The Town Hall Windows - King Olaf Tryggvison and Queen Thyra
The history of King Olaf Tryggvason and Queen Thyra:
Olaf Tryggvason, born 968, son of King Tryggve in Vika, and great-grandson of Harald Hårfagri, King of Norway from 995 to 1000 A.D., was baptised a Christian in 992 by a hermit in the Isles of Scilly. Landing in Orkney in 995, he summoned Jarl Sigurd and commanded him to consent to be baptised and to make his people profess Christianity. When the Jarl hesitated, the King seized his son, and drawing his sword, gave Sigurd the option of renouncing the worship of Odin or of seeing his son slain. Sigurd not unnaturally chose the former alternative, but it is obvious from his subsequent history that his conversion had been more apparent than real. King Olaf adopted more peaceable means in his attempt to Christianise Shetland, to which he sent on a mission his friend Sigmund Brestison, a leader in the Faroe Islands.
Thyra Haraldsdottir, was a sister of King Svend of Sweden. She was the last of Olaf's numerous wives, and incited her husband to make war against her brother -- a declaration of hostilities which cost Olaf his life at the battle of Svolder in year 1000.
