Christian missionaries began to be active in Iceland by 980. One of them was the Icelandic native Thorvald Konradsson, who had been baptised on the continent by the Saxon bishop Fridrek, with whom he preached the gospel in Iceland in 981, converting only Thorvald's father Konrad and his family. They were unsuccessful and even had a clash with pagans at the Althing, killing two men. After the event, in 986 Fridrek returned to Saxony while Thorvald embarked for Viking expeditions in Eastern Europe. Among the other proselytisers, King Olaf of Norway sent the Icelandic native Stefnir Thorgilsson in 995–996 and the Saxon priest Thangbrand in 997–999. Both the missions were unsuccessful: Stefnir violently destroyed temples and ancestral shrines, leading the Althing to enact a law against Christians—who were declared "frændaskomm", a "disgrace on one's kin", and could now be denounced—and to outlaw Stefnir, who returned to Norway; Thangbrand, a learnt but violent man, succeeded in converting some important families, but he also had many opponents, and, when he killed a poet—who had composed verses against him—, he was outlawed and he too went back to Norway.