Though troubled from time to time by disputes among the neighboring barbarians, the Frankish monarch might now be said to enjoy peace; and while still in the possession of robust health, he resolved to prepare for death, by allotting among his children such portions of territory as he wished them to possess when he should be removed from the scene. Both his sons and the people willingly consented to the proposed arrangements, which, indeed, bore the stamp of his usual wisdom and justice. But the advanced age which he attained, brought with it the usual evils of protracted life. He saw his friends and children swept away before him. His son Louis alone remained to inherit his vast dominions. With this single drawback the remainder of his time was as prosperous as his earlier career had been; till at length, being suddenly attacked with pleurisy, he expired, after a short illness, in the seventy-second year of his age and the forty-seventh of his reign, January 28, 814.
Extracts from "Early Kings of Norway," by THOMAS CARLYLE
Olaf Tryggveson also makes a great figure in the Faröer Saga, and recounts there his early troubles, which were strange and many. He is still reckoned a grand hero of the North, though his _vates_ now is only Snorro Sturrleson of Iceland. Tryggveson had indeed many adventures in the world. His poor mother, Astrid, was obliged to fly with him, on murder of her husband[10] by Gunhild--to fly for life, three months before her little Olaf was born. She lay concealed in reedy island, fled through trackless forests, reached her father's with the little baby in her arms, and lay deep-hidden there; tended only by her father himself; Gunhild's pursuit being so incessant and keen as with sleuth-hounds. Poor Astrid had to fly again deviously to Sweden, to Esthland (Esthonia), to Russia. In Esthland she was sold as a slave, quite parted from her boy, who also was sold, and again sold; but did at last fall in with a kinsman high in the Russian service; did from him find redemption and help, and so rose, in a distinguished manner, to manhood, victorious self-help, and recovery of his kingdom at last. He even met his mother again, he as King of Norway, she as one wonderfully lifted out of darkness into new life, and happiness still in store.