The Kings of Norway
Harald Fairhair — the Making of Norway
Ragnhild's tree
Before Harald was born, the saga says, his mother Ragnhild — wise and far-seeing — dreamt a great dream. She stood in her herb-garden and took a thorn from her shift; but as she held it the thorn grew into a vast tree, one end rooting itself deep in the earth, the other rising so high it seemed to overspread all Norway, its lower part red as blood, its stem green, its branches white as snow.[1]
The dream is the seed of everything. The tree is her son and his line; its roots the kingdom he will fix in the soil, its spreading crown the realm that will cover the whole land. The saga opens the founding not with a battle but with a prophecy, because what Harald builds is meant to be read as fated — the single Norway that all the later kings, and all the fleeing settlers, and so this entire atlas, will grow from.
The source text · 1
Ragnhild, who was wise and intelligent, dreamt great dreams. She dreamt, for one, that she was standing out in her herb-garden, and she took a thorn out of her shift; but while she was holding the thorn in her hand it grew so that it became a great tree, one end of which struck itself down into the earth, and it became firmly rooted; and the other end of the tree raised itself so high in the air that she could scarcely see over it, and it became also wonderfully thick. The under part of the tree was red with blood, but the stem upwards was beautifully green, and the branches white as snow. There were many and great limbs to the tree, some high up, others low down; and so vast was the tree's foliage that it seemed to her to cover all Norway, and even much more.— heimskringla
Ragnhild dreams of the thorn that grows into a great tree over Norway (Laing).
Halfdan's hair
His father Halfdan the Black, a strong Uplands king and a famous maker of laws, had never dreamt in his life, and thought it strange; so he sought counsel, and at last dreamt that he had the most magnificent hair of any man, falling in locks — some to his shoulders, some to his waist, some to the ground — of many different colours, but one lock surpassing all in beauty and brightness.[1] It was read as the line of kings that would descend from him, the brightest lock the greatest king to come.
So both parents dream the same thing in different images — the tree, the hair — and both point at the unborn Harald and the dynasty he will found. The doubled prophecy is the saga's way of saying that the unification was no accident of one ambitious man, but the working-out of something planted before his birth. And the hair, of all things, will become the very token of his great oath.
The source text · 1
King Halfdan never had dreams, which appeared to him an extraordinary circumstance; and he told it to a man called Thorlief the Wise, and asked him what his advice was about it. Thorlief said that what he himself did, when he wanted to have any revelation by dream, was to take his sleep in a swine-stye, and then it never failed that he had dreams. The king did so, and the following dream was revealed to him. He thought he had the most beautiful hair, which was all in ringlets; some so long as to fall upon the ground, some reaching to the middle of his legs, some to his knees, some to his loins or the middle of his sides, some to his neck, and some were only as knots springing from his head. These ringlets were of various colours; but one ringlet surpassed all the others in beauty, lustre, and size. This dream he told to Thorlief, who interpreted it thus:—There should be a great posterity from him, and his descendants should rule over countries with great, but not all with equally great honour; but one of his face should be more celebrated than all the others. It was the opinion of people that this ringlet betokened King Olaf the Saint.— heimskringla
Halfdan dreams of his magnificent many-coloured hair — his line of kings (Laing).
Gyða's refusal
Harald came young to his father's small kingdom, and when he sent his men to woo Gyða, a proud chief's daughter, she sent them back with a stinging answer: she would not waste herself on a king who ruled only a few districts, and would have him only when he had made himself king over all Norway, as other kings had made themselves masters of whole lands.[1]
It is one of the great provoking moments of the sagas — a woman's scorn turned into a kingdom's founding. Where a lesser man might have raged or given up, Harald's messengers thought the answer madness, but Harald himself called it wonderfully apt, and said he was grateful to her for words that set him on the path he should have seen himself. The making of Norway begins, the saga insists, with a refusal and a king proud enough to take it as a challenge rather than an insult.
The source text · 1
King Harald sent his men to a girl called Gyda, a daughter of King Eric of Idordaland, who was brought up as foster-child in the house of a great bonder in Valders. The king wanted her for his concubine; for she was a remarkably handsome girl, but of high spirit withal. Now when the messengers came there, and delivered their errand to the girl, she answered, that she would not throw herself away even to take a king for her husband, who had no greater kingdom to rule over than a few districts. "And methinks," said she, "it is wonderful that no king here in Norway will make the whole country subject to him, in the same way as Gorm the Old did in Denmark, or Eric at Upsal." The messengers thought her answer was dreadfully haughty, and asked what she thought would come of such an answer; for Harald was so mighty a man, that his invitation was good enough for her. But although she had replied to their errand differently from what they wished, they saw no chance, on this occasion, of taking her with them against her will; so they prepared to return. When they were ready, and the people followed them out, Gyde said to the messengers, "Now tell to King Harald these my words,—I will only agree to be his lawful wife upon the condition that he shall first, for my sake, subject to himself the whole of Norway, so that he may rule over that kingdom as freely and fully as King Eric over the Swedish dominions, or King Gorm over Denmark; for only then, methinks, can he be called the king of a people."— heimskringla
Gyða will not wed Harald until he rules all Norway (Laing).
The great oath
Stung and inspired both, Harald swore a solemn oath: that he would neither cut nor comb his hair until he had brought all Norway under himself — or die in the attempt.[1] The hair of his father's dream became the visible pledge of his ambition; he would go unkempt until the land was won.
The oath is the engine of the whole story. It turns a young king's desire into an irreversible public vow, binding him to total conquest or death, and it gives the saga its through-line — the wild hair growing longer year by year as kingdom after kingdom falls, a living calendar of the unification. From this moment the proud refusal of Gyða is settled business; what remains is the long, hard winning of Norway, district by district, with an oath upon his head.
The source text · 1
Now came the messengers back to King Harald, bringing him the words of the girl, and saying she was so bold and foolish that she well deserved that the king should send a greater troop of people for her, and inflict on her some disgrace. Then answered the king, "This girl has not spoken or done so much amiss that she should be punished, but rather she should be thanked for her words She has reminded me," said he, "of something which it appears to me wonderful I did not think of before. And now," added he, "I make the solemn vow, and take God to witness, who made me [3], and rules over all things, that never shall I clip or comb my hair until I have subdued the whole of Norway, with scatt [4], and duties, and domains; or if not, have died in the attempt." Guttorm thanked the king warmly for his vow; adding, that it was royal work to fulfil royal words.— heimskringla
Harald's oath not to cut or comb his hair until all Norway is his (Laing).
King by king
Then the long conquest. Harald moved out of Drontheim with his army and went through the land, region by region — Møre and Raumsdal, the Uplands, the coastal kingdoms — defeating king after petty king in battle.[1] Some he killed, some fled; Solve Klofe, whose father Harald slew, became a sea-rover harrying the coast in revenge. Year after year the unkempt king ground down the old patchwork of small realms.
This is the slow machinery of state-making, and the saga does not pretend it was clean or quick. It was a generation of war, of broken kings and burned districts and men driven to vengeance on the sea. But it was also irreversible: each conquered land became a piece of a single thing that had never existed before — one kingdom of Norway, under one crown, held by one man and his oath.
The source text · 1
King Harald moved out with his army from Drontheim, and went southwards to Möre.[10] Hunthiof was the name of the king who ruled over the district of Möre. Solve Ivlofe was the name of his son, and both were great warriors. King Kokve, who ruled over Raumsdal[11], was the brother of Solve's mother. Those chiefs gathered a great force when they heard of King Harald, and came against him. They met at Solskiel[12], and there was a great battle, which was gained by King Harald. Hornklofe tells of this battle:—— heimskringla
Harald conquers Møre and the southern districts, king by king (Laing).
The land made the king's
As he conquered, Harald remade the very basis of landholding. He made it law over every land he won that all the udal property — the free, inherited family land that was the bedrock of a Norseman's independence — should now belong to the king, and that the farmers, great and small, must pay him land-dues for what had been their own.[1] Over each district he set an earl to judge, collect the dues, and keep the king's peace.
This is the cut that drew the deepest blood. To a free Norse farmer, his udal land was his honour and his liberty; to be made the king's rent-payer on his own ground was a kind of bondage. Harald's law turned proud independent men into tenants overnight, and it is precisely this — not the killing in battle, but the taxing of the free — that the saga names as the grievance that emptied Norway of its boldest spirits.
The source text · 1
King Harald made this law over all the lands he conquered, that all the udal property should belong to him; and that the bonders, both great and small, should pay him land dues for their possessions.[5] Over every district he set an earl to judge according to the law of the land and to justice, and also to collect the land dues and the fines; and for this each earl received a third part of the dues, and services, and fines, for the support of his table and other expenses. Each earl had under him four or more hersers, each of whom had an estate of twenty merks yearly income bestowed on him and was bound to support twenty men-at-arms, and the earl sixty men, at their own expenses. The king had increased the land dues and burdens so much, that each of his earls had greater power and income than the kings had before; and when that became known at Drontheim, many great men joined the king, and took his service.— heimskringla
Harald's law: all udal land becomes the king's, farmers pay land-dues (Laing).
Hafrsfjord
The old kings of the south and west made one last stand. They gathered a great fleet and met Harald at Hafrsfjord, and there the saga's verse remembers a tremendous sea-battle — the war-ships sweeping over the dark-blue sea with dragon-throated prows, the clash of the gathered kings against the conqueror.[1] Harald broke them.
Hafrsfjord is the hinge of the whole founding. It was the decisive fight, after which, the saga says plainly, Harald met no further opposition in all Norway, his greatest enemies cut off or fled.[2] The patchwork of petty kingdoms that had covered the land since memory was finished in a single afternoon of ships and spears. One man now held what had been a hundred men's realms — and the question became what the proud and the defeated would do, now that there was no longer any free Norway to live in.
The source text · 2
"Has the news reached you?—have you heard Of the great fight at Hafurdsfiord,[19] Between our noble king brave Harald And King Kiotve rich in gold? The foemen came from out the East, Keen for the fray as for a feast. A gallant sight it was to see Their fleet sweep o’er the dark-blue sea; Each war-ship, with its threatening throat Of dragon fierce or ravenous brute[20] Grim gaping from the prow; its wales Glittering with burnished shields[21] like scales; Its crew of udal men of war, Whose snow-white targets shone from far; And many a mailed spearman stout From the West countries round about, English and Scotch, a foreign host, And swordsmen from the far French coast.[22] And as the foemen’s ships drew near, The dreadful din you well might hear;— heimskringla
The verse of the great sea-battle at Hafrsfjord (Laing).
After this battle King Harald met no opposition in Norway, for all his opponents and greatest enemies were cut off. But some, and they were a great multitude, fled out of the country, and thereby great districts were peopled. Jemteland and Helsingland were peopled then, although some Norwegians had already set up their habitation there. In the discontent that King Harald seized on the lands of Norway[24], the out-countries of Iceland and the Faroe Isles were discovered and peopled. The Northmen had also a great resort to Shetland, and many men left Norway, flying the country on account of King Harald, and went on viking cruises into the West sea. In winter they were in the Orkney Islands and Hebrides; but marauded in summer in Norway, and did great damage. Many, however, were the mighty men who took service under King Harald, and became his men, and dwelt in the land with him.— heimskringla
After Hafrsfjord, Harald meets no opposition in Norway.
The flight to Iceland
And here the founding of Norway becomes the founding of the saga world. After Hafrsfjord, in the discontent at Harald's seizure of the udal lands, a great multitude fled the country.[1] Some peopled Jämtland and Hälsingland; some went west to Orkney, Shetland, the Hebrides, the Faroes — and a great wave sailed for the empty, kingless island of Iceland, to live free on their own land under no king at all.
This is the most important sentence in the whole atlas. Nearly every family saga — Egil's clan, the Súrssons, the settlers of Laxárdalr, the founders of a hundred farms — exists because Harald's crown drove their ancestors across the sea. The free society of chiefs and law that the Icelandic sagas describe was built, quite deliberately, in flight from the very kingship this journey describes. Norway made, and Iceland is its shadow and its answer: the kingless land of the men who would not kneel.
The source text · 1
After this battle King Harald met no opposition in Norway, for all his opponents and greatest enemies were cut off. But some, and they were a great multitude, fled out of the country, and thereby great districts were peopled. Jemteland and Helsingland were peopled then, although some Norwegians had already set up their habitation there. In the discontent that King Harald seized on the lands of Norway[24], the out-countries of Iceland and the Faroe Isles were discovered and peopled. The Northmen had also a great resort to Shetland, and many men left Norway, flying the country on account of King Harald, and went on viking cruises into the West sea. In winter they were in the Orkney Islands and Hebrides; but marauded in summer in Norway, and did great damage. Many, however, were the mighty men who took service under King Harald, and became his men, and dwelt in the land with him.— heimskringla
After Hafrsfjord, a great multitude flee Norway; Iceland and the isles are peopled (Laing).
Fairhair
With Norway wholly won, the oath was fulfilled. At a feast his friend Earl Rognvald of Møre cut and dressed the king's hair, which had grown for ten years untouched — so wild and matted that men had nicknamed him Lúfa, Shockhead, or Mophead.[1] Cleaned and combed at last, the hair proved as magnificent as his father's dream had promised, and Rognvald gave him the name the whole world would remember: hárfagri, Fairhair.
The cutting of the hair closes the circle the oath opened. The token of the vow becomes the token of its fulfilment; the shaggy conqueror is revealed, groomed, as the golden king of the prophecy. Halfdan dreamt the hair, Harald swore by it, and now it is cut to name the founder of Norway. From wild oath to fair-haired king — the making of the kingdom is complete, and the man has the name to carry it down the centuries.
The source text · 1
After King Harald had subdued the whole land, he was one day at a feast in More, given by Earl Rognvald. Then King Harald went into a bath, and had his hair dressed. Earl Rognvald now cut his hair, which had been uncut and uncombed for ten years; and therefore the king had been called Ugly Head, But then Earl Rognvald gave him the distinguishing name—Harald Haarfager; and all who saw him agreed that there was the greatest truth in that surname, for he had the most beautiful and abundant head of hair.— heimskringla
Rognvald cuts Harald's ten-years-uncut hair and names him Fairhair (Laing).
Snæfrid — the king's one weakness
The saga gives even the iron founder a great softness. One winter the Sami chief Svase brought his daughter Snæfrid before Harald, and she handed the king a cup of mead, and at the touch of her hand a fire ran through him, and he wanted her at once.[1] He married her and loved her beyond all reason; and when she died, he sat over her body, which did not decay, for three years, neglecting his kingdom, sure she would wake — until a counsellor tricked him into moving the corpse, which then crumbled, and the spell broke.
It is a startling note in the founding saga: the man who would not rest until he ruled all Norway laid the whole kingdom aside for grief over a dead woman, bewitched. The saga lets the great king be humbled by love and enchantment, his iron will undone by a Sami girl's hand on a cup. Even the founder of Norway has a place where the will fails — and the saga, clear-eyed as ever, will not leave it out.
The source text · 1
King Harald, one winter, went about in guest-quarters in Upland, and had ordered a Christmas feast to be prepared for him at the farm Thopte.[35] On Christmas eve came Swase to the door, just as the king went to table, and sent a message to the king to ask if he would go out with him. The king was angry at such a message, and the man who had brought it in took out with him a reply of the king's displeasure. But Swase, notwithstanding, desired that his message should be delivered a second time; adding to it, that he was the Laplander whose hut the king had promised to visit, and which stood on the other side of the ridge. Now the king went out, and promised to follow him, and went over the ridge to his hut, although some of his men dissuaded him. There stood Snaefrid, the daughter of Swase, a most beautiful girl; and she tilled a cup of mead for the king. But he took hold both of the cup and of her hand. Immediately it was as if a hot fire went through his body; and he wanted that very night to take her to his bed. But Swase said that should not be unless by main force, if he did not first make her his lawful wife. Now King Harald made Snaefrid his lawful wife, and loved her so passionately that he forgot his kingdom, and all that belonged to his high dignity. They had four sons: the one was Sigurd Rise; the others Halfdan Haaleg, Gudrod Liome, and Rognvald Rettilbeen. Thereafter Snaefrid died; but her corpse never changed, but was as fresh and red as when she lived. The king sat always beside her, and thought she would come to life again. And so it went on for three years that he was sorrowing over her death, and the people over his delusion. At last Thorleif the Wise succeeded, by his prudence, in curing him of his delusion by accosting him thus:—"It is nowise wonderful, king, that thou grievest over so beautiful and noble a wife, and bestowest costly coverlets and beds of down on her corpse, as she desired; but these honours fall short of what is due, as she still lies in the same clothes. It would be more suitable to raise her, and change her dress." As soon as the body was raised in the bed all sorts of corruption and foul smells came from it, and it was necessary in all haste to gather a pile of wood and burn it; but before this could be done the body turned blue, and worms, toads, newts, paddocks, and all sorts of ugly reptiles came out of it, and it sank into ashes, Now the king came to his understanding again, threw the madness out of his mind, and after that day ruled his kingdom as before. He was strengthened and made joyful by his subjects, and his subjects by him, and the country by both.— heimskringla
Snæfrid's father brings her to Harald; her touch bewitches him (Laing).
The earls and the sons
Harald's new order rested on his earls — men like Rognvald of Møre, whose family he raised high — and on his many sons, whom he set over districts as under-kings.[1] But the same concentration of power he had built bred its own troubles: jealous sons, over-mighty earls, the killing of Rognvald by Harald's own son, and the long quarrels among his heirs that the later sagas turn on.
This is the shadow side of the founding, the beginning of the Kings & the Fall of Chiefs that runs through all of Heimskringla. Harald made a single crown worth fighting over, and his blood would fight over it for two centuries — Eric Bloodaxe, Hakon the Good, the conversion-kings, the civil wars. Every later king in this atlas is a branch of Ragnhild's dreamed tree; and every later war is over the thing Harald first welded together.
The source text · 1
When Earl Rognvald in More heard of the death of his brother Earl Sigurd, and that the vikings were in possession of the country, he sent his son Hallad westward, who took the title of earl to begin with, and had many men-at-arms with him. When he arrived at the Orkney Islands, he established himself in the country; but both in harvest, winter, and spring, the vikings cruised about the isles, plundering the headlands, and committing depredations on the coast. Then Earl Hallad grew tired of the business, resigned his earldom, took up again his rights as an udaller[36], and afterwards returned eastward into Norway. When Earl Rognvald heard of this he was ill pleased with Hallad, and said his sons"1 were very unlike their ancestors. Then said Einar, "I have enjoyed hut little honour among you, and have little affection here to lose: now if you will give me force enough, I will go west to the islands, and promise you what at any rate will please you—that you shall never see me again." Earl Kognvald replied, that he would he glad if he never came hack; "For there is little hope," said he, "that thou will ever he an honour to thy friends, as all thy kin on the mother's side are horn slaves." Earl Rognvald gave Einar a vessel completely equipped, and he sailed with it into the West sea in harvest. When he came to the Orkney Isles, two vikings, Thorer Trasskseg, and Kalf Sturfa, were in his way with two vessels. He attacked them instantly, gained the battle, and slew the two vikings. He was called Turf-Einar, because he cut peat for fuel, there being no tire-wood, as in Orkney there are no woods. He afterwards was earl over the islands, and was a mighty man. He was ugly, and blind of an eye, yet very sharp-sighted withal.— heimskringla
Earl Rognvald of Møre and the troubles among Harald's earls and sons (Laing).
The root of the tree
Harald Fairhair grew old as the first king of all Norway, his many sons grown and some already dead, the kingdom he had forged passing toward the quarrels of his heirs.[1] He had done the thing no Norseman had done before: made one country, one crown, one royal line — the tree of Ragnhild's dream, rooted in the soil of Norway, its branches spreading over the whole North.
And so this journey is the head of the whole atlas. From Harald's conquest flow both halves of the Norse world: the line of kings that Heimskringla follows down to Sverri and beyond, and the free society of Iceland built by the men who fled him. The Olafs who Christianised the North, the Haralds who fought for the crown, the settlers whose feuds fill the family sagas — all of them stand on this founding. Pull up any journey in this atlas and you find, at the root, Harald Fairhair's oath and the kingdom it made.
The source text · 1
When King Harald was fifty years of age many of his sons were grown up, and some were dead. Many of them committed acts of great violence in the country, and were in discord among themselves. They drove some of the king's earls out of their pro, and even killed some of them. Then the king called together a numerous Thing in the south part of the country, and summoned to it all the people of the Uplands. At this Thing he gave to all his sons the title of king, and made a law that his descendants in the male line should each succeed to the kingly title and dignity; hut his descendants by the female side only to that of earl. And he divided the country among them thus: —Vingulmark, Raumarige, Westfold, and Thelemark, he bestowed on Olaf, Biorn, Sigtryg, Erode, and Thorgil. Hedemark and Gudbrandsdal he gave to Dag, Ring, and Ragnar. To Snsefrid's sons he gave Ringerige, Hadeland, Thoten, and the lands thereto belonging. His son Guttorm, as before mentioned, he had set over the country from Swinesund to the Glommen, and to defend the country eastwards. King Harald himself generally dwelt in the middle of the country, and Rierek and Gudrod were generally with his court, and had great estates in Hordeland and in Sogn. King Eric was also with his father King Harald; and the king loved and regarded him the most of all his sons, and gave him Halogaland, and North More, and Raumsdale. North in Drontheim he gave Halfdan the Black, Halfdan the White, and Sigurd land to rule over. In each of these districts he gave his sons the one half of his revenues, together with the right to sit on a high seat,—a step higher than cauls, but a step lower than his own high seat. His king's seat each of his sons wanted for himself after his death, but he himself destined it for Eric. The Drontheim people wanted Halfdan the Black to succeed to it. The people of Viken, and the Uplands, wanted those under whom they lived. And thereupon new quarrels arose among the brothers; and because they thought their dominions too little, they drove about in piratical expeditions. In this way, as before related, Guttorm fell at the river Quislen, slain by Solve Klofe; upon which Olaf took the kingdom he had possessed. Halfdan the White fell in Eastland, Halfdan Haaleg in Orkney. King Harald gave ships of war to Thorgils and Frode, with which they went westward on a viking cruise, and plundered in Scotland, Ireland, and Bretland. They were the first of the Northmen who took Dublin. It is said that Erode got poisoned drink there; but Thorgil was a long time king over Dublin, until he fell into a snare of the Irish, and was killed.— heimskringla
Harald grown old, his sons grown, the kingdom passing to his heirs (Laing).
4 connection questions mark the end of this journey — and earn its keepable artifact.
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