2o6 Norway and the Norwegians 



For fifteen years this Earl Erik carried on his govern- 

 ment unchallenged. In the meanwhile Svend died, 

 and Cniit — our Cnut — succeeded to the throne of Den- 

 mark, and to his father's claims on England. Svend 

 died in a.d. 1014. ^thelred, we know, had been ex- 

 pelled and now returned. Cnut set on foot a great 

 expedition for the invasion of England, and invited, 

 says the Saga, or, it may be, bade Earl Erik to accom- 

 pany him in it. Earl Erik was Cnut's brother-in-law, 

 having married the daughter of Svend. The earl, the 

 Saga says, was celebrated for his luck in campaigning, 

 for he had been victorious in the two hardest fought 

 engagements which had taken place in the north. The 

 one was that in which the Earls Hakon and Erik had 

 encountered the Joms-vikings ; the other was that in 

 which Earl Erik with his allies fought against Olaf 

 Tryggvason at Svold. 



The earl set sail for England. He was present with 

 Cnut when he took the ' Castle of London,' and like- 

 wise in a battle westward of London, where he killed 

 Ulfkel Snelling ; but the next year he died. 



Meantime, during the fifteen years that Erik had 

 ruled peacefully in Norway, another claimant of the 

 throne had been growing to manhood. This was a 

 second Olaf, a son of Harald, one of the petty kings of 

 southern Norway, who claimed descent from Harald 

 Fairhair. Harald was king of the district called Green- 

 land (it is the country immediately south of Thele- 

 marken), whence he goes in the Sagas by the name of 

 Harald Grsenske. He himself was a man of little mark 

 or likelihood ; but his wife, Aasta, the mother of Olaf, 

 was a woman of spirit and character. Harald met his 



