Olof Skötkonung

Olof Skötkonung (Old Norse Óláfr skautkonungr, also called Olaf the Swede) was king of Sweden from around 995 until his death in 1022, and the first Christian king of the land. He was born around 980, son of Eric the Victorious. He is buried in the cemetery at Husaby.

He is the first ruler of Sweden about whom something is known with certainty. He is regarded as the first king known to have ruled both the Swedes and the Geats, and the first king in Sweden to have minted coins. His reign marks in Sweden the transition from the Viking Age to the Middle Ages. He was the first Christian king in central Sweden; Norse beliefs persisted in parts of the land until the 12th and 13th centuries. With the Danish king Sweyn Forkbeard he defeated the Norwegian king Olaf Tryggvason in the battle of Svolder, in 999 or 1000, and the two divided Norway. When the Norwegian kingdom was reestablished, in 1015, by Olaf II the Saint, a new war broke out between Norway and Sweden.

Adam of Bremen praises him as a good Christian, while Icelandic authors paint him haughty and quick to anger. He is said to have preferred royal sports to war. He had a son, Anund Jacob, and a daughter, Ingegerd, who became the wife of Grand Prince Yaroslav of Kiev and is honored in the Russian Church as Saint Anna of Novgorod.

He appears in lists of royal saints, but our sources show no liturgical veneration of him. No Orthodox synodal canonization is known.