192 Norway and the Norzvegians 



have remained less active and adventurous in the 

 century wliich followed, having too much to occupy her 

 in internal affairs. But now Olaf, who we say had 

 come from the west, the country not only of Christian 

 Scandinavians, but of Scandinavian merchants, set to 

 work to found a ' merchant's town ' in his own kinodom. 

 This was the origin of Throndhjem, almost the earliest 

 of the towns in Norway. The name of the town which 

 Olaf built and its name for long afterwards was not 

 Throndhjem but Nidaros Nidar-mouth, as it lay at the 

 mouth of the Nidar. It was, too, very generally called 

 ' the merchants' town ' — Kaupstad or Kaupmannaborg, a 

 name almost equivalent to Copenhagen (Kjobenhavn). 



Another of Olaf's activities was in the buildin" of 

 ships of war, of which he possessed the finest that were 

 known in those days. One called the Serpent was con- 

 sidered the chief of all ships of war, until Olaf built a 

 finer vessel still, which he called the Long Seipent, so 

 that the old Serpent became the Sliort Serpent. The 

 Long Serpent was built on the Throndhjem Fjord at 

 Ladehammer. 



Hakon had left a strenuous son, Erik, behind him, 

 who was not likely to submit for ever to being dis- 

 possessed of his father's rule. Erik went first to 

 Sweden. He spent a year in Viking cruises in the 

 Baltic. After that he went to Denmark, and married 

 the daughter of the king, Svend, the father of our 

 Cnut. Almost at the same time King Svend, whose 

 first wife had just died, married the Swedish queen- 

 mother, Sigrid, called ' the haughty.' Now, it happens 

 that a few years before Olaf Tryggvason had been a 

 suitor for this queen's hand. She was not young ; but 



