LITMIR.BIZ

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Norse Bard’s verses in Macpherson’s Ossianic measure, as that into which they most readily translate themselves; premising that the ensuing are of immeasurably greater authenticity.

      ‘And thou hast overthrown their Bridges, Oh thou Storm of the Sons of Odin! skilful and foremost in the Battle! For thee was it happily reserved to possess the land of London’s winding City. Many were the shields which were grasped sword in hand to the mighty increase of the conflict; but by thee were the iron-banded coats of mail broken and destroyed.’

      And ‘besides this,’ continues Snorro, ‘he also sang:’

      ‘Thou, thou hast come, Defender of the Earth, and hast restored into his Kingdom the exiled Ethelred. By thine aid is he advantaged, and made strong by thy valour and prowess: Bitterest was that Battle in which thou didst engage. Now, in the presence of thy kindred the adjacent lands are at rest, where Edmund, the relation of the country and the people, formerly governed.’

      ‘Besides this, these things are thus remembered by Sigvatus.’

      

      ‘That was truly the sixth fight which the mighty King fought with the men of England: wherein King Olaf—the Chief himself a Son of Odin, valiantly attacked the Bridge at London. Bravely did the swords of the Völscs defend it, but through the trench which the Sea-Kings, the men of Vikes-land, guarded, they were enabled to come, and the plain of Southwark was full of his tents.’

      “Such were the martial feats of King Olafus, upon the water; and now let us turn to his more pious and peaceful actions upon the land, that caused the men of Southwark to found to his honour yonder fane, which still bears his name and consecrates his memory. And in so doing, I pray you to observe that I am not wandering from the subject before us; for that Church is one of the Southern boundaries of London Bridge, and, as such, possesses some interest in its history. The other, on the same side, is the Monastery of St. Mary Overies, of the which I shall hereafter discourse; whilst the two Northern ones are St. Magnus’ Church, and that abode of festivity which rises above us, Fishmongers’ Hall, of which the story will be best noticed when we shall have arrived at the time of the Great Fire. There are within the City walls and Diocese of London, three Churches dedicated to the Norwegian King and Martyr, St. Olaf; and in consequence, Richard Newcourt, in his ‘Repertorium Ecclesiasticum Parochiale Londinense,’ which I shall hereafter notice, volume i. page 509, takes occasion to speak somewhat of his history; collected, most probably, from Adam of Bremen’s ‘Historia Ecclesiarum Hamburgensis et Bremensis.’ He was the Son of Herald Grenscius, Prince of Westfold, in Norway, and was celebrated for having expelled the Swedes from that country, and recovering Gothland. It was after these exploits that he came to England, and remained here as an ally of King Ethelred for three years, expelling the Danes from the Cities, Towns, and Fortresses, and ultimately returning home with great spoil. He was recalled to England by Emma of Normandy, the surviving Queen of his friend, to assist her against Knute; but as he found a paction concluded between that King and the English, he soon withdrew, and was then created King of Norway by the voice of the nation. To strengthen his throne, he married the daughter of the King of Swedeland; but now his strict adherence to the Christian faith, and his active zeal for the spread of it, caused him to be molested by domestic wars, as well as by the Danes abroad: though these he regarded not, since he piously and valiantly professed, that he had rather lose his life and Kingdom than his faith in Christ. Upon this, the men of Norway complained to Knute, King of Denmark, and afterwards of England, charging Olaf with altering their laws and customs, and entreating his assistance; but the Norwegian hero was supported by a young soldier named Amandus, King of Swethland, who had been bred up under Olaf, and taught to fight by him. He, at first, overthrew the Dane in an engagement; but Knute, having bribed the adverse fleet, procured three hundred of his ships to revolt, and then attacking Olaf, forced him to retreat into his own country, where his subjects received him as an enemy. He fled from the disloyal Pagans to Jerislaus, King of Russia, who was his brother-in-law, and remained with him till the better part of his subjects, in the commotions of the Kingdom, calling him to resume his crown, he went at the head of an army; when, whilst one party hailed his return with joy, the other, urged by Knute, opposed him by force, and in a disloyal battle at Stichstadt, to the North of Drontheim, says Newcourt, page 510, with considerable pathos, they ‘murthered this holy friend of Christ, this most innocent King, in Anno 1028,’ but he should have said 1030. His feast is commemorated on the fourth of the Kalends of August, that is to say on the 29th of July; for Grimkele, Bishop of Drontheim, his capital City, a pious priest whom he had brought from England to assist him in establishing Christianity in Norway, commanded that he should be honoured as a Saint, with the title of Martyr. His body was buried in Drontheim, and was not only found undecayed in 1098, but even in 1541, when the Lutherans plundered his shrine of its gold and jewels; for it was esteemed the greatest treasure in the North. Such was St. Olave, to whose memory no less than four Churches in London are dedicated; for, says Newcourt, he ‘had well deserved, and was well beloved of our English Nation, as well for his friendship for assisting them against the Danes, as for his holy and Christian life, by the erection of many Churches which to his honourable memory they built and dedicated to him.’ I notice only one of these, because it is contiguous to London Bridge, which is called St. Olave, Southwark. It stands, as you very well know, on the Northern side of Tooley Street; and although many people would think St. Tooley to be somewhat of a questionable patron for a Church, yet I would remind you that it was only the more usual ancient English name of King Olave, as we are told on good authority, by the Rev. Alban Butler in his ‘Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and other principal Saints,’ London, 1812, 8vo. volume vii. where also, on pages 378–380, you have many further particulars of the life of this heroic Prince. You may also meet with him under a variety of other names, as Anlaf, Unlaf, Olaf Haraldson, Olaus, and Olaf Helge, or Olave the Holy. Of his Church in Southwark I will tell you nothing as to its foundation, but remark only that its antiquity is proved by William Thorn’s ‘Chronicle of the Acts of the Abbots of St. Austin’s Canterbury;’ which is printed in Roger Twysden’s ‘Historiæ Anglicanæ Scriptores Decem;’ London, 1652, folio. Thorn, you may remember, was a Monk of St. Augustine’s, in 1380; and on column 1932 of the volume now referred to, he gives the copy of a grant from John, Earl of Warren, to Nicholas, the Abbot of St. Augustine’s, giving to his Monastery all the estate which it held in ‘Southwark standing upon the River Thames, between the Breggehouse and the Church of Saint Olave.’ By this we know it to be ancient, for that grant was made in the year 1281. And now I will say no more of St. Olave, but that a very full and interesting memoir of him, and his miracles, is to be found in that gigantic work entitled the ‘Acta Sanctorum,’ Antwerp, 1643–1786, 50 volumes, folio, and yet incomplete, for the year descends to October only:—see the seventh volume of July, pages 87–120.

      “And now let me chaunt you his Requiem, by giving you, from the same authority, a free translation of the concluding stanza of that Latin Hymn to his memory, which Johannes Bosch tells us was inserted in the Swedish Missal, and sung on his festival; it is in the same measure as the original.

      ‘Martyr’d King! in triumph shining,

       Guardian Saint, whom bliss is ’shrining;

       To thy spirit’s sons inclining

       From a sinful world’s confining

       By thy might, Oh set them free!

       Carnal bonds are round them ’twining,

       Fiendish arts are undermining,

       All with deadly plagues are pining,

       But thy power and prayers combining,

       Safely shall we rise to thee!—Amen.’

      “One of the last notices of London Bridge which occurs in the days of King Ethelred, and I place it here because it is without date, is in his Laws, as they are given in the ‘Chronicon’ of John Brompton, Abbot of Jorvaulx, in the City of York, who lived about the year 1328. His work was printed in Twysden’s Scriptores, which I last quoted; and at column 897, in the xxiii. Chapter of the Statutes there given, is the following passage.

      

      “ ‘Concerning the Tolls given at Bylyngesgate.

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