His
son, Magnus the Good, (see Note 6), was chosen King in 1035.
Sverre (1182-1202) was a man of unusual physical and mental
powers,calm and dignified, and wonderfully eloquent. Yet he was a
war king, and the civil conflicts of his time were a misfortune for
Norway, although he bravely defended the royal prerogatives and the
land against the usurpation of temporal power by the Church of Rome,
and put an end to ecclesiastical rule in Norway.
Stanza 3. About five centuries of less renown for Norway are passed
over, and this and the following stanza refer to the time of the
Great Northern War, 1700-21, and the danger arising from Charles XII
of Sweden. From 1319 to 1523 Norway was in union with Denmark and
Sweden; from 1523 with Denmark only. In this war, waged by Denmark-
Norway, Russia, and Saxony-Poland against Charles XII, in order to
lessen the might which Sweden had gained by the Thirty Years' War,
Norwegian peasants, men and women, took up arms against the Swedes.
Peasant is in this volume the usual rendering of the word "bonde"
in the original; for its fuller significance see Note 78.
Tordenskjold, Peter (1691-1720), a great Norwegian naval hero,
whose original name was Wessel, and who was born in Trondhjem. He
received the name Tordenskjold when he was ennobled. By his
remarkable achievements he contributed much to the favorable issue
of the Great Northern War; he often had occasion to ravage the coast
of Sweden and to protect that of Norway.
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