266 Norway and the Norwegians 



rebuilt by St. Olaf ; St. Olaf also built Sarpsborg, near 

 the modern Frederikstad, which, from that time forward, 

 became the meeting-place of the Thing of the Viken 

 district ; then Harald Hardradi founded Oslo, the father 

 of the modern Christiania ; finally, we have Olaf Kyrri 

 founding Bergen ; and thus the three chief existing 

 towns of Norway are accounted for. Other towns 

 cannot be traced back so easily to their origins ; they 

 have grown up gradually from being mere villages or 

 collections of fishermen's huts. Among towns of this 

 class is Stavanger. Another of Olafs acts was the 

 laying of the foundation of the first stone church in the 

 country, the Christ Church of Throndhjem — in other 

 words, Throndhjem Cathedral. 



In a metaphorical, and, to some extent, in a literal 

 sense, the age upon which we have now entered is the 

 age of church building. Christianity has now estab- 

 lished itself without a rival Legend is, during all this 

 age, changing the rough, practical, law-loving Olaf the 

 Thick, into a saint and a martyr, dying for his faith. 

 Before long he will become, so to say, an impersona- 

 tion of the territory of Norway wiped clean of its old 

 heathenism and reconsecrated to Christ. Then a theory 

 will be established, that Olafs right of inheritance 

 lives on, though the king is in heaven ; so that the 

 legal, the ecclesiastical-legal fiction will be established 

 that the king for the time being holds his kingdom as 

 'a fief of St. Olaf,' the power of the saint in heaven 

 residing with the ministers of his foundation, the See 

 of Throndhjem, on earth. 



The earliest churches built in Norway were, without 

 doubt, of wood. To this day the wooden churches are 



