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Olaf served his Viking "apprenticeship in looting and murder" before he was 14. Then he set out for England, where he took part in the savage murder of Alphege, the Archbishop of Canterbury. Olaf was 18 when he was baptized, 21 when he became king, but he continued his murderous ways, against foreign foes and against his own Norwegian subjects. As Coulson sums up his life, he is a man "not easy to understand. He was a warrior, often brutal, and a man of loose life..." Olaf was particularly revered by those Norwegians who hated the Danes. It is Olaf's battle-axe, often used, that is shown in the paws of the lion on our school crest. Is Olaf's life a model for our own, or a cautionary tale for the path we must shun? Source: The Saints: A Concise Biographical Dictionary, ed. by John Coulson
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