, Tryggveson (having made,
withal, a great English or Irish marriage,--a dowager Princess, who had
voluntarily fallen in love with him,--see Snorro for this fine romantic
fact!) mainly resided in our island for two or three years, or else in
Dublin, in the precincts of the Danish Court there in the Sister Isle.
Accordingly it was in Dublin, as above noted, that Hakon's spy found
him; and from the Liffey that his squadron sailed, through the Hebrides,
through the Orkneys, plundering and baptizing in their strange way,
towards such success as we have seen.

Tryggveson made a stout, and, in effect, victorious and glorious
struggle for himself as king. Daily and hourly vigilant to do so, often
enough by soft and even merry methods, for he was a witty, jocund man,
and had a fine ringing laugh in him, and clear pregnant words ever
ready,--or if soft methods would not serve, then by hard and even
hardest he put down a great deal of miscellaneous anarchy in Norway; was
especially busy against heathenism (devil-worship and its rites): this,
indeed, may be called the focus and heart of all his royal endeavor in
Norway, and of all the troubles he now had with his people there. For
this was a serious, vital, all-comprehending matter; devil-worship, a
thing not to be tolerated one moment longer than you could by any method
help! Olaf's success was intermittent, of varying complexion; but his
effort, swift or slow, was strong and continual; and on the whole he did
succeed. Take a sample or two of that wonderful conversion process:--

At one of his first Things he found the Bonders all assembled in
arms; resolute to the death seemingly, against his proposal and him.
Tryggveson said little; waited impassive, "What your reasons are,
good men?" One zealous Bonder started up in passionate parliamentary
eloquence; but after a sentence or two, broke down; one, and then
another, and still another, and remained all three staring in
open-mouthed silence there! The peasant-proprietors accepted the
phenomenon as ludicrous, perhaps partly as miraculous withal, and
consented to baptism this time.

On another occasion of a Thing, which had assembled near some heathen
temple to meet him,--temple where Hakon Jarl had done much repairing,
and set up many idol figures and sumptuous ornaments, regardless of
expense, especially a very big and splendid Thor, with massive gold
collar round the neck of him, not the like of it in Norway,--King Olaf
Tryggv