Hálfdan svarti (the Black)

Halfdan the Black is the father of the founder — a powerful Uplands king, a famous maker and keeper of laws, and the man whose prophetic dream foretold the dynasty to come. The saga remembers him as a just and able ruler, but above all for two dreams that bracket his line: his queen Ragnhild dreamt of a thorn that grew into a vast tree overspreading all Norway, and Halfdan — who had never dreamt in his life — was counselled to sleep in a pigsty and there dreamt of his own magnificent, many-coloured hair, read as the line of kings that would spring from him, the brightest lock the greatest king to come. That greatest king was his son, Harald Fairhair. Halfdan's own end is strange and fitting: he drowned when his sleigh broke through the ice, and so prized was his luck for good seasons that four districts each claimed his body for burial, dividing it among them. The lawgiver-father at the headwaters of the royal line.