daily diet of pork, the exhilarating tumult of never-ending combat, and the glorious companionship with departed heroes, were in conformity with the ideas of happiness which his life and training had fostered; while the Christian heaven, with its prospect of unending praise, in the company of saints who had no taste for fight or craving for honor, must, by comparison, have appeared ineffably dreary. It is told of a Frisian chieftain, who was about to be baptized, that he suddenly turned to the priest and asked him where his brave forefathers were who had died unbaptized. [Illustration: KNIVES OF IRON FOUND IN HEDEMARKEN AND HADELAND.] "They are in hell," answered the priest. "Then," said the chief, flinging off his baptismal robe and stepping out of the water, "I will rather be in hell with Odin and my forefathers, who were brave and noble men, than in heaven with cowardly Christians and bald-headed monks." It will be seen, then, that the relapse into paganism which followed the death of Olaf Tryggvesson was what might have been expected; and the general reaction against the new faith which set in during the reign of the earls was also quite natural. Olaf, Haroldsson, therefore, had, in a large measure, to do the work of his kinsman over again, and he did it with such energy that, in the end, he forced the expiring Asa faith, and the tribal magnates who founded their power upon it, into a mortal combat in which he himself succumbed, while the religion of Christ rose from his tomb, victorious. King Olaf was by nature well equipped for his mission. He had a robust frame, indomitable will, and great endurance. There was something in his very build and look which indicated that he was not to be trifled with. It was not the youthful enthusiasm of an Olaf Tryggvesson which inspired his measures for the propagation of the faith; but rather a firm, dogged determination to accomplish a task, the moral and political importance of which had strongly impressed him. We need not question his sincerity because in serving God he also served himself. All his habits and actions seem to show that he was by conviction and temperament a religious man. But a fanatic he was not; and the legends which in later times clustered about his name have, by attributing to him an undue ardor, distorted his image. He was, in spite of his later sainthood, a strong-willed, ambitious, and worldly-wise man; far-seeing in his plans, business-like in his methods, relentless in his hates, ruthless in his punishments. And yet, as we have seen him in his treatment of Rörek, he was by no means devoid of pity, and could, when occasion demanded, show himself magnanimous.