Page:History of the Literature of the Scandinavian North.djvu/36

18 efforts on the part of a few powerful and influential families to get the management of affairs into their own hands. The result was that the country wasted its strength in bloody feuds, so that the kings of Norway, who already in the beginning of the republic had contemplated the subjugation of the island, at length succeeded in accomplishing their purpose, and in 1263 Iceland was conquered and made tributary to the crown of Norway.

At the time of the first settlement of the island, and for a long time subsequently, the asa-faith nourished almost wholly unmolested throughout the North. To be sure, Christianity had been preached in Denmark and Sweden, especially by Ansgar, the "apostle of the North," who died in 865, and, in Norway, Hakon, Harold Fairhair's youngest son, the foster-child of Athelstan in England, had tried to introduce it, but still it took a long time to root out the old faith. The Christian religion cannot be said to have been established in Denmark before the reign of Knut the Great (1018–1035), and still later in Sweden, in the rule of Saint Erik (about 1150), while in Norway the founders of Christianity were Olaf Trygvason (995–1000) and Saint Olaf (1015–1028). In Iceland the introduction of Christianity was comparatively easy, it being preached there by natives, although the island had previously been visited by foreign missionaries, such as Bishop Frederick from Saxony and Priest Thangbrand from Bremen. In the year 1000 Christianity was formally adopted at the Althing. It did not take long for it to become tolerably well rooted in the country, and this was accomplished without those unfortunate results which almost everywhere else attended the introduction of the new doctrine and the corresponding changes in customs and beliefs. There did not spring up in Iceland as elsewhere, indifference toward, or what is worse, a fanatical hatred of, the monuments which the intellectual life of their ancestors had reared. To these circumstances we are indebted for the countless treasures of