The North Star/Chapter 27
XXVII
ERLING OF SOLE
Not without some opposition did Olaf proceed in his eager work of religion. When he left Agder he went to South Hordaland. Here the earl-folk and the chieftains gathered together, and after pledging their faith to Odin and Thor they resolved to defy King Olaf when he would endeavor to bring them to the religion of Christ the White. They surrounded the king at his banquet, and after pledging their fealty to him as their sovereign, they had the horse-flesh that had been sacrificed in the pagan temple brought to the king’s table. A tall, powerful young chief, earl-born and valiant, Erling of Sole, stood up before the king. Erling held in his hand the sacrificial bowl of horse-flesh. He placed the bowl to his lips. Then he handed it to Olaf. “Thy father was my father’s overlord, and my father was thy father’s faithful vassal. At the feast they drank from the same horn. They licked the same bowl of sacrifice to the same god. I ask thee now to do as thy father did, even as I am doing as my father did.”
Olaf stood up. Looking with great kindness at the young chief, he drank a portion from his own horn and passed it to Erling. “Drink with me, my friend and son of my father’s friend, and we will pledge our faith to one another.”
Won by a strange sweetness in the king’s manner, Erling drank from the horn. Then he again passed the bowl of the heathen sacrificial rite to the king. Olaf’s keen blue eyes flashed like swords swiftly drawn. A hot flush of anger passed over his face.
He threw out his hand and dashed the bowl to the ground, where it lay in many fragments. A terrible uproar began. The earl-folk rose to their feet and daggers were unsheathed. Erling’s own knife lay open upon the table. He stooped and took it up. Olaf turned to him with that winning smile all Norse tradition says was almost beyond resistance.
“Thou hast owned me as king. We have drunk from the same horn. Thou hast pledged thy faith to me!”
Erling’s knife went back into his belt. Olaf never flinched nor showed the least emotion of fear in face of the threats and anger around him. He turned to the chiefs who sat with drawn knives, and scowling brows. “My faithful vassals, ye bring me the meat of a sacrifice to the gods who are dead. Jarl Haakon trusted in the old gods, and he slew his own son, and he stole the faithful wives of your peasants. Ye have honored me as your king, but I would have ye honor a far greater King.”
“There is none greater than thou. No light upon earth shines like our North Star. No king is greater than thou. A wassail to King Olaf!” shouted the chiefs, hastily sheathing their knives to drain their horns.
Olaf bowed his head. There was a touching humility in his tone. “Nay! nay! There is One: the great King of heaven and earth and the Lord of the sea.”
“Thou art lord of the sea, and none other,” protested Erling.
Again Olaf bowed his head. “I have sailed my little sea, but there is One, Sovereign over all the seas of earth. Will ye not honor this great King who lives forever and whose kingdom is the whole earth and the sea and the sky?”
An aged chief stood up and questioned Olaf. “Is he king of the land beyond Erin?” for to the Norsemen the world seemed bounded on the south by the land of the Celts.
“Yea,” answered Olaf heartily, “of all lands we have ever seen, and of all lands we shall never see. If ye have so honored a poor king like myself, why will ye not honor this mighty Lord of heaven and earth?” Olaf took his crucifix in his hand. Erling, looking with great scorn at the symbol, declared: “Christ the White was no king.”
“He was King over all the earth, though he hung upon a cross.”
The old chieftain spoke again: “Wilt thou swear it? We will take thy word touching this king.”
Olaf looked down at the old man. The great viking’s face was radiant, as he answered: “The word of Olaf Tryggevesson is the strongest word among men today. It hath never been broken. With this word I swear to thee that Christ the White who hung upon the cross, is King of heaven and earth and is the strong overlord of every other king.”
He laid the crucifix upon his lips. Then he lifted it up and repeated solemnly and slowly, “I swear it!”
“Then,” shouted the chiefs, “we will take thy Christ. We will renounce Odin and Thor and take the Nazarene!”
“And thou?” Olaf turned to Erling, who had been silent. The young chief was gazing intently at the king. “Wilt thou accept the Christ? Wilt thou be baptized in the Christian faith?”
Erling answered with deliberation: “If I renounce my old gods for thy Nazarene, wilt thou give me a pledge of our mutual faith?”
“What pledge dost thou require?” asked Olaf.
Erling asked even more deliberately: “I would sue from thee, King Olaf, thy sister, the fair young Aastrid, who sits by the side of thy noble mother. The maiden hath not listened unwillingly to some words of mine, and I would ask her of thee to be my faithful wife, even as I shall be her faithful lord.”
The chieftains began to speak at once: “It is a good pledge, King Olaf, and will keep strong our fealty. Do thou give thy sister to our young chief, Erling of Sole, as a blood bond between him and thee and between thee and thy earl-folk of the South Hordaland.”
“It shall be done!” cried King Olaf, heartily. Then reaching out his hand to the young chief, “Thou shalt be my brother. Thy kinsmen shall be all my brethren.”
All the earl-folk rose up and the horns were lifted. “A wassail to the bride of our brave Erling!”
“A wassail to our Christian Norraway!” cried out the king, and this pledge too was eagerly drank.
When the arrangements for his sister’s marriage with Erling had been completed, King Olaf returned to the Trondelag and established himself at Nidaros.
In the spring of the year 996 he began to build his palace, and Nidaros, or Drontheim, as it was afterwards called, became the royal city of Norway.
One thing that disappointed Olaf in the Tronders was their slowness to accept the Christian faith. The earl-folk and the chieftains were arrayed against the king in a stubborn resolution to preserve the Asa faith. In the face of the king’s earnest endeavors to convert them, they continued to offer sacrifices in their magnificent temples, and were threatening to make the king’s participation in their heathen rites a condition of their acceptance of him as their overlord. The leader in this rebellion against the Christian religion was a powerful earl called Ironbeard. He was a devoted follower of Thor. Besides his hatred of the king’s religion, Ironbeard entertained a strong personal resentment towards Olaf. The earl had been the leader of a faction which had opposed both Haakon and Olaf as overlords, and it was Ironbeard’s ambition to become himself ruler of all Norway. He believed himself to be on the verge of success when Olaf landed and the Tronders enthusiastically proclaimed him king. Now that Earl Haakon was dead, Ironbeard’s animosity was turned with redoubled force upon Olaf. The wife of Ironbeard was a Finnish woman named Ingrid, and like many of the Finns, she believed in and practised the arts of magic. One child had Ironbeard, a tall, dark, handsome maiden, who bore the name of Gudrun.