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Induction loop system installed |
Saint Olaf by Dr. Olaf D. Cuthbert Olaf Haraldson was born in 995 AD. At an early age he joined a band of Vikings and fought both for Richard of Normandy and Ethelred II of England against the Danes. By 1016, at the age of 21 years, he made himself ruler of all Norway. At that time he had recently been baptised and he brought English clergy to his country to help in the conversion of his people. Determined to destroy the old heathenism and replace it with Christianity he used both bribery and force in the attempt. Whilst such methods might be frowned upon today, in the climate of the eleventh century they would have been deemed quite reasonable. However, his many adversaries combined with the Anglo-Danish king, Cnut, to drive him and his followers into exile. The latter included the young Rognvald Brusison, later to be Earl Rognvald of Orkney, whom Olaf had fostered. During the year 1030 Olaf returned to Norway to try to regain his kingdom but was defeated and killed in battle by Cnut at Stiklestad. He came to be regarded by the Norwegians as a martyr and a symbol of their independence. The cathedral at Nidaros, later to become known as Trondheim, is dedicated to him. The wooden sculpture of St. Olaf by Frances Pelly depicts him with a cross hanging from his belt and his sword grasped behind his back – to be produced only if persuasion fails! Behind the saint’s head there is a representation of a Red-throated Diver, a bird typical of Scandinavia and Orkney. It is one of the first harbingers of spring in these islands and represents the bringer of new birth to the land. It is also the ‘signature’ of the sculptor, which she uses on many of her carvings. The sculpture was donated to the church by Dr. Olaf Cuthbert in memory of his uncle, Capt. Olaf Ranson Cuthbert, who was killed in action on the Somme at the age of twenty-five on 1st July 1916.
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