ew to be the
national hero and the national saint, and lives in history as Olaf the
Saint, while his tragic death and his enthusiasm for the cause of Christ
gave him a strong hold on the people's hearts and aided greatly in making
Norway truly a Christian land.

_CANUTE THE GREAT, KING OF SIX NATIONS._

A famous old king of Denmark, known as Harald Blaatand or Bluetooth, had
many sons, of whom only one, Svend or Sweyn, outlived him. While Harald
was a Christian, Sweyn was a pagan, having been brought up in the old
faith by a noble warrior Palnatoke, to whom his father had sent the boy
to teach him the use of arms.

When the king found that the boy was being made a pagan he tried to
withdraw him from Palnatoke, but Sweyn would not leave his friend,
whereupon the crafty king sought to destroy the warrior. We speak of
this, for there is a very interesting story connected with it. Every one
has read of how the Austrian governor Gessler condemned the Swiss peasant
William Tell to shoot with an arrow an apple from his son's head, but few
know that a like story is told of a Danish king and warrior four hundred
years earlier. This is the story, as told for us by an old historian.

One day, while Palnatoke was boasting in the king's presence of his skill
as an archer, Harald told him that, in spite of his boasts, there was one
shot he would not dare to try. He replied that there was no shot he was
afraid to attempt, and the king then challenged him to shoot an apple
from the head of his son. Palnatoke obeyed, and the apple fell, pierced
by the arrow. This cruel act made Palnatoke the bitter foe of King
Harald, and gathering around him a band of fierce vikings he founded a
brotherhood of sea-rovers at Jomsborg, and for long years afterwards the
Jomsborgers, or Jomsborg vikings, were a frightful scourge to all
Christian lands on the Baltic Sea. In former tales we have told some of
their exploits.

It is said that Sweyn himself, in a later war, killed his father on the
battlefield, while Palnatoke stood by approving, though in after years
the two were bitter foes. All we need say further of these personages is
that Sweyn invaded England with a powerful force in the time of Ethelred
the Unready and drove this weak king from the island, making himself
master of great part of the kingdom. He died at Gainsborough, England, in
1014, leaving his son Knud, then a boy of fourteen, to complete the
conquest. It is this son, know