The reigns of Magnus Eriksson and his son were a period of great disaster to Norway. In 1344 the Gula-Elv suddenly changed its course, owing to the fall of an enormous rock into its bed, and forty-eight farms were destroyed, and two hundred and fifty people and a multitude of cattle were drowned. In Iceland an earthquake and a great eruption of Hekla spread alarm and desolation. But the worst of all calamities was the Black Death, a terrible pestilence, which, after having ravaged Germany, England, and Southern Europe, reached Norway in 1349. An English merchant vessel first brought the pestilence to Bergen, whence it spread with great rapidity over the entire land. In Drontheim the archbishop and all the canons of the cathedral chapter died, except a single one, who then alone elected the new archbishop. In many districts the entire population was swept away; horses and cattle starved to death, for want of attendance, or perished in the woods. The results of the labor of centuries were destroyed. Where once there had been fertile valleys and animated human intercourse, the forest grew up unheeded. The fox barked in the deserted farm-houses, and the wolf prowled in the empty churches. In many places the dead lay unburied, until, by the slow process of dissolution, the earth reclaimed them. Sloth and indifference took possession of the survivors. The peasant neglected to till his fields, because he could procure neither horses nor laborers to assist him. Famine and death were the result. All industries stagnated, and what there was left of Norwegian commerce fell completely into the hands of foreigners. As is usually the case in the times of great plagues, when the restraints of social order are relaxed, vice grew riotous, and every extreme of lawless passion was wantonly displayed. Centuries elapsed before the country recovered from the results of this terrible calamity. But there were other causes which combined with the pestilence in producing the political impotence and social barbarism which followed. There is a danger in doing injustice, even to the Black Death, and it has, until recently, been the fashion to make it solely responsible for the eclipse of Norway's glory. Olaf, the only son of Haakon Magnusson and Margaret, was proclaimed King of Norway at his father's death. Five years earlier he had, after the death of his maternal grandfather, been elected king of Denmark. As he was yet a child, his mother Margaret and the Council of the Regency conducted the government in his name. Thus commenced the union of Norway and Denmark, which lasted without interruption for 434 years, and which proved so disastrous to the former country. Olaf died at the age of seventeen at Falsterbro in Skaane. [Illustration] CHAPTER XXXIII. NORWAY DURING THE KALMAR UNION.