From that time each of them kept himself awake, watching the other, until toward daybreak the earl’s head fell forward, and he dropped asleep, for the air was close and he was weary. But his sleep was so unquiet that he suddenly screamed out loudly, and drew himself together, as if to spring up. On this Kark, dreadfully alarmed, drew a large knife out of his belt and struck at the earl, and in a moment he fell dead, with his head severed from his body. Then in the early morning Kark got out of the hole with Hakon’s head and ran with it to Olaf, telling what had befallen them. But Olaf had him taken out and beheaded. Soon after that Olaf was elected King of Norway at a general Thing, as his great-grandfather, Harald Fairhair, had been. This was in the year 995. Chapter XIV King Olaf’s Dragon-ships It does not concern us here to follow the story of Olaf Trygveson point by point. Much of his history is taken up with attempts to force Christianity upon his people, as King Hakon had done. Having learned the doctrines of Christianity in England and been baptized there, he was determined that all his people should follow his example and be baptized also. But the chief doctrine of Christianity, the love of all men as brothers and the forgiveness of foes, he had not learned; and when he proclaimed abroad that “all Norway should be Christian or die” he was far from the spirit of the Christian life. His persecutions of his people stain an otherwise great and humane reign; and he was not content with forcing his religion on Norway, but sent a priest of much the same temper as his own to convert Iceland to Christianity by similar means, stirring up strife and bringing misery upon a nation that heretofore had been prosperous and peaceable. For though it may have been well for these countries to forsake their old religion and embrace Christianity, it was an evil thing to force it upon the people in such a way.