The child was a boy, of rather weakly
aspect; no important person present, except Sigvat, the King's
Icelandic Skald, who happened to be still awake; and the Bishop of
Norway, who, I suppose, had been sent for in hurry. "What is to be
done?" said the Bishop: "here is an infant in pressing need of
baptism; and we know not what the name is: go, Sigvat, awaken the
King, and ask." "I dare not for my life," answered Sigvat; "King's
orders are rigorous on that point." "But if the child die
unbaptized," said the Bishop, shuddering; too certain, he and
everybody, where the child would go in that case! "I will myself give
him a name," said Sigvat, with a desperate concentration of all his
faculties; "he shall be namesake of the greatest of mankind,--imperial
Carolus Magnus; let us call the infant Magnus!" King Olaf, on the
morrow, asked rather sharply how Sigvat had dared take such a liberty;
but excused Sigvat, seeing what the perilous alternative was. And
Magnus, by such accident, this boy was called; and he, not another, is
the prime origin and introducer of that name Magnus, which occurs
rather frequently, not among the Norman Kings only, but by and by
among the Danish and Swedish; and, among the Scandinavian populations,
appears to be rather frequent to this day.
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