Scandinavian History
Posts in The Copybook tagged ‘Scandinavian History’
Viking raider Olaf Tryggvason, taking a break on the Isles of Scilly, cannot resist the temptation to hear his fortune told.
In 988, Norwegian prince Olaf Tryggvason took a break from raiding the coastal populations of the British Isles, and stayed for some time in the Isles of Scilly. Despite several years of service at Novgorod to Vladimir, Grand Prince of Kiev, Olaf was still a Norse pagan; yet rumours of a Christian hermit who could tell one’s fortune were too intriguing to ignore.
In 1014, Norwegian prince Olaf Haraldsson sailed to the aid of King Ethelred the Unready in his struggle with the Danes.
In 1014 Danish King Sweyn Forkbeard, who had ousted Ethelred the Unready, unexpectedly died. Ethelred and his Norse ally Olaf Haraldsson each raised a fleet and swept up the Thames to London, but Sweyn’s son Cnut was barring their way, his Danes strung right across the Thames on a wooden bridge.
Zealous convert Olaf Tryggvason went from England to Norway to spread the Gospel, but it seemed the Lord did not like Olaf’s way of doing it.
When Olaf Trygvason returned from England to Norway in 995, he seized the crown of Earl Hakon and declared himself King with the intention of converting all Norway to Christianity. His method was to ask nicely and then slaughter anyone who refused; happily, in Rogaland a higher power than Olaf was at work.
An aristocratic widow advertises for a husband, and among the line-up of natty and noble suitors is a rough-and-ready Olaf Tryggvason.
In 984, exiled Norwegian prince Olaf Tryggvason lost his wife Geira, and went on a four-year grief-stricken rampage through Britain, before suddenly becoming a Christian in the Isles of Scilly. Hearing that Gyda, the King of Dublin’s sister, had summoned a Thing (a Viking council) to choose a husband, Olaf returned to England.
Scandinavian warrior Leif Ericson was sent to bring Christianity to Greenland, but accidentally discovered North America instead.
A Viking settlement dated to around AD 1000 was uncovered in 1960 on the northernmost tip of Newfoundland, with more sites in the region tentatively identified in 2012. Suddenly, a tale from the Norse sagas, routinely dismissed as myth, looked very different.