Olaf the Glorious A Story of the Viking Age by Leighton, Robert, -1934

Many tales are told of his strength and agility--of how he could smite alike with either hand, of how he could shoot with two spears at once. It is said that he could jump higher than his own height both backwards and forwards, and this with his weapons and complete armour on. He was the swiftest and strongest swimmer in all Scandinavia, and at running and climbing no man was his equal.

And yet he was no boaster. His great deeds came of his eagerness in all matters, and not from a desire to belittle his companions. He was kind and lowly hearted, bountiful of gifts, very glorious of attire, and before all men for high heart in battle. It may be that he also was cruel, for it is told that he was stern and wrathful with all who offended him, and that in punishing his enemies he knew no mercy. He, however, sought only to do all things that it was customary for a viking to do. To win fame, to gain wealth, to plunder, and to slay--these were the passions that ruled him. The ocean was his only home. He derided the comforts of a warm fireside and scorned the man who should sleep under a sooty rafter or die on a bed of straw. To give up his last breath amid the clamour of battle was his one unalterable ambition; for only those who died thus, besprinkled with blood, could ever hope to win favour of the pagan gods, or to enter the sacred halls of Valhalla. In the spirit of his times he believed that the viking life was the noblest and most honourable that a man could follow; he believed that the truest title to all property was given by winning it with the sword, and very soon he became as wild and reckless as any sea rover on the Baltic. No danger, howsoever great, had power to daunt him, or to lessen his joy in the fresh freedom of the open sea with its wild hoarse winds and its surging perilous storms.

It was in the autumntide that Olaf encountered the first serious storm. By this time he had added to his fleet many vessels which he had captured in battle, and some that he had had built by his shipwrights; and he bethought him that he would now sail out of the Baltic Sea and make his way round to the coasts of Norway, where, with his great force of men and ships behind him, he might surely hope to win the glory that he coveted. He had kept his favourite companions and his chosen warriors on board his dragonship, so that they might ever be near him in case of need. But Egbert of Britain and Kolbiorn Stallare, after their quarrel over the game of chess, had not been friendly towards each other, so Egbert was placed in command over one of the other vessels of the fleet--a Longship named the Snake.