Óláfr Tryggvason

Olaf Tryggvason is the most dazzling and tragic of the Norwegian kings — a man whose road ran from a Baltic slave-market to the bottom of the sea. Born in flight from his murdered father's enemies, he was captured by vikings as a child and sold into slavery, then ransomed by chance by his uncle, King Valdemar's tax-man, and raised at the court of the Rus far down the eastern river-road. He grew into one of the great harrying vikings of the age, was baptised by a hermit in the western isles, and came home to seize the throne with a single burning mission: to make the whole North Christian, by persuasion where he could and by sword and torture where he could not. He converted Norway, pressed the faith on the colonies, baptised the saga heroes at his court, and sent Leif on the errand that found Vínland. Ambushed at Svolder with too few ships, he leapt overboard in his armour rather than be taken — and vanished, leaving the rumour, never confirmed, that he had survived and gone back east. The king who came from the road and may have gone back down it.