Page:The Early Kings of Norway.djvu/97

 JARLS ERIC AND SVEm. 87 other eye of History is much blinded withal, and her path through those wild regions and epochs is an ex- tremely dim and chaotic one. An evil that much demands remedying, and especially wants some first attempt at remedying, by enquirers into English His- tory ; the whole period from Egbert, the first Saxon King of England, on to Edward the Confessor, the last, being everywhere completely interwoven with that of their mysterious, continually-invasive 'Danes,' as they called them, and inextricably unintelligible till these also get to be a little understood, and cease to .be utterly dark, hideous, and mythical to us as they now are. King Olaf Tryggveson is the first Norseman who is expressly mentioned to have been in England by our English History books, new or old ; and of him it is merely said that he had an interview with King Ethelred II. at Andover, of a pacific and friendly nature, — though it is absurdly added that the noble Olaf was converted to Christianity by that extremely stupid Royal Person. Greater contrast in an inter- view than in this at Andover, between heroic Olaf Tryggveson and Ethebed the forever Unready, was