§ 5.—OLAF TRYGGVASON. 61 
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suitors, as she was now regent for her son. Among them 
were Harald Grenske, father of St. Olaf, and a king from 
Russia, whom she caused to be burnt in the house in which 
they were resting after a drinking bout, in order, as she 
said, to make these petty kings tired of coming to court her 
(tb. p. 135; Olaf Tryggvason’s Saga, ch. 48). She was 
more ready to listen to the famous Olaf Tryggvason, who 
had now fairly settled himself on the throne of Norway. 
But, when the latter asked her to be baptized, she refused, 
and he struck her on the face with his glove, calling her an 
old heathen jade.” Sigrid replied, *‘ This may some day 
be thy death” (0. T. S., ch. 68; ib. p. 150). Many here 
will remember how Longfellow gave poetical expression to 
this and many other scenes from Olaf’s life in his Tales 
of a Wayside Inn. 
Soon after this she accepted the addresses of Sven Fork- 
beard, who was at this time an ally of her son Olof, and 
bore him the famous Knut, sur English Canute, about the 
year 995 A.D. Others, however, make her marriage with 
Sven later, and some suppose Knut to have had another 
mother 10 
3 5.—OLAF TRYGGVASON FIRST TO REIGN AS A CHRISTIAN 
KING IN NORWAY (995 A.D.—1000 A.D.). 
The exact chronology of this period is not easy to make 
out in detail, but we receive much light on it from our own 
baxon chronicles, which write at some length both of Sven 
and Anlaf, by whom they mean Olaf Tryggvason. Both 
are, in their different ways, links between Scandinavian 
and English Christianity. Olaf Tryggvason was the first 
Christian king who actually reigned with full acceptance as 
a Christian king in Norway, but two of his predecessors 
¥ Saxo x., p. 340, says that Olaf invited her to come on board 
his ship. As she was climbing the ladder she was let down 
into the water and nearly drowned, and the Norwegians only 
ncighed at her in derision. In any case, Olaf behaved with 
great discourtesy. 
10 See the Diciionary of National Biography, s.n. Sweyn.