for those who believe in such things and support such folly. Take now your gold and your costly things home to your wives, and hang them not on stocks and stones. And choose now one of two courses-either at once to adopt Christianity, or to fight with me; and let those win to whom God will vouchsafe a victory!" All promised to accept Christianity, and to be baptized. Bishop Sigurd himself baptized Gudbrand, who built a church upon his estate, and endowed it with great possessions.*

This was the general course with which King Olaf prosecuted his mission of "peace and goodwill to men;" by armed force to lay hold of and subdue the chief peasants of each district, that thereby the commoner people might be awed into submission. The homes of all suspected persons were visited, many were taken prisoners, all were plundered. But even worse than this, his zeal was not satisfied without the putting of many of his victims to death; while others were hamstrung, some deprived of sight, and some condemned to perpetual banishment.†

But we must hasten to the closing scene of King Olaf's life, and though we find him surrounded with difficulties arising from his own severities, again left almost unsupported by the chiefs of his native land, and threatened with a violent insurrection through the whole northern half of his dominions, we shall still find there is something of a halo around him, and that by the sheer force of his faith his sun was yet to go down with something of natural splendour.

A vast rising of the peasantry on the borders of Finmark had been brought about by the united machinations of several of the chieftains banished by Olaf during the earlier portion of his reign, helped, as is related, by English gold, and under the auspices of Hardicanute, who still clung tenaciously to his project of regaining Norway to his crown. Foremost among the leaders of this insurrection was one Thore Hund, whose followers were inspired as much by their faith in the ancient religion of their land as by their desire to free themselves from a cruel monarch.

Siegwart Petersen, "Fortællinger at Fædrelandets Historie," p. 313, et seq.

+ Snorre Sturlasson, "Hemiskringla," ed. Unger, chap. 116.

It was thus an acknowledged conflict between the hammer of Thor and the followers of the Cross. And it was to be the last.

Olaf's band had been weakened by continual internecine war, and by defection and desertion. In his last extremity he had felt compelled to seek the help of his relative the Swedish king, who, however, having enough. to do to manage his own refractory subjects, offered him only the questionable assistance of obtaining whosoever would of their own free will enlist beneath his standard. In such a time, and under such circumstances as then prevailed, there were numerous bands of freebooters on the troubled borders of these two States, and many such flocked to Olaf's train ; and thus, with an army of desperadoes, he crossed over once again into his own dominions. Drawing up his forces at a place called Stav, Olaf numbered and appointed his army. Here he made the sorrowful discovery that there were about a thousand heathen amongst his followers. He flatly re fused to have a single unbeliever in the battle by his side. Like Gideon of old he would purge his army to its lowest force. They must be baptized, or go. "We will not," said he, "rely upon our numbers alone, but will put our trust in God, for by His power and mercy shall we gain the victory." Sincerity cannot be denied to a man like this, whatever other blemishes may stain his character. The heathen withdrew to consider the question, and about one-half agreed to be baptized; the other half returned to their native land. There was a small troop also, led by two brothers, Gaute and Afrafaste, both mighty men in war, who again offered themselves to the king. Olaf asked once more if they would be baptized. "No," answered they. The king said, "Then you, too, must go your way." They went a little distance, and the brothers, anxious for the fray, considered what to do. Afrafaste said, "I want to fight, and to me it matters not on which side I am found." Gaute answered, "Nay, if I fight, I shall help the king, for he needs it most, and as we have to believe on some god, what matters it whether we believe on the white Christ or any other? My advice is that we be baptized, since the king desires it so much; then we can go into battle with him." All their company joined

in this; they went to the king and were baptized, and in the battle of Sticklerstad fought with the band of confirmation still on their heads.

All was ordered for the fight. On one side the host of Odin, led by Thore Hund, representing the last struggling energy of the Pagan North; on the other the band of Olaf, animated with a doubtful ray of that light which was now to conquer or to be destroyed. About mid-day the two hosts met. The sun shone brightly on the plains of Sticklerstad, and the white cross gleamed upon the helmets and shields of Olaf's warrior-band. The fiery fierceness of rage flashed from the eyes of the Finmark peasantry, looking still fiercer in the grotesqueness of their reindeer-hide apparel. With a cry of "Fram, fram, Búandmenn!" the raging Thore urged them on. "Fram, fram, Kristsmenn, Krossmenn, Konungsmenn !" cried Olaf, and in deadly throes they closed.

We have exceedingly prolix and minute accounts of this famous battle in the old Sagas, giving almost every incidental stroke of many of the daring heroes who fought on both sides, and which, for the most part, are reliable enough, but here we shall content ourselves by giving a generalizing view as more suitable to our purpose.

The battle, then, commenced a little after noon. It was a bright and glorious autumn day, and the clearness of the northern atmosphere was sullied by no single cloud. But it seemed as if the God of nature looked down upon the struggling and raging mass of human beings whose whole energies were bent on dealing death. So eager, indeed, had been the combatants, that speedily after their first furious onslaught the two opposing forces had become intermingled in almost inextricable confusion, to which the kindred war-cries of their several chiefs no little contributed. The supreme stillness of Nature seemed at length to overawe the surging hosts, and the shouting of the warriors them-, selves was hushed. Though there was no breath of air, no single cloud, and nothing to betoken any convulsion of natural forces, a gloom seemed to be gradually overspreading the sky above their heads, and an intenser gloom began to settle upon the deadly field. The darkness thickened, but still the seething

hosts fought on. As if influenced by the natural gloom surrounding and overshadowing them, every human voice was stilled. The deadly javelin was cast to strike alike on friend or foe; hand to hand the brave men fought; the wounded fell without a murmur, and no groan or sigh escaped the dying on that dreadful day. Amid the impressive gloom none were conscious of victory or defeat. They seemed animated only with desire to slay or die. At length the curtain of darkness began to draw aside. Little by little the deep crimson in the west passed off into streaks of gold; and ere the sun betook him to his final rest, he once more cast his beams, as if exultingly, upon the still struggling remnants of the Christian and heathen hosts. His light was opportune; the whitecross emblems of Olaf's followers were seen to gleam on every part of the battle-field. The war-cry-" Men of Christ"-was once more heard, and the forces rallied to a given point. It was, however, but to die more nobly; Olaf's forces had been vastly outnumbered, and had been beaten down by fearful odds. Olaf himself at length was slain, but still the desperate carnage was continued till the second darkness, that of night, laid hold upon them with its staying hand. Then Olaf's army had been almost decimated; but though Thore Hund and Paganism had gained a well-fought field, and had obtained the victory of brute force, it was a victory over which they could not boast, for the glory that so speedily settled upon Olaf's name, and the miraculous trust that lured the minds of men to the doctrines he had spread, vanquished once and for ever the old beliefs, and thus the Paganism of the North was slain. As Nature once before had seemed to work on its behalf, so now, at its close, it seemed to make amends by teaching their superstitious minds that the glory of the old things had passed away; they were not slow to interpret the wonderful darkness and the then succeeding light of that memorable day into an omen of death and of the life to come. This battle was fought on the 31st of August, 1030, during an almost total eclipse of the sun, and the coincidence is none the less impressive even to us who can now read its effect in the light of science. Upon the ignorance of that age it came

Most High Himself. As the Danish writer, Ludwig Wimmer, puts it:-"The peasants gained the day, but they were ill-satisfied with their victory; in that solar eclipse they saw a visible token of the wrath of God; and by his death, which was soon looked upon as that of a martyr, Olaf did more for Christianity than he had done with all his efforts during life."

Shall we say anything now of Olaf's character, or is it not sufficiently shown in those incidents we have selected from his life? That he was a man of great mind and great daring his thoughts and actions tend to prove. That he possessed deep affection is instanced by his constancy to his friends, which has not been shown in our Paper, because such instances lie outside our purpose. But that along with these and many other traits we must admire, there were also many evidences of severity, and harshness, and even cruelty, we are ready to confess. These, however, to a great extent, reflected the influences of his time and nation. They were the forces of the school in which he lived, and if under the teachings of the new dispensation he did not learn all the love of which his heart was capable, Olaf does not stand alone. The severities he practised cannot be too much condemned. He did not learn the lesson which Christianity has since taught to nationalities as well as to individuals of "overcoming evil with good." It is, however, no little to say of him, that in the general darkness of that age, and amid the general rudeness of that people, he could lay hold of a great and new belief, and by the force of his will prosecute its establishment against all odds, and at the sacrifice of his own temporal welfare and power. That he was sincere and earnest in his endeavours to supplant the old idolatry by the newer faith, the privations he endured bear sufficient testimony; his whole energy was bent to the object of its triumphant proclamation throughout his native land, from the first planting of his foot upon the treacherous soil of Selje to the moment when, upon the terrible plain of Sticklerstad, he fell a sacrifice to his own determination, and where, also, he "sealed his testimony with his blood."

wyth an Engle.*

T is not often that a book of the fifteenth century interests others than the scholar and antiquarian. Besides the value which this facsimile reprint, however, possesses in their eyes, it must be dear to every angler as being the first printed English book on matters connected with his craft. Yet it has hitherto been more talked about than known. The original editions have become very rare, and are only found in the best libraries. The late Mr. Pickering, in 1827, published a reprint of it, but in Roman type, which rapidly went out of print, and has for many years been practically unattainable. It was

a happy thought to include it in Mr. Stock's series of reprints; and to our mind, whether judging it as the scholar, antiquarian, or fisherman, it is the most interesting of these reproductions. Every angler may now acquaint himself for a few shillings with this most curious treatise, the sole remnant of English monastic writings on fishing (many of which were current in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries), and the fountain-head from which so many succeeding angling writers borrowed, frequently without acknowledging their debt. As only a limited number of this "Treatyse" has been printed, we counsel scholarly anglers to purchase a copy at once. If Pickering's edition speedily became rare, à fortiori this most beautiful facsimile will much sooner be sold off, and then cannot fail of being largely enhanced in value. At least another half-century must elapse, in all probability, before any one will for a third time reproduce the book.

Before describing this reproduction it is worth while alluding to the history of the "Book of St. Albans." The Prioress of the Benedictine Convent of Sopwell in Hertfordshire (a cell to the Abbey of St. Alban), Dame Juliana Berners, in the second half of the fifteenth century, seems to have possessed very strongly those tastes for hunting, hawking, and fishing, which prevailed for another

By Dame Juliana Berners. Reprinted from the "Book of St. Albans." Elliot Stock. 1880.

the first time, and this it is which is here reproduced. For the reason why it was thus set forth in the greater volume the reader may be referred to the curious reason, exactly suited, however, to the age in which she lived, which forms the last paragraph of the "Treatyse." But it was soon published separately, and some ten editions, either of the greater or smaller quarto, are enumerated before 1600, which is an index to the popular estimation `in which the work was held.

The diction, the haphazard spelling, and, above all, the subject-matter of this first angling treatise are especially interesting to the antiquarian. He cannot help lamenting that no wrecks of medieval fishing lore, save this one gold-laden argosy, have been drifted from the storm which broke over the monastic houses in Henry VIII.'s time to the shores of the eager nineteenth century. The "Treatyse" contains absolutely all that we know of the practice of angling from Olian's time onwards. The Dame speaks of "bokes of credence" in which she had found angling secrets "wryten." They have all irretrievably perished, so that, a parte ante as well as a parte post especial lustre falls upon the Dame's own performance.

The scholarly angler will turn with peculiar pleasure to the pages of Burton's "Anatomy of Melancholy," to find how that general plunderer enriched his book with the most beautiful passages of of Dame Juliana's "Treatyse." Another curious investigation will show him how greatly Walton, usually reputed the fons et origo of English angling, was indebted to the Dame's arrangement of her subject, as well as to her wise and practical knowledge of the art. Most interesting also it is to trace how lovingly this "Treatyse" is named in the many books on fishing which have been put forth during the present century. Few books have so coloured the practice of an art, and the estimation in which its professors are popularly held, as this "Treatyse" has affected angling. For these topics, and an analysis of the whole "Treatyse," we may refer our readers to the preface which the Rev. M. G. Watkins has contributed to this reproduction. It is worth while pointing out briefly to those anglers, whether humble float-fishers or followers of the more artistic

practice of casting a fly, the valuable character of the information contained in the "Treatyse" relating to medieval angling, which it is useless to seek elsewhere. It opens with an eloquent pleading for angling as a healthy and cheerful pastime. The only mishap likely to befall the angler is to lose a hook or a fish, and "yf he faylle of one, he maye not faylle of a nother, yf he dooth as this treatyse techyth; but yf there be nought in the water. And yet atte the leest he hath his holsom walke and mery at his ease, a swete ayre of the swete sauoure of the meede flowers; that makyth hym hungry," and much more to this effect. Then follows how the angler's "harnays," or rod, line, and hooks, are to be made. No Farlow or Bowness as yet existed to give a fisherman the benefit of skilled workmanship. Those who wield a light trout fly-rod at the present day will smile at the ponderous rod with which the lady equipped their forefathers. It must have been eighteen feet long, and resembled a modern salmon rod. With this the angler was supposed to capture every fish that swims, a dace as well as a pike. The Dame particularly insists on the floats and plummets which are to be used, and teaches how hooks are to be made; this too not yet having become a separate branch of industry. The different. modes of angling succeed, together with the most suitable times of the day and year at which to go fishing. An excellent account of the different fresh-water fish comes next; and is followed by what has excited more interest than perhaps anything else in the Dame's book, as it proved helpful to Izaak Walton in his immortal work, the list of the "xij. flyes wyth whyche ye shall angle to ye trought and grayllying, and dublie like as ye shall now here me tell." We are unwilling to spoil his pleasure who has yet to make the acquaintance of Dame Juliana Berners, by quoting from the conclusion of her "Treatyse," with its deeply religious tone, and the many admirable suggestions which she offers to fishermen, and which, it may be added, are still as applicable to every "civil well-governed angler," as they were in her day. Much of the spirit of the fifteenth century, as far as consideration for others and for the highest blessedness of a Christian