In Memorian Of Olaf Tryggvason (960s – 1000)

Glaðir ríða Noregs menn

til Hildarting.

(Delighted rides the Norse men

to Death.)


This text is from the refreng in the Faroe Islands song Ormurin Langi.

In memorian of Olaf Tryggvason (960s – 1000) King of Norway and his long boat the Long Serpent. The finest of her times.



 Olaf was born in the Orkney Islands after his mother fled there to escape the killers of Olaf's father. Olaf eventually ended up in Kievan Rus', at the court of King Valdemar.

Olaf was three years old when they set sail on a merchant ship for Novgorod. The journey was not successful: in the Baltic Sea they were captured by Estonian vikings, and the people aboard were either killed or taken as slaves. Olaf became the possession of a man named Klerkon, together with his foster father Thorolf and his son Thorgils. Klerkon considered Thorolf too old to be useful as a slave and killed him, and then sold the two boys to a man named Klerk for a ram. Olaf was then sold to a man called Reas for a fine cloak. Six years later, Sigurd Eirikson traveled to Estonia to collect taxes for King Valdemar. He saw a boy who did not appear to be a native. He asked the boy about his family, and the boy told him he was Olaf, son of Tryggve Olafson and Astrid Eiriksdattir. Sigurd then went to Reas and bought Olaf and Thorgils out from slavery, and took the boys with him to Novgorod to live under the protection of Valdemar.

Olaf encountered Klerkon, his enslaver and the murderer of his foster father. Olaf killed Klerkon with an axe blow to the head. A mob followed the young boy as he fled to his protector Queen Allogia, with the intent of killing him for his misdeed. Only after Allogia had paid blood money for Olaf did the mob calm down. As Olaf grew older, Vladimir made him chief over his men-at-arms, but after a couple years the king became wary of Olaf and his popularity with his soldiers. Fearing he might be a threat to the safety of his reign, Vladimir stopped treating Olaf as a friend. Olaf decided that it was better for him to seek his fortune elsewhere, and set out for the Baltic.

In 995, rumours began to surface in Norway about a king in Ireland of Norwegian blood. This caught the ear of Jarl Haakon, who sent Thorer Klakka to Ireland, posing as a merchant, to see if he was the son of Tryggve Olafson. Haakon told Thorer that if it were him, to lure him to Norway, so Haakon could have him under his power. Thorer befriended Olaf and told him of the situation in Norway, that Haakon Jarl had become unpopular with the populace, because he often took daughters of the elite asconcubines, which was his right as ruler. He quickly grew tired of them and sent them home after a week or two. He had also been weakened by his fighting with the Danish king, due to his rejection of the Christian faith.

Olaf seized this opportunity, and set sail for Norway. When he arrived many men had already started a revolt against Haakon, and he had gone in hiding in a hole dug in a pigsty, together with one of his slaves Kark. When Olaf met the rebels they accepted him as their king, and together they started to search for Haakon. They eventually came to the farm where Haakon and Kark were hiding, but could not find them. Olaf held a meeting just outside the swine-sty and promised a great reward for the man who killed the Jarl. The two men in the hole heard this speech, and Haakon became distrustful of Kark, fearing he would kill him to claim the price. He could not leave the sty, nor could he keep awake forever, and when he fell asleep Kark took out a knife and cut Haakon's head off. The next day the slave went to meet Olaf and presented with the head of Haakon. The king did not reward him, and instead beheaded the slave.

After his confirmation as King of Norway, Olaf traveled to the parts of Norway that had not been under the rule of Haakon, but that of the King of Denmark; they too swore allegiance to him.

Olaf continued to promote Christianity throughout his rule. He baptized America discoverer Leif Ericson, and Leif took a priest with him back to Greenland to convert the rest of his kin. Olaf also converted the people and Earl of the Orkney Islands to Christianity. At that time, the Orkney Islands were part of Norway.

It has been suggested that Olaf's ambition was to rule a united Christian Scandinavia, and it is known that he made overtures of marriage to Sigrid the Haughty, queen of Sweden, but negotiations fell through due to her steadfast pagan faith. Instead he made an enemy of her, and did not hesitate to involve himself in a quarrel with King Sweyn I of Denmark by marrying Sweyn's sister Thyre, who had fled from her heathen husband Burislav, half-legendary "king of Wends", in defiance of her brother's authority.

Both his Wendish and his Irish wife had brought Olaf wealth and good fortune, but, according to the sagas, Thyre was his undoing, for it was on an expedition undertaken in the year 1000 to wrest her lands from Burislav that he was waylaid off the island Svolder, by the combined Swedish, Danish, and Wendish fleets, together with the ships of Earl Haakon's sons. The Battle of Svolder ended in the death of the Norwegian king. Olaf fought to the last on his great vessel Ormrinn Langi ("Long Serpent"), the mightiest ship in the North, and finally leapt overboard and was seen no more.