Editing Saint Olaf (section)

== Reign ==

A widely used account of Olaf's life is found in ''[[Heimskringla]]'' from {{Circa|1225}}. Although its facts are dubious, the saga recounts Olaf's deeds as follows:
[[File:Norway 1020 AD.png|thumb|upright|Norway in 1020]] In 1008, Olaf landed on the [[Estonia]]n island of [[Saaremaa]] (Osilia). The [[Osilians]], taken by surprise, had at first agreed to Olaf's demands, but then gathered an army during the negotiations and attacked the Norwegians. Olaf nevertheless won the battle.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.saaremaa.ee/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=277&Itemid=306&lang=en#viking |title=Saaremaa in written source |publisher=Saaremaa.ee |access-date=21 May 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160122122432/http://www.saaremaa.ee/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=277&Itemid=306&lang=en#viking |archive-date=22 January 2016 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

It is said that Olaf participated alongside fellow Viking [[Thorkell the Tall]] in the [[siege of Canterbury]] in 1011.<ref>{{cite book |author=Gabriel Turville-Petre |title=The Heroic Age of Scandinavia |publisher=Greenwood Press |isbn=0-8371-8128-3 |page=142|year=1976 }}</ref>

Olaf sailed to the southern coast of [[Finland]] sometime in 1008.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/heim/08stolaf.htm |title=Saga of Olaf Haraldson |website=sacred-texts.com |access-date=30 April 2016}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |title=Länsieurooppalaiset ja skandinaaviset Suomen esihistoriaa koskevat lähteet. Suomen väestön esihistorialliset juuret. |last=Gallen |first=Jarl |year=1984 |pages=255–256}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |title=Fibula, Fabula, Fact: The Viking Age in Finland |editor-last1=Ahola|editor-first1=Joonas|editor-last2=Frog|editor-last3=Tolley|editor-first3=Clive|publisher=Studia Fennica |year=2014 |page=422}}</ref> The journey resulted in the [[Battle at Herdaler]], where Olaf and his men were ambushed by the [[Finns]] in the woods. Olaf lost many men but made it back to his boats. He ordered his ships to depart despite a rising storm. The Finns pursued them and made the same progress on land as Olaf and his men made on water. Despite these events they survived. The exact location of the battle is uncertain and the Finnish equivalent of Herdaler is unknown, but it has been suggested that it could be in [[Uusimaa (historical province)|Uusimaa]], probably near present-day [[Ingå]].<ref>Suomen museo 2002 ({{ISBN|951-9057-47-1}}), p. 78.</ref>

As a teenager Olaf went to the [[Baltic region|Baltic]], then to [[Denmark]] and later to [[England]]. Skaldic poetry suggests he led a successful seaborne attack that took down [[London Bridge]], though Anglo-Saxon sources do not confirm this. This may have been in 1014, restoring London and the English throne to [[Æthelred the Unready]] and removing Cnut.<ref>J. R. Hagland and B. Watson, [http://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/archiveDS/archiveDownload?t=arch-457-1/dissemination/pdf/vol10/vol10_12/10_12_328_333.pdf 'Fact or folklore: the Viking attack on London Bridge'], ''London Archaeologist'', 12 (2005), pp. 328–333.</ref> According to Snorri's [[Heimskringla]], the attack happened soon after the death of [[Sweyn Forkbeard]] with the city being held by Danish forces. Snorri's account claims that Olaf assisted Æthelred in driving the Danes out of England. Olaf is also said by Snorri to have aided the sons of Æthelred after his death. Olaf is said to have won battles but been unable to assist Æthelred's sons in driving Cnut out. After this, he set his sights on Norway.

Olaf saw it as his calling to unite Norway into one kingdom, as [[Harald Fairhair]] had largely succeeded in doing. On the way home he wintered with Duke [[Richard II of Normandy]]. Marauding [[Vikings]] had conquered this region in 881. Richard was himself an ardent Christian, and the [[Normans]] had also previously converted to Christianity. Before leaving, Olaf was baptised in [[Rouen]]<ref name="socc" /> in the pre-Romanesque [[Rouen Cathedral|Notre-Dame Cathedral]] by Richard's brother [[Robert II (archbishop of Rouen)|Robert the Dane]], archbishop of Normandy.

Olaf returned to Norway in 1015 and declared himself king, obtaining the support of the five [[petty kingdom|petty kings]] of the [[Uplands, Norway|Norwegian Uplands]].{{sfn|Chisholm|1911|p=62}} In 1016 at the [[Battle of Nesjar]] he defeated [[Sveinn Hákonarson|Earl Sweyn]], one of the [[earls of Lade]] and hitherto the ''de facto'' ruler of Norway. He founded the town of Borg, later known as [[Sarpsborg]], by the waterfall [[Sarpsfossen]] in [[Østfold]] county. Within a few years he had won more power than any of his predecessors on the throne had enjoyed.

Olaf annihilated the petty kings of the south, subdued the aristocracy, asserted his [[suzerainty]] in the [[Orkney Islands]], and conducted a successful raid on Denmark.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911|p=62}}  He made peace with King [[Olof Skötkonung]] of [[Sweden]] through [[Þorgnýr the Lawspeaker]], and was for some time engaged to Olof's daughter, [[Ingegerd Olofsdotter|Ingegerd]], though without Olof's approval. In 1019 Olaf married [[Astrid Olofsdotter of Sweden|Astrid Olofsdotter]], King Olof's illegitimate daughter and the half-sister of his former fiancée. The union produced a daughter, [[Wulfhild of Norway|Wulfhild]], who married [[Ordulf, Duke of Saxony]] in 1042.<ref>{{cite book |title=All the King's Women: Polygyny and Politics in Europe, 900–1250 |first=Jan |last=Rudiger |translator-first=Tim |translator-last=Barnwell |publisher=Brill |year=2020 |page=252}}</ref>

In 1026 he participated in the [[Battle of the Helgeå]]. In 1029 the Norwegian nobles, seething with discontent, supported [[Cnut's Invasion of Norway|the invasion]] of King [[Cnut the Great]] of Denmark. Olaf was driven into exile in [[Kievan Rus]].{{sfn|Chisholm |1911|p=62}}<ref name="socc" /> He stayed for some time in the Swedish province of [[history of Nericia|Nerike]], where, according to local legend, he baptised many locals. In 1029, King Cnut's Norwegian regent, Jarl [[Håkon Eiriksson]], was lost at sea and Olaf seized the opportunity to win back the kingdom. Given military and logistical support by the Swedish king [[Anund Jacob]] he tried to bypass the formidable "Øresundfleet" of the Danish king by traveling across the [[Jämtland]]-mountains to take Nidaros, the Norwegian capital at the time, in 1030. However, Olaf was killed in [[Battle of Stiklestad]] on 29 July 1030,<ref>{{cite book |title=On Heroes, Hero Worship, and the Heroic in History |first=Thomas |last=Carlyle |editor-first1=David R. |editor-last1=Sorenson |editor-first2=Brent E. |editor-last2=Kinser |publisher=Yale University Press |year=2013  |page=306 }}</ref> where some of his own subjects from central and northern Norway took arms against him. The exact position of Saint Olaf's grave in Nidaros has been unknown since 1568, due to the effects of the [[Reformation in Denmark–Norway and Holstein|Lutheran iconoclasm]] in 1536–37.

King Cnut, though distracted by the task of governing England, ruled Norway for five years after Stiklestad, with his son [[Svein Knutsson|Svein]] and Svein's mother [[Ælfgifu of Northampton|Ælfgifu]] (known as ''Álfífa'' in Old Norse sources) as regents. But their regency was unpopular, and when Olaf's illegitimate son [[Magnus I of Norway|Magnus]] ('the Good') laid claim to the Norwegian throne, Svein and Ælfgifu were forced to flee.