Yet still there was a great
deal of mauling, vigorous punishing, and an entire intolerance of
these two things: Heathenism and Sea-robbery, at least of Sea-robbery
in the old style; whether in the style we moderns still practise, and
call privateering, I do not quite know. But Vikingism proper had to
cease in Norway; still more, Heathenism, under penalties too severe to
he borne; death, mutilation of limb, not to mention forfeiture and
less rigorous coercion. Olaf was inexorable against violation of the
law. "Too severe," cried many; to whom one answers, "Perhaps in part
_yes_, perhaps also in great part _no_; depends altogether on the
previous question, How far the law was the eternal one of God Almighty
in the universe, How far the law merely of Olaf (destitute of right
inspiration) left to his own passions and whims?"
Many were the jangles Olaf had with the refractory Heathen Things and
Ironbeards of a new generation: very curious to see. Scarcely ever
did it come to fighting between King and Thing, though often enough
near it; but the Thing discerning, as it usually did in time, that the
King was stronger in men, seemed to say unanimously to itself, "We
have lost, then; baptize us, we must burn our old gods and conform.
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