thematic thread
Kings, Earls & the Making of Norway
It begins with a refusal: the proud Gyða will not wed Harald until he rules all Norway. A woman's scorn turned into a kingdom's founding.
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: Harald swears not to cut his hair until all Norway is his. The wild hair growing year by year becomes a living calendar of the conquest.
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).
The deepest cut: Harald makes all the free udal land the king's own and taxes the farmers for it — turning proud independent men into the crown's tenants. This, not the killing, is the grievance that will empty Norway.
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 gathered kings of the south and west make their last stand in a great sea-battle, and Harald breaks them. After it, no opposition remains in all Norway.
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 consequence that makes this atlas: the proud men who will not become the king's tenants flee across the sea and settle Iceland. Norway made, and Iceland is its shadow — the kingless land of the men who would not kneel.
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).
The same moment from the throne's side: all Norway under one crown, and the cost — the chieftains who would not serve a king now had to find somewhere a king could not reach.
All Norway under one crown
Harald's campaign rolled across the land — the Uplands, the coastal kingdoms, the trading towns — by battle, fire, and the subduing of chief after chief, until at last the whole country lay under him.[1] Only then, at a feast after the conquest was complete, did he let his hair be cut and combed for the first time in ten years; it had grown so wild he had been nicknamed Ugly-Head, but now, dressed at last, he was given the name the sagas know him by: hárfagri, Fairhair.[2] The uncut hair had been the visible token of his oath, and its cutting marked all Norway won.
But a unified Norway was a Norway with no room for proud, independent men. Harald claimed the old free lands as crown property, taxed the chiefs, and broke those who defied him. And so the saga records the great consequence: the men of spirit who would not become the king's tenants gathered their households and sailed west — to the empty, kingless island of Iceland. Harald's crown is the reason the family sagas have settlers to write about at all.
The source text · 2
Chapter XV. King Harald at a feast of the peasant Aake, and the murder of Aake.— heimskringla
Harald's conquests across Norway (Laing 1844).
Chapter XXIV. Rolf Ganger is driven into banishment.— heimskringla
The conquest complete; his hair cut at last and he is named Fairhair.
The shadow side of the founding: the over-mighty earls and the jealous sons, the killing of Rognvald, the quarrels among Harald's heirs. He made a single crown worth fighting over — and his blood would fight over it for two centuries.
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).
And the age of such kings ends where the viking age does: Harald Hardrada, the last great viking king, falls at Stamford Bridge claiming 'seven feet of England.' The crown endures; the world that forged it closes.
Seven feet of England
The fighting was fierce, and it ended the age. Harald Hardrada, fighting in the front in a battle-fury, was struck by an arrow in the windpipe — and that was his death-wound. Tostig took up the fallen king's banner and fought on, and he too was killed; a relief force that ran up from the ships, the men exhausted and overheated, was cut down almost to a man.[1]
So the last great Viking king got his seven feet of English ground. And the saga's reach here is the whole point of the journey: a man who began as a boy fleeing Stiklestad, made his fortune in the guard of the Greek emperor at Constantinople, ruled Norway with an iron hand, and died grasping for England — Stiklestad to Byzantium to Yorkshire, the widest single life in the corpus. Stamford Bridge is reckoned the end of the Viking Age; and the saga-reader knows the bitter coda, that the victor Harold Godwinson had only days to savour it before William's Normans landed in the south and Hastings finished what Stamford Bridge began.[2]
The source text · 2
King Harald Sigurdson was hit by an arrow in the windpipe, and that was his death-wound. He fell, and all who had advanced with him, except those who retired with the banner. There was afterwards the warmest conflict, and Earl Toste had taken charge of the king's banner. They began on both sides to form their array again, and for a long time there was a pause in fighting. Then Thiodolf sang these verses: --— heimskringla
Harald falls with an arrow through the windpipe (Laing 1844).
Eystein Orre came up at this moment from the ships with the men who followed him, and all were clad in armour. Then Eystein got King Harald's banner Land-ravager; and now was, for the third time, one of the sharpest of conflicts, in which many Englishmen fell, and they were near to taking flight. This conflict is called Orre's storm. Eystein and his men had hastened so fast from the ships that they were quite exhausted, and scarcely fit to fight before they came into the battle; but afterwards they became so furious, that they did not guard themselves with their shields as long as they could stand upright. At last they threw off their coats of ringmail, and then the Englishmen could easily lay their blows at them; and many fell from weariness, and died without a wound. Thus almost all the chief men fell among the Norway people. This happened towards evening; and then it went, as one might expect, that all had not the same fate, for many fled, and were lucky enough to escape in various ways; and darkness fell before the slaughter was altogether ended.— heimskringla
The relief force cut down; the Norse host destroyed.
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