Historic figures in the Viking Era of 995-1035 A.D., Danish King Knut the Great and Norwegian King Olav Haraldson (Saint Olav) were arch enemies. The savage battle at Holy River was only one of many of their interlaced destinies in these latter years of the Viking era. As lifelong rivals, they clashed sword and axe time and again in their contest for power. The days of piracy nearly ended, the campaigns of sea-roving Norsemen were undertaken for exploration, trade, and political control. The early 11th century life in the Christian north was more sophisticated than in the isolated and primitive times of the early Vikings. Now the graceful longboat fleets were even more spectacular, the men just as daring, valiant, and lusty, the women as spirited, courageous, and beautiful. It was a unique period when the northland was in a flux, a period unfamiliar to most people other than scholars of Scandinavian history, and never before presented in a story-telling style. Lightly fictionalized to humanize history, the story is based on fact, geological discovery, and accepted legend, and little needing any embellishment. The Blood Axe did exist. It belonged to Olav and later his son Magnus the Good. Packed with colorful insights into life and thought as it was in the political and religious transitional period of 995-1035 A.D., this epic tale touches on evangelical zeal, pagan rites, violent sea and land battles, folk medicine, conjugal love and tender liaisons, heroism and treachery, honor, loyalty, and treason, joy and suffering. . . . Of the many books researched in pinning down and blending the stories of Olav and Knut, probably the most reliable are (1) "ST. Olav"s Saga" in the Heimskringla by Icelander Snorri Sturluson and translated to English many centuries later by Lee M. Hollander for the American-Scandinavian Foundation in 1964, and (2) "Canute the Great" by Professor L. M. Larson , Ph.D., published by G.P. Putnam Sons in 1912. I am grateful to them for their information in putting these two mens" stories together. -Eileene Harrison Beer