The Story of Norway by Hjalmar Hjorth Boysen

MAGNUS OLAFSSON was an illegitimate child, his mother, Alfhild, being, according to one report, an Englishwoman of high birth; according to another, the queen's laundress. When he was born he was so small and feeble that it seemed as if he could not live many hours. It was in the middle of the night and no one dared to wake the king. His friend, Sighvat Scald, was therefore called, and he assumed the responsibility of naming the child Magnus, after Carolus Magnus, the German emperor. A priest was then found who baptized it. When the king heard of the occurrence he was very wroth, and chided the scald. There was no one in his family named Magnus, and perhaps he even suspected that Sighvat had made a mistake in selecting the Latin surname of the emperor rather than his real name, Karl. It was under these unpropitious circumstances that the boy was born who became the heir to St. Olaf's kingdom and the love which a repentant people lavished upon his memory.

He was not quite eleven years old when he was proclaimed king at the Oere-_thing_, but well grown and intelligent. He allowed himself, during the first years of his reign, to be guided by the counsel of Einar Thambarskelver and Kalf Arnesson; but soon gained sufficient independence of judgment to assert his own will.