threw the keys into the Nid. Its secrets from that day 

 were respected until the profane hands of Lutheran Danes 

 carried it bodily away, with all the gold and silver chalices, 

 and jewelled pyxes, which, by kingly gifts and piratical offer- 

 ings, had accumulated for centuries in its treasury. 



He must have been a fine, resolute fellow, that Haraid 

 the Stern, although, in spite of much church-building and a 

 certain amount of Pagan-persecuting, his character did not 

 in any way emulate that of his saintly brother. The early 

 part of his history reads like a fairy tale, and is a favourite 

 subject for Scald songs ; more especially his romantic adven- 

 tures in the East, — 



" Well worthy of the golden prime 

 Of good Haroun Alraschid ; " 



