2021-08-18 Wed

Olaf I was king of Denmark from 1086 to 1095, following the death of his brother Canute IV the Holy. He was a son of King Sweyn II Estridsson, and the third of Sweyn's sons to rule. He married Ingegerd, the daughter of Harald Hardrade, but did not have any sons. He was succeeded by his brother Eric I Evergood.

Olaf's reign was plagued by several consecutive years of crop failure and famine. According to Arild Hvitfeldt's "Danmarks Riges Kronike", in those years springtime was so dry that the fields looked as if they had been burned, and in the fall the skies opened up and rain fell so often that people floated about on pieces of wood to cut the heads off the grain that rose above the water.

The hunger of the people grew so great that they dug the earth looking for roots. The wealthy grew thin, and the poor died of starvation. Sickness and starvation soon visited great and small. In the first early attempts of getting Canute canonized, Olaf was given the nickname "Hunger" in order to magnify the splendour of Canute. At the time it was claimed that the famine was sent by God as divine punishment for the sacrilegious killing of Canute. Chronicler Saxo Grammaticus described the hunger as a strictly Danish phenomenon, though it has later been described as a general problem of Europe in those years.

Here is an image of a coin depicting King Olaf I of Denmark.

Image Source: Wikipedia.org