Today is St. Olaf’s Day. Saint Olaf (c. 995 – 29 July 1030), also called Olaf the Holy, Olaf II, Olaf Haraldsson, and Olaf the Stout or “Large” was King of Norway from 1015 to 1028. He was killed in the Battle of Stiklestad on 29 July 1030.
Olaf got around. n 1008, Olaf landed on the Estonian island of Saaremaa (Osilia). The Osilians, taken by surprise, had at first agreed to Olaf’s demands, but then gathered an army during the negotiations and attacked the Norwegians. Olaf nevertheless won the battle. Olaf participated alongside fellow Viking Thorkell the Tall in the siege of Canterbury in 1011. Olaf sailed to the southern coast of Finland sometime in 1008. The journey resulted in the Battle at Herdaler. He led a successful seaborne attack that took down London Bridge.
Olaf saw it as his calling to unite Norway into one kingdom, as Harald Fairhair had largely succeeded in doing. On the way home he wintered with Duke Richard II of Normandy. Marauding Vikings had conquered this region in 881. Richard was himself an ardent Christian, and the Normans had also previously converted to Christianity. Before leaving, Olaf was baptised in Rouen in the pre-Romanesque Notre-Dame Cathedral by Richard’s brother Robert the Dane, archbishop of Normandy.
St. Olaf’s Day is celebrated in Norway and the Faroe Islands.
Medieval depictions of Saint Olaf adopted features from Thor. This wooden statue is from Sankt Olofs kyrka in Scania, southern Sweden.
So sweet!!!
22 MPH over the speed limit…
Uh oh!
BADA BING!
I’d socialize more, but it gets in the way of me staying home doing whatever I want.
If a bee is bothering you, don’t swat it or run away, just stare at it. Because seeing is bee leaving.
I said to the doctor, “That hemorrhoid cream you prescribed for me is causing some unpleasant reactions”. He said “Where are you applying it?” I said, “On the bus”.
My wife asked me if she could have some peace and quiet while she fixed dinner. So I took the battery out of the smoke detector.
Imagine calling yourself the most popular president ever and yet being scared shitless of late-night comedians and public broadcasting.
Doctor to Patient: It seems your weight is perfect. You just happen to be eleven feet too short.
My high school was so small we had sex education and drivers education in the same car.
Apparently there is a necrophiliac on the loose. Look alive people!
The wedding was so emotional even the cake was in tiers. Target has a Starbucks inside. It’s time Home Depot gets a Waffle House.
A police officer came to my house and asked me where I was between 5 and 6. He seemed irritated when I answered “kindergarten.”
Did you know there are over 45,000 Christian denominations worldwide? Bickering over minutia is one of the commonalities they seem to have.
That feelin you get when someone says, “You got all that?” and you haven’t heard a thing they said.
Make sure to type “thank you” to ChatGPT so it spares your life during the apocalypse.
Houston, I’m starting to think I might be the problem.
Why did they name it parmesan cheese and not spaghetti confetti? It’s like we’re not even trying anymore.
I love being outside. Just not when it’s too hot, or too cold, or windy, or if there are bugs.
Shout out to the days when you said you were at a sleepover but you were actually lying in a field dying of alcohol poisoning.
Internet friend: “I’m in your city!” Me: “Okay, have fun.”
Why would I bother to take the high road when I can take the psychopath?
I’ve been putting off a chore for 6 months. I did it today. It took me 4 minutes. I will not learn from this.
Whenever I see chocolate, I hear two voices in my head. One of them says, “Eat the chocolate”. The other one says, “You heard her, eat the chocolate!”.
I can’t watch a movie where a dog dies but will watch a serial killer documentary where 27 people are murdered to relax at night.
Do people that run marathons know they don’t have to?
When someone tells you to do something that you were going to do already and you think ‘well now I’m not going to do it’.
All I’m saying is that the first reporter who yells out “What the f**k are you talking about” deserves a Pulitzer Prize.
A man got on the bus with both of his front trouser pockets full of golf balls and sat down next to a blonde. The puzzled blonde kept looking at him and his bulging pockets. Finally, after many glances from her, he said, “It’s golf balls.” The blonde continued to look at him for a very long time, thinking deeply about what he had said. Finally, unable to contain her curiosity any longer, she asked, “Does it hurt as much as tennis elbow?”
There was a guy who would introduce himself like this, “Hi, I’m Bill Spaulding. Perhaps you’ve played with my balls”.
Today is hte birthday, in 1931, of American musician, and singer-songwriter Randy Sparks. He was the founder of The New Christy Minstrels and The Back Porch Majority. The New Christy Minstrels 1962 debut album, Presenting the New Christy Minstrels, won a Grammy Award and remained on the Billboard 200 albums chart for two years. Sparks also wrote ‘Saturday Night in Toledo, Ohio’, which was recorded and made famous by John Denver. He died in San Diego on 11 February 2024 at the age of 90. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfxgbsXeTdE
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