2 22 Norivay and the Norwegians 



sailed Earl Hakon, Erik's son, and many another 

 fugitive Norwegian. Of the two great subjects of St. 

 Olaf who figure most in the history of this time, Einar 

 Tambarskelfir, the great bowman, and Erling Skjalgs- 

 son, the proud herdr, the one cliose to sit quietly at 

 home, taking part neither for nor against his sovereign ; 

 the other, who had for long hardly been on terms with 

 Olaf, now finally left him and gave in his adherence to 

 Cnut. When Cnut arrived in Danish waters the allied 

 kings Olaf and Onund lay with their fleets off his 

 Swedish coasts — off Scania, as it appears. The Dane 

 at once occupied the Sound between Zealand and 

 Sweden with a force too great to be attacked. After- 

 wards he sailed in pursuit of the allied fleet. 



Cnut came to the Swedish coast, and found that the 

 Xorse-Swedish fleet was lying in the mouth of a river, 

 the Helge-Aar (Holy River). This river flows into the 

 sea in the south of Sweden, close to Christianstad. It 

 was now that Olaf gave the second proof of his capacity 

 as an engineer, which he had displayed once before, 

 quite at the beginning of his career, when he found 

 himself blocked in a fjord near Upsala. On that occa- 

 sion he had cut a canal to the sea, and had escaped by 

 that means. What he now did was to go to the source 

 of the Helge river, that is to say, to Lake Sjovik, from 

 which the Helge river makes but a short course to the 

 sea. At the mouth of the river, we have said, the 

 allied fleet had been lying, and to it the fleet of Cnut 

 was approaching. Olaf, by raising dams, held up the 

 waters of the lake so as to be ready to flood the river. 

 When Cnut came near, Onund, who had been left in 

 command of the fleet, sailed out of the harbour, sounded 



