Olave was at first a heathen, and had long been a famous sea-rover, when he was converted and baptized in one of the Scilly islands (A.D. 994). He took up his new religion with a great desire to spread it among his people, and he went about from one part of Norway to another, everywhere destroying temples and idols, and requiring the people to be baptized whether they were willing or not. At one place he found eighty heathens, who were supposed to be wizards. He first tried to convert them in the morning when they were sober, and again in the evening when they were enjoying themselves over their horns of ale; and as he could not persuade them, whether they were sober or drunk, he burnt their temple over their heads. All the eighty perished except one, who made his escape; and this man afterwards fell into the king's hands, and was thrown into the sea. At another time, Olave fell in with a young man named Endrid, who agreed to become a Christian if any one whom the king might appoint should beat him in diving, in archery, and in sword-play. Olave himself undertook the match, and got the better of Endrid in all the trials; and then Endrid gave in, and allowed himself to be converted and baptized. These were strange ways of spreading the Gospel; but they seem to have had their effect on the rough men of the North. At last, Olave was attacked by some of his heathen neighbours, and was beaten in a great sea-fight (A.D. 1000). It was generally believed that he had perished in the sea; but there is a story of a Norwegian pilgrim who, nearly fifty years later, lost his way among the sands of Egypt, and lighted on a lonely monastery, with an old man of his own country as its abbot. The abbot put many questions to him, and asked him to carry home a girdle and a sword, and to give them with a message to a warrior who had fought bravely beside King Olave in his last battle; and on receiving them the old warrior was assured that the Egyptian abbot could be no other than his royal master, who had been so long supposed to be dead.