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6. SVEN, KNUT AND OLAF THE SAINT. 67
Then in a moment twas stillness all,
For from the deep there uprose a call,
Round the fleet rippled a sighing,
"
Oh ! the Long Serpent is taken :
Fallen is Olaf Tryggve s son."
Henceforth for many a hundred year,
Northern shipmen behind them hear,
Mostly when night-time is moon-lit,
"
Oh ! the Long Serpent is taken :
Fallen is Olaf Tryggve s son."
6. CHARACTER OF SVEN. KNUT IN ENGLAND. OLAF
HARALDSON, 1015 A.D. 1030 A.D.).
Sven and Olof Skotkonung then divided the three king
doms between them (giving part of Norway to the sons of
Hakon Jarl), and made a binding agreement that they
should maintain the Christianity planted in their kingdoms
and should propagate it among foreign nations (Adam : ch.
80). Skotkonung was, therefore, at least, already a
catechumen. Sven, for his part, put down idolatry and
proclaimed that Christianity was to be everywhere received
in Norway, and appointed Gotebald, a bishop who had
come from England, to be a teacher in Skane. Of this man
we learn that he preached sometimes in Sweden and often
in Norway (ch. 82). Sven, like many men of this age, was
double-minded and unstable, with good impulses but with
sudden bursts and periods of ferocity and wickedness. In
early life he had been baptized. Then he relapsed into
paganism, and became a bitter persecutor. Then,
apparently before the Battle of Svoldr, he repented and was
reconverted, and some say was rebaptized. He died at
Gainsborough, after the Conquest of England in 1014 A.D.,
leaving a great northern empire to his son, Knut. His
body was first buried in England, but afterwards embalmed
and sent to the Minster of Roskilde in Seland, which he
had built.
As long as Sven lived Olof Skotkonung was undisputed
ruler of great part of Norway, and naturally clung to his
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