Page:The Early Kings of Norway.djvu/112

 102 EAELY KINGS OF NORWAY. What amounrof ' property ' lie had amassed I do not know, but could prove, were it necessary, that he had acquired some tactical or even strategic faculty and real talent for war. At Lymfjord, in Jutland, but some years after this (a.d. 1027), he had a sea- battle with the great Knut himself, — ships combined with flood-gates, with roaring, artificial deluges ; right well managed by King Olaf ; which were within a liair's-breadth of destrojdng Knut, now become a King and Glreat; and did in effect send him instantly running. But of this more particularly by and by. What still more surprises me is the mystery, where Olaf, in this wandering, fighting, sea-roving life, acquired his deeply religious feeling, his intense adherence to the Christian Faith. I suppose it had been in England, where many pious persons, priestly and other, were still to be met with, that Olaf had gathered these doctrines ; and that in those his un- fathomable dialogues with the ever-moaning Ocean, they had struck root downwards in the soul of him, and borne fruit upwards to the degree so conspicuous afterwards. It is certain he became a deeply pious man during these long Yiking cruises; and directed