Sveinn Úlfsson

Svein Ulfsson is the rival Magnus the Good raises up and lives to regret — the nephew of Canute whom the Norwegian king makes an earl in Denmark, only to see him claim the Danish crown. When Magnus girds Svein with sword and shield and gives him an earl's title and fiefs, Magnus's wise old foster-father Einar Tambaskelfer sees the danger and names it in five words as the new earl walks out: 'too great an earl, my foster-son.' Einar is proved right — Svein, once raised, breaks his oath and has himself proclaimed king of Denmark, and the two war up and down the Danish isles for years. Svein is the saga's image of the over-mighty subject — the man a king's generosity arms into a rival, the earl whose elevation becomes the kingdom's trouble, proof of the hard saga lesson that a ruler's open hand can create the very enemy that outlasts him.