Somewhat later than Olave the son of Tryggve (A.D. 1015) Norway had another king Olave, who was very zealous for the spreading of the Gospel among his people, and, like the elder Olave, was willing to do so by force if he could not manage the matter otherwise. On his visiting a place called Dalen, a bishop named Grimkil, who accompanied him, set forth the Christian doctrine; but the heathens answered that their own god was better than the God of the Christians, because he could be seen. The king spent the greater part of the night in prayer, and next morning at daybreak the idol of the northern god Thor was brought forward by his worshippers. Olave pointed to the rising sun, as being a witness to the glory of its Maker; and, while the heathens were gazing on its brightness, a tall soldier, to whom the king had given his orders beforehand, lifted up his club and dashed the idol to pieces. A swarm of loathsome creatures, which had lived within the idol's huge body, and had fattened on the food and drink which were offered to it, rushed forth, as in the case of the image of Serapis, hundreds of years before;[67] whereupon the men of Dalen were convinced of the falsehood of their old religion, and consented to be baptized. King Olave was at length killed in battle against his heathen subjects (A.D. 1030), and his memory is regarded as that of a saint. [67] See Part I., chap. XVI. (7.) From Norway the Gospel made its way to the Norwegian settlements in Iceland, and even in Greenland, where it long flourished, until, in the middle of the fifteenth century, ice gathered on the shores so as to make it impossible to land on them. About the same time a great plague, which was called the Black Death, carried off a large part of the settlers, and the rest were so few and so weak that they were easily killed by the natives. It seems to be certain that some of the Norwegians from Greenland discovered a part of the American continent, although no traces of them remained there when the country was again discovered by Europeans, hundreds of years later. CHAPTER VIII. POPE GREGORY THE SEVENTH. PART I. In the times of which I have been lately speaking, the power of the popes had grown far beyond what it was in the days of Gregory the Great.