2 8o Norway a7id the Norwegians 



of Norway, who was destined to change the whole 

 history of the country. This was Sverri. Sverri is com- 

 monly reckoned the last of the great Norse kings, and 

 is sometimes placed as a fourth beside the great names 

 of Harald Haarfagr, Olaf Tryggvason, and St. Olaf. 



This new leader came from the least-considered of 

 the Norwegian colonies over-seas, namely, the Faroe 

 Islands ; and this appearance of Sverri from such 

 an obscure birthplace reminds one of the birth of 

 Napoleon in Corsica. Ostensibly, Sverri was a son of 

 Unas, a farmer in those islands. When he became a 

 famous leader of the ragged regiment, of which he put 

 himself at the head, and which he gradually formed 

 into a troop of invincible veterans, then he let it be 

 known that he was not the mere adventurer that he 

 seemed, but a son of Sigurd, a son of Harald Gilli, 

 Sigurd Mund, as he was called ; consequently Sverri 

 was professedly half-brother to Hakon Herdibreid. This 

 enemy and destroyer of the supremacy of the Church 

 in Norway had been brought up for the priesthood, 

 and among his enemies he often went by the name of 

 Sverri Praest — Sverri the Priest; or even Sverri 

 Djaifvul-Praest — Devil's Priest. 



As a man, Sverri was as unscrupulous as he was 

 undaunted ; and was, on the whole, much more of a 

 Napoleon than of a Cromwell. But there was a certain 

 strain of fanaticism, or may be of genuine enthusiasm, in 

 his character which has led him to be compared to the 

 Great Protector. During the many years of Civil War 

 which had passed, the exasperation of parties had given 

 rise to cruelties which were truly mediaeval in char- 

 acter, worse almost than anything that is recorded of 



