Saint Sigfrid’s Day
(But let us not forget Saints Winaman, Unaman and Sunaman who are also commemorated on this day.)
Evangelizing the pagans of northern Europe was a tough job and, for centuries, the reward for the efforts of Christian priests and monks was death. Many a mission was slaughtered at the water’s edge or after the first sermon denouncing pagan idols. Even some conversions of Nordic kings came to naught when their successors decided that maybe the good old gods were best after all.
Finally, early in the eleventh century, an English monk from the Benedictine Abbey at Glastonbury named Sigfrid succeeded in converting Olof, the King of Sweden, who would be the first Swedish ruler to remain faithful to Christianity until his death. Joining their uncle Sigfrid on the mission front were his nephews Winaman, Unaman and Sunaman who had the misfortune of preaching to obdurate pagans who murdered them and threw their heads in a nearby lake. Sigrid recovered the heads (see above) and these relics were venerated in Sweden until the Protestant Reformation.
Sigfrid won admiration when he refused to allow the murderers to be executed and remitted the blood fine. He died c. 1045, revered as The Second Apostle of the North. (St Ansgar, 801-865, was the First.)