en to him, it is pretty evident all
England must have followed, and poor England, with Svein as king over
it, been delivered from immeasurable woes, which had to last some
two-and-twenty years farther, before this result could be arrived at.
But finding London impregnable for the moment (no ship able to get
athwart the bridge, and many Danes perishing in the attempt to do it by
swimming), Svein and Olaf turned to other enterprises; all England in
a manner lying open to them, turn which way they liked. They burnt and
plundered over Kent, over Hampshire, Sussex; they stormed far and wide;
world lying all before them where to choose. Wretched Ethelred, as the
one invention he could fall upon, offered them Danegelt (16,000 pounds
of silver this year, but it rose in other years as high as 48,000
pounds); the desperate Ethelred, a clear method of quenching fire
by pouring oil on it! Svein and Olaf accepted; withdrew to
Southampton,--Olaf at least did,--till the money was got ready. Strange
to think of, fierce Svein of the Double-beard, and conquest of England
by him; this had at last become the one salutary result which remained
for that distracted, down-trodden, now utterly chaotic and anarchic
country. A conquering Svein, followed by an ably and earnestly
administrative, as well as conquering, Knut (whom Dahlmann compares
to Charlemagne), were thus by the mysterious destinies appointed the
effective saviors of England.

Tryggveson, on this occasion, was a good while at Southampton; and
roamed extensively about, easily victorious over everything, if
resistance were attempted, but finding little or none; and acting now
in a peaceable or even friendly capacity. In the Southampton country
he came in contact with the then Bishop of Winchester, afterwards
Archbishop of Canterbury, excellent Elphegus, still dimly decipherable
to us as a man of great natural discernment, piety, and inborn veracity;
a hero-soul, probably of real brotherhood with Olaf's own. He even made
court visits to King Ethelred; one visit to him at Andover of a very
serious nature. By Elphegus, as we can discover, he was introduced into
the real depths of the Christian faith. Elphegus, with due solemnity of
apparatus, in presence of the king, at Andover, baptized Olaf anew, and
to him Olaf engaged that he would never plunder in England any more;
which promise, too, he kept. In fact, not long after, Svein's conquest
of England being in an evidently forward state