CONCERNING THE HOLY MARTYRS HENRY AND ALFARD, IN SWEDEN AND NORWAY.
ABOUT THE YEAR OF CHRIST 1055.
CommentaryHenry, Martyr in Sweden (Saint) Alfard, Martyr in Norway (Saint)
G. H.
To Sigfrid the Bishop and Apostle of Norway and Sweden, and to his Martyr nephews, we join these two Martyrs, of whom the one, Henry, Hericus, or Ericus, adorned Sweden with his shed blood, and the other, Alfard, Alvard, or Alfvard, adorned Norway. Adam of Bremen records them in Book 4 of the Ecclesiastical History, chapter 16, and writes that he learned of their martyrdom from King Svein Estridsen of Denmark in these words: In the most recent times of Archbishop Adalbert, when I came to Bremen (which he indicates was done in the year 1067), having heard of the wisdom of the same King Svein, Adam writes from the account of King Svein. I soon resolved to come to him; and being received most graciously by him, as by all, I gathered from his lips much material for this little book. For he was learned in the knowledge of letters and most generous to strangers, and he himself directed his preachers, his clergy, into all Sweden and Norway and into the islands that are in those parts; from whose truthful and most pleasant narration I learned that in his time many from the barbarian nations had been converted to the Christian faith, and that some had been crowned with martyrdom both in Sweden and in Norway; of whom, he says, a certain foreigner named Henry, St. Henry crowned with martyrdom in Sweden, while he was preaching among the farther Swedes, earned the palm of martyrdom by the cutting off of his head. Another, named Alfard, Alfard in Norway, living long and secretly among the Norsemen in holy conduct, could not be hidden. He, therefore, while he was protecting an enemy, was killed by his friends. At the place of rest of these men, great miracles of healing are today displayed to the peoples. Thus Adam, They shine with miracles. which Baronius reports from him in Volume 11 of the Ecclesiastical History, number 18, at the year of Christ 1067, when Adam learned these things from King Svein. Vastovius treats of them in the Vitis Aquilonia, numbers them among the holy Martyrs of Scandinavia proper, and supposes they flourished about the year 1055; and he understands the farther Swedes whom Henry instructed to be the inhabitants of the Gulf of Bothnia.