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diff --git a/old/knrwy10.txt b/old/knrwy10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..49d6d9b --- /dev/null +++ b/old/knrwy10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3950 @@ +Project Gutenberg Etext Early Kings of Norway, by Thomas Carlyle +#6 in our series by Thomas Carlyle + + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations* + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and +further information is included below. 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All +footnotes have been collected as endnotes, with their positions in the +text indicated by bracketed numbers, such as [2]. The pound +(currency) symbol has been replaced by the word "pounds". + + + + + +EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY. + +by Thomas Carlyle + + + + +The Icelanders, in their long winter, had a great habit of writing; +and were, and still are, excellent in penmanship, says Dahlmann. It +is to this fact, that any little history there is of the Norse Kings +and their old tragedies, crimes and heroisms, is almost all due. The +Icelanders, it seems, not only made beautiful letters on their paper +or parchment, but were laudably observant and desirous of accuracy; +and have left us such a collection of narratives (_Sagas_, literally +"Says") as, for quantity and quality, is unexampled among rude +nations. Snorro Sturleson's History of the Norse Kings is built out +of these old Sagas; and has in it a great deal of poetic fire, not a +little faithful sagacity applied in sifting and adjusting these old +Sagas; and, in a word, deserves, were it once well edited, furnished +with accurate maps, chronological summaries, &c., to be reckoned among +the great history-books of the world. It is from these sources, +greatly aided by accurate, learned and unwearied Dahlmann,[1] the +German Professor, that the following rough notes of the early Norway +Kings are hastily thrown together. In Histories of England (Rapin's +excepted) next to nothing has been shown of the many and strong +threads of connection between English affairs and Norse. + + + +CHAPTER I. + +HARALD HAARFAGR. + +Till about the Year of Grace 860 there were no kings in Norway, +nothing but numerous jarls,--essentially kinglets, each presiding over +a kind of republican or parliamentary little territory; generally +striving each to be on some terms of human neighborhood with those +about him, but,--in spite of "_Fylke Things_" (Folk Things, little +parish parliaments), and small combinations of these, which had +gradually formed themselves,--often reduced to the unhappy state of +quarrel with them. Harald Haarfagr was the first to put an end to +this state of things, and become memorable and profitable to his +country by uniting it under one head and making a kingdom of it; which +it has continued to be ever since. His father, Halfdan the Black, had +already begun this rough but salutary process,--inspired by the +cupidities and instincts, by the faculties and opportunities, which +the good genius of this world, beneficent often enough under savage +forms, and diligent at all times to diminish anarchy as the world's +worst savagery, usually appoints in such cases,--conquest, hard +fighting, followed by wise guidance of the conquered;--but it was +Harald the Fairhaired, his son, who conspicuously carried it on and +completed it. Harald's birth-year, death-year, and chronology in +general, are known only by inference and computation; but, by the +latest reckoning, he died about the year 933 of our era, a man of +eighty-three. + +The business of conquest lasted Harald about twelve years (A.D. +860-872?), in which he subdued also the vikings of the out-islands, +Orkneys, Shetlands, Hebrides, and Man. Sixty more years were given +him to consolidate and regulate what he had conquered, which he did +with great judgment, industry and success. His reign altogether is +counted to have been of over seventy years. + +The beginning of his great adventure was of a romantic +character.--youthful love for the beautiful Gyda, a then glorious and +famous young lady of those regions, whom the young Harald aspired to +marry. Gyda answered his embassy and prayer in a distant, lofty +manner: "Her it would not beseem to wed any Jarl or poor creature of +that kind; let him do as Gorm of Denmark, Eric of Sweden, Egbert of +England, and others had done,--subdue into peace and regulation the +confused, contentious bits of jarls round him, and become a king; +then, perhaps, she might think of his proposal: till then, not." +Harald was struck with this proud answer, which rendered Gyda tenfold +more desirable to him. He vowed to let his hair grow, never to cut or +even to comb it till this feat were done, and the peerless Gyda his +own. He proceeded accordingly to conquer, in fierce battle, a Jarl or +two every year, and, at the end of twelve years, had his unkempt (and +almost unimaginable) head of hair clipt off,--Jarl Rognwald +(_Reginald_) of More, the most valued and valuable of all his +subject-jarls, being promoted to this sublime barber function;--after +which King Harald, with head thoroughly cleaned, and hair grown, or +growing again to the luxuriant beauty that had no equal in his day, +brought home his Gyda, and made her the brightest queen in all the +north. He had after her, in succession, or perhaps even +simultaneously in some cases, at least six other wives; and by Gyda +herself one daughter and four sons. + +Harald was not to be considered a strict-living man, and he had a +great deal of trouble, as we shall see, with the tumultuous ambition +of his sons; but he managed his government, aided by Jarl Rognwald and +others, in a large, quietly potent, and successful manner; and it +lasted in this royal form till his death, after sixty years of it. + +These were the times of Norse colonization; proud Norsemen flying into +other lands, to freer scenes,--to Iceland, to the Faroe Islands, which +were hitherto quite vacant (tenanted only by some mournful hermit, +Irish Christian _fakir_, or so); still more copiously to the Orkney +and Shetland Isles, the Hebrides and other countries where Norse +squatters and settlers already were. Settlement of Iceland, we say; +settlement of the Faroe Islands, and, by far the notablest of all, +settlement of Normandy by Rolf the Ganger (A.D. 876?).[2] + +Rolf, son of Rognwald,[3] was lord of three little islets far north, +near the Fjord of Folden, called the Three Vigten Islands; but his +chief means of living was that of sea robbery; which, or at least +Rolf's conduct in which, Harald did not approve of. In the Court of +Harald, sea-robbery was strictly forbidden as between Harald's own +countries, but as against foreign countries it continued to be the one +profession for a gentleman; thus, I read, Harald's own chief son, King +Eric that afterwards was, had been at sea in such employments ever +since his twelfth year. Rolf's crime, however, was that in coming +home from one of these expeditions, his crew having fallen short of +victual, Rolf landed with them on the shore of Norway, and in his +strait, drove in some cattle there (a crime by law) and proceeded to +kill and eat; which, in a little while, he heard that King Harald was +on foot to inquire into and punish; whereupon Rolf the Ganger speedily +got into his ships again, got to the coast of France with his sea- +robbers, got infeftment by the poor King of France in the fruitful, +shaggy desert which is since called Normandy, land of the Northmen; +and there, gradually felling the forests, banking the rivers, tilling +the fields, became, during the next two centuries, Wilhelmus +Conquaestor, the man famous to England, and momentous at this day, not +to England alone, but to all speakers of the English tongue, now +spread from side to side of the world in a wonderful degree. Tancred +of Hauteville and his Italian Normans, though important too, in Italy, +are not worth naming in comparison. This is a feracious earth, and +the grain of mustard-seed will grow to miraculous extent in some +cases. + +Harald's chief helper, counsellor, and lieutenant was the +above-mentioned Jarl Rognwald of More, who had the honor to cut +Harald's dreadful head of hair. This Rognwald was father of +Turf-Einar, who first invented peat in the Orkneys, finding the wood +all gone there; and is remembered to this day. Einar, being come to +these islands by King Harald's permission, to see what he could do in +them,--islands inhabited by what miscellany of Picts, Scots, Norse +squatters we do not know,--found the indispensable fuel all wasted. +Turf-Einar too may be regarded as a benefactor to his kind. He was, +it appears, a bastard; and got no coddling from his father, who +disliked him, partly perhaps, because "he was ugly and blind of an +eye,"--got no flattering even on his conquest of the Orkneys and +invention of peat. Here is the parting speech his father made to him +on fitting him out with a "long-ship" (ship of war, "dragon-ship," +ancient seventy-four), and sending him forth to make a living for +himself in the world: "It were best if thou never camest back, for I +have small hope that thy people will have honor by thee; thy mother's +kin throughout is slavish." + +Harald Haarfagr had a good many sons and daughters; the daughters he +married mostly to jarls of due merit who were loyal to him; with the +sons, as remarked above, he had a great deal of trouble. They were +ambitious, stirring fellows, and grudged at their finding so little +promotion from a father so kind to his jarls; sea-robbery by no means +an adequate career for the sons of a great king, two of them, Halfdan +Haaleg (Long-leg), and Gudrod Ljome (Gleam), jealous of the favors won +by the great Jarl Rognwald. surrounded him in his house one night, +and burnt him and sixty men to death there. That was the end of +Rognwald, the invaluable jarl, always true to Haarfagr; and +distinguished in world history by producing Rolf the Ganger, author of +the Norman Conquest of England, and Turf-Einar, who invented peat in +the Orkneys. Whether Rolf had left Norway at this time there is no +chronology to tell me. As to Rolf's surname, "Ganger," there are +various hypotheses; the likeliest, perhaps, that Rolf was so weighty a +man no horse (small Norwegian horses, big ponies rather) could carry +him, and that he usually walked, having a mighty stride withal, and +great velocity on foot. + +One of these murderers of Jarl Rognwald quietly set himself in +Rognwald's place, the other making for Orkney to serve Turf-Einar in +like fashion. Turf-Einar, taken by surprise, fled to the mainland; +but returned, days or perhaps weeks after, ready for battle, fought +with Halfdan, put his party to flight, and at next morning's light +searched the island and slew all the men he found. As to Halfdan +Long-leg himself, in fierce memory of his own murdered father, +Turf-Einar "cut an eagle on his back," that is to say, hewed the ribs +from each side of the spine and turned them out like the wings of a +spread-eagle: a mode of Norse vengeance fashionable at that time in +extremely aggravated cases! + +Harald Haarfagr, in the mean time, had descended upon the Rognwald +scene, not in mild mood towards the new jarl there; indignantly +dismissed said jarl, and appointed a brother of Rognwald (brother, +notes Dahlmann), though Rognwald had left other sons. Which done, +Haarfagr sailed with all speed to the Orkneys, there to avenge that +cutting of an eagle on the human back on Turf-Einar's part. +Turf-Einar did not resist; submissively met the angry Haarfagr, said +he left it all, what had been done, what provocation there had been, +to Haarfagr's own equity and greatness of mind. Magnanimous Haarfagr +inflicted a fine of sixty marks in gold, which was paid in ready money +by Turf-Einar, and so the matter ended. + + + +CHAPTER II. + +ERIC BLOOD-AXE AND BROTHERS. + +In such violent courses Haarfagr's sons, I know not how many of them, +had come to an untimely end; only Eric, the accomplished sea-rover, +and three others remained to him. Among these four sons, rather +impatient for property and authority of their own, King Harald, in his +old days, tried to part his kingdom in some eligible and equitable +way, and retire from the constant press of business, now becoming +burdensome to him. To each of them he gave a kind of kingdom; Eric, +his eldest son, to be head king, and the others to be feudatory under +him, and pay a certain yearly contribution; an arrangement which did +not answer well at all. Head-King Eric insisted on his tribute; +quarrels arose as to the payment, considerable fighting and +disturbance, bringing fierce destruction from King Eric upon many +valiant but too stubborn Norse spirits, and among the rest upon all +his three brothers, which got him from the Norse populations the +surname of _Blod-axe_, "Eric Blood-axe," his title in history. One of +his brothers he had killed in battle before his old father's life +ended; this brother was Bjorn, a peaceable, improving, trading +economic Under-king, whom the others mockingly called "Bjorn the +Chapman." The great-grandson of this Bjorn became extremely +distinguished by and by as _Saint_ Olaf. Head-King Eric seems to have +had a violent wife, too. She was thought to have poisoned one of her +other brothers-in-law. Eric Blood-axe had by no means a gentle life +of it in this world, trained to sea-robbery on the coasts of England, +Scotland, Ireland and France, since his twelfth year. + +Old King Fairhair, at the age of seventy, had another son, to whom was +given the name of Hakon. His mother was a slave in Fairhair's house; +slave by ill-luck of war, though nobly enough born. A strange +adventure connects this Hakon with England and King Athelstan, who was +then entering upon his great career there. Short while after this +Hakon came into the world, there entered Fairhair's palace, one +evening as Fairhair sat Feasting, an English ambassador or messenger, +bearing in his hand, as gift from King Athelstan, a magnificent sword, +with gold hilt and other fine trimmings, to the great Harald, King of +Norway. Harald took the sword, drew it, or was half drawing it, +admiringly from the scabbard, when the English excellency broke into a +scornful laugh, "Ha, ha; thou art now the feudatory of my English +king; thou hast accepted the sword from him, and art now his man!" +(acceptance of a sword in that manner being the symbol of investiture +in those days.) Harald looked a trifle flurried, it is probable; but +held in his wrath, and did no damage to the tricksy Englishman. He +kept the matter in his mind, however, and next summer little Hakon, +having got his weaning done,--one of the prettiest, healthiest little +creatures,--Harald sent him off, under charge of "Hauk" (Hawk so +called), one of his Principal, warriors, with order, "Take him to +England," and instructions what to do with him there. And +accordingly, one evening, Hauk, with thirty men escorting, strode into +Athelstan's high dwelling (where situated, how built, whether with +logs like Harald's, I cannot specifically say), into Athelstan's high +presence, and silently set the wild little cherub upon Athelstan's +knee. "What is this?" asked Athelstan, looking at the little cherub. +"This is King Harald's son, whom a serving-maid bore to him, and whom +he now gives thee as foster-child!" Indignant Athelstan drew his +sword, as if to do the gift a mischief; but Hauk said, "Thou hast +taken him on thy knee [common symbol of adoption]; thou canst kill him +if thou wilt; but thou dost not thereby kill all the sons of Harald." +Athelstan straightway took milder thoughts; brought up, and carefully +educated Hakon; from whom, and this singular adventure, came, before +very long, the first tidings of Christianity into Norway. + +Harald Haarfagr, latterly withdrawn from all kinds of business, died +at the age of eighty-three--about A.D. 933, as is computed; nearly +contemporary in death with the first Danish King, Gorm the Old, who +had done a corresponding feat in reducing Denmark under one head. +Remarkable old men, these two first kings; and possessed of gifts for +bringing Chaos a little nearer to the form of Cosmos; possessed, in +fact, of loyalties to Cosmos, that is to say, of authentic virtues in +the savage state, such as have been needed in all societies at their +incipience in this world; a kind of "virtues" hugely in discredit at +present, but not unlikely to be needed again, to the astonishment of +careless persons, before all is done! + + + +CHAPTER III + +HAKON THE GOOD. + +Eric Blood-axe, whose practical reign is counted to have begun about +A.D. 930, had by this time, or within a year or so of this time, +pretty much extinguished all his brother kings, and crushed down +recalcitrant spirits, in his violent way; but had naturally become +entirely unpopular in Norway, and filled it with silent discontent and +even rage against him. Hakon Fairhair's last son, the little +foster-child of Athelstan in England, who had been baptized and +carefully educated, was come to his fourteenth or fifteenth year at +his father's death; a very shining youth, as Athelstan saw with just +pleasure. So soon as the few preliminary preparations had been +settled, Hakon, furnished with a ship or two by Athelstan, suddenly +appeared in Norway got acknowledged by the Peasant Thing in Trondhjem +"the news of which flew over Norway, like fire through dried grass," +says an old chronicler. So that Eric, with his Queen Gunhild, and +seven small children, had to run; no other shift for Eric. They went +to the Orkneys first of all, then to England, and he "got +Northumberland as earldom," I vaguely hear, from Athelstan. But Eric +soon died, and his queen, with her children, went back to the Orkneys +in search of refuge or help; to little purpose there or elsewhere. +From Orkney she went to Denmark, where Harald Blue-tooth took her poor +eldest boy as foster-child; but I fear did not very faithfully keep +that promise. The Danes had been robbing extensively during the late +tumults in Norway; this the Christian Hakon, now established there, +paid in kind, and the two countries were at war; so that Gunhild's +little boy was a welcome card in the hand of Blue-tooth. + +Hakon proved a brilliant and successful king; regulated many things, +public law among others (_Gule-Thing_ Law, _Frost-Thing_ Law: these +are little codes of his accepted by their respective Things, and had a +salutary effect in their time); with prompt dexterity he drove back +the Blue-tooth foster-son invasions every time they came; and on the +whole gained for himself the name of Hakon the Good. These Danish +invasions were a frequent source of trouble to him, but his greatest +and continual trouble was that of extirpating heathen idolatry from +Norway, and introducing the Christian Evangel in its stead. His +transcendent anxiety to achieve this salutary enterprise was all along +his grand difficulty and stumbling-block; the heathen opposition to it +being also rooted and great. Bishops and priests from England Hakon +had, preaching and baptizing what they could, but making only slow +progress; much too slow for Hakon's zeal. On the other hand, every +Yule-tide, when the chief heathen were assembled in his own palace on +their grand sacrificial festival, there was great pressure put upon +Hakon, as to sprinkling with horse-blood, drinking Yule-beer, eating +horse-flesh, and the other distressing rites; the whole of which Hakon +abhorred, and with all his steadfastness strove to reject utterly. +Sigurd, Jarl of Lade (Trondhjem), a liberal heathen, not openly a +Christian, was ever a wise counsellor and conciliator in such affairs; +and proved of great help to Hakon. Once, for example, there having +risen at a Yule-feast, loud, almost stormful demand that Hakon, like a +true man and brother, should drink Yule-beer with them in their sacred +hightide, Sigurd persuaded him to comply, for peace's sake, at least, +in form. Hakon took the cup in his left hand (excellent hot _beer_), +and with his right cut the sign of the cross above it, then drank a +draught. "Yes; but what is this with the king's right hand?" cried +the company. "Don't you see?" answered shifty Sigurd; "he makes the +sign of Thor's hammer before drinking!" which quenched the matter for +the time. + +Horse-flesh, horse-broth, and the horse ingredient generally, Hakon +all but inexorably declined. By Sigurd's pressing exhortation and +entreaty, he did once take a kettle of horsebroth by the handle, with +a good deal of linen-quilt or towel interposed, and did open his lips +for what of steam could insinuate itself. At another time he +consented to a particle of horse-liver, intending privately, I guess, +to keep it outside the gullet, and smuggle it away without swallowing; +but farther than this not even Sigurd could persuade him to go. At +the Things held in regard to this matter Hakon's success was always +incomplete; now and then it was plain failure, and Hakon had to draw +back till a better time. Here is one specimen of the response he got +on such an occasion; curious specimen, withal, of antique +parliamentary eloquence from an Anti-Christian Thing. + +At a Thing of all the Fylkes of Trondhjem, Thing held at Froste in +that region, King Hakon, with all the eloquence he had, signified that +it was imperatively necessary that all Bonders and sub-Bonders should +become Christians, and believe in one God, Christ the Son of Mary; +renouncing entirely blood sacrifices and heathen idols; should keep +every seventh day holy, abstain from labor that day, and even from +food, devoting the day to fasting and sacred meditation. Whereupon, +by way of universal answer, arose a confused universal murmur of +entire dissent. "Take away from us our old belief, and also our time +for labor!" murmured they in angry astonishment; "how can even the +land be got tilled in that way?" "We cannot work if we don't get +food," said the hand laborers and slaves. "It lies in King Hakon's +blood," remarked others; "his father and all his kindred were apt to +be stingy about food, though liberal enough with money." At length, +one Osbjorn (or Bear of the Asen or Gods, what we now call Osborne), +one Osbjorn of Medalhusin Gulathal, stept forward, and said, in a +distinct manner, "We Bonders (peasant proprietors)thought, King Hakon, +when thou heldest thy first Thing-day here in Trondhjem, and we took +thee for our king, and received our hereditary lands from thee again +that we had got heaven itself. But now we know not how it is, whether +we have won freedom, or whether thou intendest anew to make us slaves, +with this wonderful proposal that we should renounce our faith, which +our fathers before us have held, and all our ancestors as well, first +in the age of burial by burning, and now in that of earth burial; and +yet these departed ones were much our superiors, and their faith, too, +has brought prosperity to us. Thee, at the same time, we have loved +so much that we raised thee to manage all the laws of the land, and +speak as their voice to us all. And even now it is our will and the +vote of all Bonders to keep that paction which thou gavest us here on +the Thing at Froste, and to maintain thee as king so long as any of us +Bonders who are here upon the Thing has life left, provided thou, +king, wilt go fairly to work, and demand of us only such things as are +not impossible. But if thou wilt fix upon this thing with so great +obstinacy, and employ force and power, in that case, we Bonders have +taken the resolution, all of us, to fall away from thee, and to take +for ourselves another head, who will so behave that we may enjoy in +freedom the belief which is agreeable to us. Now shalt thou, king, +choose one of these two courses before the Thing disperse." +"Whereupon," adds the Chronicle, "all the Bonders raised a mighty +shout, 'Yes, we will have it so, as has been said.'" So that Jarl +Sigurd had to intervene, and King Hakon to choose for the moment the +milder branch of the alternative.[4] At other Things Hakon was more +or less successful. All his days, by such methods as there were, he +kept pressing forward with this great enterprise; and on the whole did +thoroughly shake asunder the old edifice of heathendom, and fairly +introduce some foundation for the new and better rule of faith and +life among his people. Sigurd, Jarl of Lade, his wise counsellor in +all these matters, is also a man worthy of notice. + +Hakon's arrangements against the continual invasions of Eric's sons, +with Danish Blue-tooth backing them, were manifold, and for a long +time successful. He appointed, after consultation and consent in the +various Things, so many war-ships, fully manned and ready, to be +furnished instantly on the King's demand by each province or fjord; +watch-fires, on fit places, from hill to hill all along the coast, +were to be carefully set up, carefully maintained in readiness, and +kindled on any alarm of war. By such methods Blue-tooth and Co.'s +invasions were for a long while triumphantly, and even rapidly, one +and all of them, beaten back, till at length they seemed as if +intending to cease altogether, and leave Hakon alone of them. But +such was not their issue after all. The sons of Eric had only abated +under constant discouragement, had not finally left off from what +seemed their one great feasibility in life. Gunhild, their mother, +was still with them: a most contriving, fierce-minded, irreconcilable +woman, diligent and urgent on them, in season and out of season; and +as for King Blue-tooth, he was at all times ready to help, with his +good-will at least. + +That of the alarm-fires on Hakon's part was found troublesome by his +people; sometimes it was even hurtful and provoking (lighting your +alarm-fires and rousing the whole coast and population, when it was +nothing but some paltry viking with a couple of ships); in short, the +alarm-signal system fell into disuse, and good King Hakon himself, in +the first place, paid the penalty. It is counted, by the latest +commentators, to have been about A.D. 961, sixteenth or seventeenth +year of Hakon's pious, valiant, and worthy reign. Being at a feast +one day, with many guests, on the Island of Stord, sudden announcement +came to him that ships from the south were approaching in quantity, +and evidently ships of war. This was the biggest of all the +Blue-tooth foster-son invasions; and it was fatal to Hakon the Good +that night. Eyvind the Skaldaspillir (annihilator of all other +Skalds), in his famed _Hakon's Song_, gives account, and, still more +pertinently, the always practical Snorro. Danes in great multitude, +six to one, as people afterwards computed, springing swiftly to land, +and ranking themselves; Hakon, nevertheless, at once deciding not to +take to his ships and run, but to fight there, one to six; fighting, +accordingly, in his most splendid manner, and at last gloriously +prevailing; routing and scattering back to their ships and flight +homeward these six-to-one Danes. "During the struggle of the fight," +says Snorro, "he was very conspicuous among other men; and while the +sun shone, his bright gilded helmet glanced, and thereby many weapons +were directed at him. One of his henchmen, Eyvind Finnson (_i.e._ +Skaldaspillir, the poet), took a hat, and put it over the king's +helmet. Now, among the hostile first leaders were two uncles of the +Ericsons, brothers of Gunhild, great champions both; Skreya, the elder +of them, on the disappearance of the glittering helmet, shouted +boastfully, 'Does the king of the Norsemen hide himself, then, or has +he fled? Where now is the golden helmet?' And so saying, Skreya, and +his brother Alf with him, pushed on like fools or madmen. The king +said, 'Come on in that way, and you shall find the king of the +Norsemen.'" And in a short space of time braggart Skreya did come up, +swinging his sword, and made a cut at the king; but Thoralf the +Strong, an Icelander, who fought at the king's side, dashed his shield +so hard against Skreya, that he tottered with the shock. On the same +instant the king takes his sword "quernbiter" (able to cut _querns_ or +millstones) with both hands, and hews Skreya through helm and head, +cleaving him down to the shoulders. Thoralf also slew Alf. That was +what they got by such over-hasty search for the king of the +Norsemen.[5] + +Snorro considers the fall of these two champion uncles as the crisis +of the fight; the Danish force being much disheartened by such a +sight, and King Hakon now pressing on so hard that all men gave way +before him, the battle on the Ericson part became a whirl of recoil; +and in a few minutes more a torrent of mere flight and haste to get on +board their ships, and put to sea again; in which operation many of +them were drowned, says Snorro; survivors making instant sail for +Denmark in that sad condition. + +This seems to have been King Hakon's finest battle, and the most +conspicuous of his victories, due not a little to his own grand +qualities shown on the occasion. But, alas! it was his last also. He +was still zealously directing the chase of that mad Danish flight, or +whirl of recoil towards their ships, when an arrow, shot Most likely +at a venture, hit him under the left armpit; and this proved his +death. + +He was helped into his ship, and made sail for Alrekstad, where his +chief residence in those parts was; but had to stop at a smaller place +of his (which had been his mother's, and where he himself was born)--a +place called Hella (the Flat Rock), still known as "Hakon's Hella," +faint from loss of blood, and crushed down as he had never before +felt. Having no son and only one daughter, he appointed these +invasive sons of Eric to be sent for, and if he died to become king; +but to "spare his friends and kindred." "If a longer life be granted +me," he said, "I will go out of this land to Christian men, and do +penance for what I have committed against God. But if I die in the +country of the heathen, let me have such burial as you yourselves +think fittest." These are his last recorded words. And in heathen +fashion he was buried, and besung by Eyvind and the Skalds, though +himself a zealously Christian king. Hakon the _Good_; so one still +finds him worthy of being called. The sorrow on Hakon's death, Snorro +tells us, was so great and universal, "that he was lamented both by +friends and enemies; and they said that never again would Norway see +such a king." + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +HARALD GREYFELL AND BROTHERS. + +Eric's sons, four or five of them, with a Harald at the top, now at +once got Norway in hand, all of it but Trondhjem, as king and +under-kings; and made a severe time of it for those who had been, or +seemed to be, their enemies. Excellent Jarl Sigurd, always so useful +to Hakon and his country, was killed by them; and they came to repent +that before very long. The slain Sigurd left a son, Hakon, as Jarl, +who became famous in the northern world by and by. This Hakon, and +him only, would the Trondhjemers accept as sovereign. "Death to him, +then," said the sons of Eric, but only in secret, till they had got +their hands free and were ready; which was not yet for some years. +Nay, Hakon, when actually attacked, made good resistance, and +threatened to cause trouble. Nor did he by any means get his death +from these sons of Eric at this time, or till long afterwards at all, +from one of their kin, as it chanced. On the contrary, he fled to +Denmark now, and by and by managed to come back, to their cost. + +Among their other chief victims were two cousins of their own, Tryggve +and Gudrod, who had been honest under-kings to the late head-king, +Hakon the Good; but were now become suspect, and had to fight for +their lives, and lose them in a tragic manner. Tryggve had a son, +whom we shall hear of. Gudrod, son of worthy Bjorn the Chapman, was +grandfather of Saint Olaf, whom all men have heard of,--who has a +church in Southwark even, and another in Old Jewry, to this hour. In +all these violences, Gunhild, widow of the late king Eric, was +understood to have a principal hand. She had come back to Norway with +her sons; and naturally passed for the secret adviser and Maternal +President in whatever of violence went on; always reckoned a fell, +vehement, relentless personage where her own interests were concerned. +Probably as things settled, her influence on affairs grew less. At +least one hopes so; and, in the Sagas, hears less and less of her, and +before long nothing. + +Harald, the head-king in this Eric fraternity, does not seem to have +been a bad man,--the contrary indeed; but his position was untowardly, +full of difficulty and contradictions. Whatever Harald could +accomplish for behoof of Christianity, or real benefit to Norway, in +these cross circumstances, he seems to have done in a modest and +honest manner. He got the name of _Greyfell_ from his people on a +very trivial account, but seemingly with perfect good humor on their +part. Some Iceland trader had brought a cargo of furs to Trondhjem +(Lade) for sale; sale being slacker than the Icelander wished, he +presented a chosen specimen, cloak, doublet, or whatever it was, to +Harald; who wore it with acceptance in public, and rapidly brought +disposal of the Icelander's stock, and the surname of _Greyfell_ to +himself. His under-kings and he were certainly not popular, though I +almost think Greyfell himself, in absence of his mother and the +under-kings, might have been so. But here they all were, and had +wrought great trouble in Norway. "Too many of them," said everybody; +"too many of these courts and court people, eating up any substance +that there is." For the seasons withal, two or three of them in +succession, were bad for grass, much more for grain; no _herring_ came +either; very cleanness of teeth was like to come in Eyvind +Skaldaspillir's opinion. This scarcity became at last their share of +the great Famine Of A.D. 975, which desolated Western Europe (see the +poem in the Saxon Chronicle). And all this by Eyvind Skaldaspillir, +and the heathen Norse in general, was ascribed to anger of the heathen +gods. Discontent in Norway, and especially in Eyvind Skaldaspillir, +seems to have been very great. + +Whereupon exile Hakon, Jarl Sigurd's son, bestirs himself in Denmark, +backed by old King Blue-tooth, and begins invading and encroaching in +a miscellaneous way; especially intriguing and contriving plots all +round him. An unfathomably cunning kind of fellow, as well as an +audacious and strong-handed! Intriguing in Trondhjem, where he gets +the under-king, Greyfell's brother, fallen upon and murdered; +intriguing with Gold Harald, a distinguished cousin or nephew of King +Blue-tooth's, who had done fine viking work, and gained, such wealth +that he got the epithet of "Gold," and who now was infinitely desirous +of a share in Blue-tooth's kingdom as the proper finish to these +sea-rovings. He even ventured one day to make publicly a distinct +proposal that way to King Harald Blue-tooth himself; who flew into +thunder and lightning at the mere mention of it; so that none durst +speak to him for several days afterwards. Of both these Haralds Hakon +was confidential friend; and needed all his skill to walk without +immediate annihilation between such a pair of dragons, and work out +Norway for himself withal. In the end he found he must take solidly +to Blue-tooth's side of the question; and that they two must provide a +recipe for Gold Harald and Norway both at once. + +"It is as much as your life is worth to speak again of sharing this +Danish kingdom," said Hakon very privately to Gold Harald; "but could +not you, my golden friend, be content with Norway for a kingdom, if +one helped you to it?" + +"That could I well," answered Harald. + +"Then keep me those nine war-ships you have just been rigging for a +new viking cruise; have these in readiness when I lift my finger!" + +That was the recipe contrived for Gold Harald; recipe for King +Greyfell goes into the same vial, and is also ready. + +Hitherto the Hakon-Blue-tooth disturbances in Norway had amounted to +but little. King Greyfell, a very active and valiant man, has +constantly, without much difficulty, repelled these sporadic bits of +troubles; but Greyfell, all the same, would willingly have peace with +dangerous old Blue-tooth (ever anxious to get his clutches over Norway +on any terms) if peace with him could be had. Blue-tooth, too, +professes every willingness; inveigles Greyfell, he and Hakon do; to +have a friendly meeting on the Danish borders, and not only settle all +these quarrels, but generously settle Greyfell in certain fiefs which +he claimed in Denmark itself; and so swear everlasting friendship. +Greyfell joyfully complies, punctually appears at the appointed day in +Lymfjord Sound, the appointed place. Whereupon Hakon gives signal to +Gold Harald, "To Lymfjord with these nine ships of yours, swift!" +Gold Harald flies to Lymfjord with his ships, challenges King Harald +Greyfell to land and fight; which the undaunted Greyfell, though so +far outnumbered, does; and, fighting his very best, perishes there, he +and almost all his people. Which done, Jarl Hakon, who is in +readiness, attacks Gold Harald, the victorious but the wearied; easily +beats Gold Harald, takes him prisoner, and instantly hangs and ends +him, to the huge joy of King Blue-tooth and Hakon; who now make +instant voyage to Norway; drive all the brother under-kings into rapid +flight to the Orkneys, to any readiest shelter; and so, under the +patronage of Blue-tooth, Hakon, with the title of Jarl, becomes ruler +of Norway. This foul treachery done on the brave and honest Harald +Greyfell is by some dated about A.D. 969, by Munch, 965, by others, +computing out of Snorro only, A.D. 975. For there is always an +uncertainty in these Icelandic dates (say rather, rare and rude +attempts at dating, without even an "A.D." or other fixed "year one" +to go upon in Iceland), though seldom, I think, so large a discrepancy +as here. + + + +CHAPTER V. + +HAKON JARL. + +Hakon Jarl, such the style he took, had engaged to pay some kind of +tribute to King Blue-tooth, "if he could;" but he never did pay any, +pleading always the necessity of his own affairs; with which excuse, +joined to Hakon's readiness in things less important, King Blue-tooth +managed to content himself, Hakon being always his good neighbor, at +least, and the two mutually dependent. In Norway, Hakon, without the +title of king, did in a strong-handed, steadfast, and at length, +successful way, the office of one; governed Norway (some count) for +above twenty years; and, both at home and abroad, had much +consideration through most of that time; specially amongst the heathen +orthodox, for Hakon Jarl himself was a zealous heathen, fixed in his +mind against these chimerical Christian innovations and unsalutary +changes of creed, and would have gladly trampled out all traces of +what the last two kings (for Greyfell, also, was an English Christian +after his sort) had done in this respect. But he wisely discerned +that it was not possible, and that, for peace's sake, he must not even +attempt it, but must strike preferably into "perfect toleration," and +that of "every one getting to heaven or even to the other goal in his +own way." He himself, it is well known, repaired many heathen temples +(a great "church builder" in his way!), manufactured many splendid +idols, with much gilding and such artistic ornament as there was,--in +particular, one huge image of Thor, not forgetting the hammer and +appendages, and such a collar (supposed of solid gold, which it was +not quite, as we shall hear in time) round the neck of him as was +never seen in all the North. How he did his own Yule festivals, with +what magnificent solemnity, the horse-eatings, blood-sprinklings, and +other sacred rites, need not be told. Something of a "Ritualist," one +may perceive; perhaps had Scandinavian Puseyisms in him, and other +desperate heathen notions. He was universally believed to have gone +into magic, for one thing, and to have dangerous potencies derived +from the Devil himself. The dark heathen mind of him struggling +vehemently in that strange element, not altogether so unlike our own +in some points. + +For the rest, he was evidently, in practical matters, a man of sharp, +clear insight, of steadfast resolution, diligence, promptitude; and +managed his secular matters uncommonly well. Had sixteen Jarls under +him, though himself only Hakon Jarl by title; and got obedience from +them stricter than any king since Haarfagr had done. Add to which +that the country had years excellent for grass and crop, and that the +herrings came in exuberance; tokens, to the thinking mind, that Hakon +Jarl was a favorite of Heaven. + +His fight with the far-famed Jomsvikings was his grandest exploit in +public rumor. Jomsburg, a locality not now known, except that it was +near the mouth of the River Oder, denoted in those ages the +impregnable castle of a certain hotly corporate, or "Sea Robbery +Association (limited)," which, for some generations, held the Baltic +in terror, and plundered far beyond the Belt,--in the ocean itself, in +Flanders and the opulent trading havens there,--above all, in opulent +anarchic England, which, for forty years from about this time, was the +pirates' Goshen; and yielded, regularly every summer, slaves, +Danegelt, and miscellaneous plunder, like no other country Jomsburg or +the viking-world had ever known. Palnatoke, Bue, and the other +quasi-heroic heads of this establishment are still remembered in the +northern parts. _Palnatoke_ is the title of a tragedy by +Oehlenschlager, which had its run of immortality in Copenhagen some +sixty or seventy years ago. + +I judge the institution to have been in its floweriest state, probably +now in Hakon Jarl's time. Hakon Jarl and these pirates, robbing +Hakon's subjects and merchants that frequented him, were naturally in +quarrel; and frequent fightings had fallen out, not generally to the +profit of the Jomsburgers, who at last determined on revenge, and the +rooting out of this obstructive Hakon Jarl. They assembled in force +at the Cape of Stad,--in the Firda Fylke; and the fight was dreadful +in the extreme, noise of it filling all the north for long afterwards. +Hakon, fighting like a lion, could scarcely hold his own,--Death or +Victory, the word on both sides; when suddenly, the heavens grew +black, and there broke out a terrific storm of thunder and hail, +appalling to the human mind,--universe swallowed wholly in black +night; only the momentary forked-blazes, the thunder-pealing as of +Ragnarok, and the battering hail-torrents, hailstones about the size +of an egg. Thor with his hammer evidently acting; but in behalf of +whom? The Jomsburgers in the hideous darkness, broken only by +flashing thunder-bolts, had a dismal apprehension that it was probably +not on their behalf (Thor having a sense of justice in him); and +before the storm ended, thirty-five of their seventy ships sheered +away, leaving gallant Bue, with the other thirty-five, to follow as +they liked, who reproachfully hailed these fugitives, and continued +the now hopeless battle. Bue's nose and lips were smashed or cut +away; Bue managed, half-articulately, to exclaim, "Ha! the maids +('mays') of Funen will never kiss me more. Overboard, all ye Bue's +men!" And taking his two sea-chests, with all the gold he had gained +in such life-struggle from of old, sprang overboard accordingly, and +finished the affair. Hakon Jarl's renown rose naturally to the +transcendent pitch after this exploit. His people, I suppose chiefly +the Christian part of them, whispered one to another, with a shudder, +"That in the blackest of the thunder-storm, he had taken his youngest +little boy, and made away with him; sacrificed him to Thor or some +devil, and gained his victory by art-magic, or something worse." Jarl +Eric, Hakon's eldest son, without suspicion of art-magic, but already +a distinguished viking, became thrice distinguished by his style of +sea-fighting in this battle; and awakened great expectations in the +viking public; of him we shall hear again. + +The Jomsburgers, one might fancy, after this sad clap went visibly +down in the world; but the fact is not altogether so. Old King +Blue-tooth was now dead, died of a wound got in battle with his +unnatural (so-called "natural") son and successor, Otto Svein of the +Forked Beard, afterwards king and conqueror of England for a little +while; and seldom, perhaps never, had vikingism been in such flower as +now. This man's name is Sven in Swedish, Svend in German, and means +boy or lad,--the English "swain." It was at old "Father Bluetooth's +funeral-ale" (drunken burial-feast), that Svein, carousing with his +Jomsburg chiefs and other choice spirits, generally of the robber +class, all risen into height of highest robber enthusiasm, pledged the +vow to one another; Svein that he would conquer England (which, in a +sense, he, after long struggling, did); and the Jomsburgers that they +would ruin and root out Hakon Jarl (which, as we have just seen, they +could by no means do), and other guests other foolish things which +proved equally unfeasible. Sea-robber volunteers so especially +abounding in that time, one perceives how easily the Jomsburgers could +recruit themselves, build or refit new robber fleets, man them with +the pick of crews, and steer for opulent, fruitful England; where, +under Ethelred the Unready, was such a field for profitable enterprise +as the viking public never had before or since. + +An idle question sometimes rises on me,--idle enough, for it never can +be answered in the affirmative or the negative, Whether it was not +these same refitted Jomsburgers who appeared some while after this at +Red Head Point, on the shore of Angus, and sustained a new severe +beating, in what the Scotch still faintly remember as their "Battle of +Loncarty"? Beyond doubt a powerful Norse-pirate armament dropt anchor +at the Red Head, to the alarm of peaceable mortals, about that time. +It was thought and hoped to be on its way for England, but it visibly +hung on for several days, deliberating (as was thought) whether they +would do this poorer coast the honor to land on it before going +farther. Did land, and vigorously plunder and burn south-westward as +far as Perth; laid siege to Perth; but brought out King Kenneth on +them, and produced that "Battle of Loncarty" which still dwells in +vague memory among the Scots. Perhaps it might be the Jomsburgers; +perhaps also not; for there were many pirate associations, lasting not +from century to century like the Jomsburgers, but only for very +limited periods, or from year to year; indeed, it was mainly by such +that the splendid thief-harvest of England was reaped in this +disastrous time. No Scottish chronicler gives the least of exact date +to their famed victory of Loncarty, only that it was achieved by +Kenneth III., which will mean some time between A.D. 975 and 994; and, +by the order they put it in, probably soon after A.D. 975, or the +beginning of this Kenneth's reign. Buchanan's narrative, carefully +distilled from all the ancient Scottish sources, is of admirable +quality for style and otherwise quiet, brief, with perfect clearness, +perfect credibility even, except that semi-miraculous appendage of the +Ploughmen, Hay and Sons, always hanging to the tail of it; the grain +of possible truth in which can now never be extracted by man's art![6] +In brief, what we know is, fragments of ancient human bones and armor +have occasionally been ploughed up in this locality, proof positive of +ancient fighting here; and the fight fell out not long after Hakon's +beating of the Jomsburgers at the Cape of Stad. And in such dim +glimmer of wavering twilight, the question whether these of Loncarty +were refitted Jomsburgers or not, must be left hanging. Loncarty is +now the biggest bleach-field in Queen Victoria's dominions; no village +or hamlet there, only the huge bleaching-house and a beautiful field, +some six or seven miles northwest of Perth, bordered by the beautiful +Tay river on the one side, and by its beautiful tributary Almond on +the other; a Loncarty fitted either for bleaching linen, or for a bit +of fair duel between nations, in those simple times. + +Whether our refitted Jomsburgers had the least thing to do with it is +only matter of fancy, but if it were they who here again got a good +beating, fancy would be glad to find herself fact. The old piratical +kings of Denmark had been at the founding of Jomsburg, and to Svein of +the Forked Beard it was still vitally important, but not so to the +great Knut, or any king that followed; all of whom had better business +than mere thieving; and it was Magnus the Good, of Norway, a man of +still higher anti-anarchic qualities, that annihilated it, about a +century later. + +Hakon Jarl, his chief labors in the world being over, is said to have +become very dissolute in his elder days, especially in the matter of +women; the wretched old fool, led away by idleness and fulness of +bread, which to all of us are well said to be the parents of mischief. +Having absolute power, he got into the habit of openly plundering +men's pretty daughters and wives from them, and, after a few weeks, +sending them back; greatly to the rage of the fierce Norse heart, had +there been any means of resisting or revenging. It did, after a +little while, prove the ruin and destruction of Hakon the Rich, as he +was then called. It opened the door, namely, for entry of Olaf +Tryggveson upon the scene,--a very much grander man; in regard to whom +the wiles and traps of Hakon proved to be a recipe, not on Tryggveson, +but on the wily Hakon himself, as shall now be seen straightway. + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +OLAF TRYGGVESON. + +Hakon, in late times, had heard of a famous stirring person, +victorious in various lands and seas, latterly united in sea-robbery +with Svein, Prince Royal of Denmark, afterwards King Svein of the +Double-beard ("_Zvae Skiaeg_", _Twa Shag_) or fork-beard, both of whom +had already done transcendent feats in the viking way during this +copartnery. The fame of Svein, and this stirring personage, whose +name was "Ole," and, recently, their stupendous feats in plunder of +England, siege of London, and other wonders and splendors of viking +glory and success, had gone over all the North, awakening the +attention of Hakon and everybody there. The name of "Ole" was +enigmatic, mysterious, and even dangerous-looking to Hakon Jarl; who +at length sent out a confidential spy to investigate this "Ole;" a +feat which the confidential spy did completely accomplish,--by no +means to Hakon's profit! The mysterious "Ole" proved to be no other +than Olaf, son of Tryggve, destined to blow Hakon Jarl suddenly into +destruction, and become famous among the heroes of the Norse world. + +Of Olaf Tryggveson one always hopes there might, one day, some real +outline of a biography be written; fished from the abysses where (as +usual) it welters deep in foul neighborhood for the present. Farther +on we intend a few words more upon the matter. But in this place all +that concerns us in it limits itself to the two following facts first, +that Hakon's confidential spy "found Ole in Dublin;" picked +acquaintance with him, got him to confess that he was actually Olaf, +son of Tryggve (the Tryggve, whom Blood-axe's fierce widow and her +sons had murdered); got him gradually to own that perhaps an +expedition into Norway might have its chances; and finally that, under +such a wise and loyal guidance as his (the confidential spy's, whose +friendship for Tryggveson was so indubitable), he (Tryggveson) would +actually try it upon Hakon Jarl, the dissolute old scoundrel. Fact +second is, that about the time they two set sail from Dublin on their +Norway expedition, Hakon Jarl removed to Trondhjem, then called Lade; +intending to pass some months there. + +Now just about the time when Tryggveson, spy, and party had landed in +Norway, and were advancing upon Lade, with what support from the +public could be got, dissolute old Hakon Jarl had heard of one Gudrun, +a Bonder's wife, unparalleled in beauty, who was called in those +parts, "Sunbeam of the Grove" (so inexpressibly lovely); and sent off +a couple of thralls to bring her to him. "Never," answered Gudrun; +"never," her indignant husband; in a tone dangerous and displeasing to +these Court thralls; who had to leave rapidly, but threatened to +return in better strength before long. Whereupon, instantly, the +indignant Bonder and his Sunbeam of the Grove sent out their +war-arrow, rousing all the country into angry promptitude, and more +than one perhaps into greedy hope of revenge for their own injuries. +The rest of Hakon's history now rushes on with extreme rapidity. + +Sunbeam of the Grove, when next demanded of her Bonder, has the whole +neighborhood assembled in arms round her; rumor of Tryggveson is fast +making it the whole country. Hakon's insolent messengers are cut in +pieces; Hakon finds he cannot fly under cover too soon. With a single +slave he flies that same night;--but whitherward? Can think of no +safe place, except to some old mistress of his, who lives retired in +that neighborhood, and has some pity or regard for the wicked old +Hakon. Old mistress does receive him, pities him, will do all she can +to protect and hide him. But how, by what uttermost stretch of female +artifice hide him here; every one will search here first of all! Old +mistress, by the slave's help, extemporizes a cellar under the floor +of her pig-house; sticks Hakon and slave into that, as the one safe +seclusion she can contrive. Hakon and slave, begrunted by the pigs +above them, tortured by the devils within and about them, passed two +days in circumstances more and more horrible. For they heard, through +their light-slit and breathing-slit, the triumph of Tryggveson +proclaiming itself by Tryggveson's own lips, who had mounted a big +boulder near by and was victoriously speaking to the people, winding +up with a promise of honors and rewards to whoever should bring him +wicked old Hakon's head. Wretched Hakon, justly suspecting his slave, +tried to at least keep himself awake. Slave did keep himself awake +till Hakon dozed or slept, then swiftly cut off Hakon's head, and +plunged out with it to the presence of Tryggveson. Tryggveson, +detesting the traitor, useful as the treachery was, cut off the +slave's head too, had it hung up along with Hakon's on the pinnacle of +the Lade Gallows, where the populace pelted both heads with stones and +many curses, especially the more important of the two. "Hakon the +Bad" ever henceforth, instead of Hakon the Rich. + +This was the end of Hakon Jarl, the last support of heathenry in +Norway, among other characteristics he had: a stronghanded, +hard-headed, very relentless, greedy and wicked being. He is reckoned +to have ruled in Norway, or mainly ruled, either in the struggling or +triumphant state, for about thirty years (965-995?). He and his +seemed to have formed, by chance rather than design, the chief +opposition which the Haarfagr posterity throughout its whole course +experienced in Norway. Such the cost to them of killing good Jarl +Sigurd, in Greyfell's time! For "curses, like chickens," do sometimes +visibly "come home to feed," as they always, either visibly or else +invisibly, are punctually sure to do. + +Hakon Jarl is considerably connected with the _Faroer Saga_ often +mentioned there, and comes out perfectly in character; an altogether +worldly-wise man of the roughest type, not without a turn for +practicality of kindness to those who would really be of use to him. +His tendencies to magic also are not forgotten. + +Hakon left two sons, Eric and Svein, often also mentioned in this +Saga. On their father's death they fled to Sweden, to Denmark, and +were busy stirring up troubles in those countries against Olaf +Tryggveson; till at length, by a favorable combination, under their +auspices chiefly, they got his brief and noble reign put an end to. +Nay, furthermore, Jarl Eric left sons, especially an elder son, named +also Eric, who proved a sore affliction, and a continual stone of +stumbling to a new generation of Haarfagrs, and so continued the curse +of Sigurd's murder upon them. + +Towards the end of this Hakon's reign it was that the discovery of +America took place (985). Actual discovery, it appears, by Eric the +Red, an Icelander; concerning which there has been abundant +investigation and discussion in our time. _Ginnungagap_ (Roaring +Abyss) is thought to be the mouth of Behring's Straits in Baffin's +Bay; _Big Helloland_, the coast from Cape Walsingham to near +Newfoundland; _Little Helloland_, Newfoundland itself. _Markland_ was +Lower Canada, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia. Southward thence to +Chesapeake Bay was called _Wine Land_ (wild grapes still grow in Rhode +Island, and more luxuriantly further south). _White Man's Land_, +called also _Great Ireland_, is supposed to mean the two Carolinas, +down to the Southern Cape of Florida. In Dahlmann's opinion, the +Irish themselves might even pretend to have probably been the first +discoverers of America; they had evidently got to Iceland itself +before the Norse exiles found it out. It appears to be certain that, +from the end of the tenth century to the early part of the fourteenth, +there was a dim knowledge of those distant shores extant in the Norse +mind, and even some straggling series of visits thither by roving +Norsemen; though, as only danger, difficulty, and no profit resulted, +the visits ceased, and the whole matter sank into oblivion, and, but +for the Icelandic talent of writing in the long winter nights, would +never have been heard of by posterity at all. + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +REIGN OF OLAF TRYGGVESON. + +Olaf Tryggveson (A.D. 995-1000) also makes a great figure in the +_Faroer Saga_, and recounts there his early troubles, which were +strange and many. He is still reckoned a grand hero of the North, +though his _vates_ now is only Snorro Sturleson of Iceland. +Tryggveson had indeed many adventures in the world. His poor mother, +Astrid, was obliged to fly, on murder of her husband by Gunhild,--to +fly for life, three months before he, her little Olaf, was born. She +lay concealed in reedy islands, fled through trackless forests; +reached her father's with the little baby in her arms, and lay +deep-hidden there, tended only by her father himself; Gunhild's +pursuit being so incessant, and keen as with sleuth-hounds. Poor +Astrid had to fly again, deviously to Sweden, to Esthland (Esthonia), +to Russia. In Esthland she was sold as a slave, quite parted from her +boy,--who also was sold, and again sold; but did at last fall in with +a kinsman high in the Russian service; did from him find redemption +and help, and so rose, in a distinguished manner, to manhood, +victorious self-help, and recovery of his kingdom at last. He even +met his mother again, he as king of Norway, she as one wonderfully +lifted out of darkness into new life and happiness still in store. + +Grown to manhood, Tryggveson,--now become acquainted with his birth, +and with his, alas, hopeless claims,--left Russia for the one +profession open to him, that of sea-robbery; and did feats without +number in that questionable line in many seas and scenes,--in England +latterly, and most conspicuously of all. In one of his courses +thither, after long labors in the Hebrides, Man, Wales, and down the +western shores to the very Land's End and farther, he paused at the +Scilly Islands for a little while. He was told of a wonderful +Christian hermit living strangely in these sea-solitudes; had the +curiosity to seek him out, examine, question, and discourse with him; +and, after some reflection, accepted Christian baptism from the +venerable man. In Snorro the story is involved in miracle, rumor, and +fable; but the fact itself seems certain, and is very interesting; the +great, wild, noble soul of fierce Olaf opening to this wonderful +gospel of tidings from beyond the world, tidings which infinitely +transcended all else he had ever heard or dreamt of! It seems certain +he was baptized here; date not fixable; shortly before poor +heart-broken Dunstan's death, or shortly after; most English churches, +monasteries especially, lying burnt, under continual visitation of the +Danes. Olaf such baptism notwithstanding, did not quit his viking +profession; indeed, what other was there for him in the world as yet? + +We mentioned his occasional copartneries with Svein of the +Double-beard, now become King of Denmark, but the greatest of these, +and the alone interesting at this time, is their joint invasion of +England, and Tryggveson's exploits and fortunes there some years after +that adventure of baptism in the Scilly Isles. Svein and he "were +above a year in England together," this time: they steered up the +Thames with three hundred ships and many fighters; siege, or at least +furious assault, of London was their first or main enterprise, but it +did not succeed. The Saxon Chronicle gives date to it, A.D. 994, and +names expressly, as Svein's co-partner, "Olaus, king of +Norway,"--which he was as yet far from being; but in regard to the +Year of Grace the Saxon Chronicle is to be held indisputable, and, +indeed, has the field to itself in this matter. Famed Olaf +Tryggveson, seen visibly at the siege of London, year 994, it throws a +kind of momentary light to us over that disastrous whirlpool of +miseries and confusions, all dark and painful to the fancy otherwise! +This big voyage and furious siege of London is Svein Double-beard's +first real attempt to fulfil that vow of his at Father Blue-tooth's +"funeral ale," and conquer England,--which it is a pity he could not +yet do. Had London now fallen to him, it is pretty evident all +England must have followed, and poor England, with Svein as king over +it, been delivered from immeasurable woes, which had to last some +two-and-twenty years farther, before this result could be arrived at. +But finding London impregnable for the moment (no ship able to get +athwart the bridge, and many Danes perishing in the attempt to do it +by swimming), Svein and Olaf turned to other enterprises; all England +in a manner lying open to them, turn which way they liked. They burnt +and plundered over Kent, over Hampshire, Sussex; they stormed far and +wide; world lying all before them where to choose. Wretched Ethelred, +as the one invention he could fall upon, offered them Danegelt (16,000 +pounds of silver this year, but it rose in other years as high as +48,000 pounds); the desperate Ethelred, a clear method of quenching +fire by pouring oil on it! Svein and Olaf accepted; withdrew to +Southampton,--Olaf at least did,--till the money was got ready. +Strange to think of, fierce Svein of the Double-beard, and conquest of +England by him; this had at last become the one salutary result which +remained for that distracted, down-trodden, now utterly chaotic and +anarchic country. A conquering Svein, followed by an ably and +earnestly administrative, as well as conquering, Knut (whom Dahlmann +compares to Charlemagne), were thus by the mysterious destinies +appointed the effective saviors of England. + +Tryggveson, on this occasion, was a good while at Southampton; and +roamed extensively about, easily victorious over everything, if +resistance were attempted, but finding little or none; and acting now +in a peaceable or even friendly capacity. In the Southampton country +he came in contact with the then Bishop of Winchester, afterwards +Archbishop of Canterbury, excellent Elphegus, still dimly decipherable +to us as a man of great natural discernment, piety, and inborn +veracity; a hero-soul, probably of real brotherhood with Olaf's own. +He even made court visits to King Ethelred; one visit to him at +Andover of a very serious nature. By Elphegus, as we can discover, he +was introduced into the real depths of the Christian faith. Elphegus, +with due solemnity of apparatus, in presence of the king, at Andover, +baptized Olaf anew, and to him Olaf engaged that he would never +plunder in England any more; which promise, too, he kept. In fact, +not long after, Svein's conquest of England being in an evidently +forward state, Tryggveson (having made, withal, a great English or +Irish marriage,--a dowager Princess, who had voluntarily fallen in +love with him,--see Snorro for this fine romantic fact!) mainly +resided in our island for two or three years, or else in Dublin, in +the precincts of the Danish Court there in the Sister Isle. +Accordingly it was in Dublin, as above noted, that Hakon's spy found +him; and from the Liffey that his squadron sailed, through the +Hebrides, through the Orkneys, plundering and baptizing in their +strange way, towards such success as we have seen. + +Tryggveson made a stout, and, in effect, victorious and glorious +struggle for himself as king. Daily and hourly vigilant to do so, +often enough by soft and even merry methods, for he was a witty, +jocund man, and had a fine ringing laugh in him, and clear pregnant +words ever ready,--or if soft methods would not serve, then by hard +and even hardest he put down a great deal of miscellaneous anarchy in +Norway; was especially busy against heathenism (devil-worship and its +rites): this, indeed, may be called the focus and heart of all his +royal endeavor in Norway, and of all the troubles he now had with his +people there. For this was a serious, vital, all-comprehending +matter; devil-worship, a thing not to be tolerated one moment longer +than you could by any method help! Olaf's success was intermittent, +of varying complexion; but his effort, swift or slow, was strong and +continual; and on the whole he did succeed. Take a sample or two of +that wonderful conversion process:-- + +At one of his first Things he found the Bonders all assembled in arms; +resolute to the death seemingly, against his proposal and him. +Tryggveson said little; waited impassive, "What your reasons are, good +men?" One zealous Bonder started up in passionate parliamentary +eloquence; but after a sentence or two, broke down; one, and then +another, and still another, and remained all three staring in +open-mouthed silence there! The peasant-proprietors accepted the +phenomenon as ludicrous, perhaps partly as miraculous withal, and +consented to baptism this time. + +On another occasion of a Thing, which had assembled near some heathen +temple to meet him,--temple where Hakon Jarl had done much repairing, +and set up many idol figures and sumptuous ornaments, regardless of +expense, especially a very big and splendid Thor, with massive gold +collar round the neck of him, not the like of it in Norway,--King Olaf +Tryggveson was clamorously invited by the Bonders to step in there, +enlighten his eyes, and partake of the sacred rites. Instead of which +he rushed into the temple with his armed men; smashed down, with his +own battle-axe, the god Thor, prostrate on the ground at one stroke, +to set an example; and, in a few minutes, had the whole Hakon Pantheon +wrecked; packing up meanwhile all the gold and preciosities +accumulated there (not forgetting Thor's illustrious gold collar, of +which we shall hear again), and victoriously took the plunder home +with him for his own royal uses and behoof of the state. +In other cases, though a friend to strong measures, he had to hold in, +and await the favorable moment. Thus once, in beginning a +parliamentary address, so soon as he came to touch upon Christianity, +the Bonders rose in murmurs, in vociferations and jingling of arms, +which quite drowned the royal voice; declared, they had taken arms +against king Hakon the Good to compel him to desist from his Christian +proposals; and they did not think King Olaf a higher man than him +(Hakon the Good). The king then said, "He purposed coming to them +next Yule to their great sacrificial feast, to see for himself what +their customs were," which pacified the Bonders for this time. The +appointed place of meeting was again a Hakon-Jarl Temple, not yet done +to ruin; chief shrine in those Trondhjem parts, I believe : there +should Tryggveson appear at Yule. Well, but before Yule came, +Tryggveson made a great banquet in his palace at Trondhjem, and +invited far and wide, all manner of important persons out of the +district as guests there. Banquet hardly done, Tryggveson gave some +slight signal, upon which armed men strode in, seized eleven of these +principal persons, and the king said: "Since he himself was to become +a heathen again, and do sacrifice, it was his purpose to do it in the +highest form, namely, that of Human Sacrifice; and this time not of +slaves and malefactors, but of the best men in the country!" In which +stringent circumstances the eleven seized persons, and company at +large, gave unanimous consent to baptism; straightway received the +same, and abjured their idols; but were not permitted to go home till +they had left, in sons, brothers, and other precious relatives, +sufficient hostages in the king's hands. + +By unwearied industry of this and better kinds, Tryggveson had +trampled down idolatry, so far as form went,--how far in substance may +be greatly doubted. But it is to be remembered withal, that always on +the back of these compulsory adventures there followed English +bishops, priests and preachers; whereby to the open-minded, +conviction, to all degrees of it, was attainable, while silence and +passivity became the duty or necessity of the unconvinced party. + +In about two years Norway was all gone over with a rough harrow of +conversion. Heathenism at least constrained to be silent and +outwardly conformable. Tryggveson, next turned his attention to +Iceland, sent one Thangbrand, priest from Saxony, of wonderful +qualities, military as well as theological, to try and convert +Iceland. Thangbrand made a few converts; for Olaf had already many +estimable Iceland friends, whom he liked much, and was much liked by; +and conversion was the ready road to his favor. Thangbrand, I find, +lodged with Hall of Sida (familiar acquaintance of "Burnt Njal," whose +Saga has its admirers among us even now). Thangbrand converted Hall +and one or two other leading men,; but in general he was reckoned +quarrelsome and blusterous rather than eloquent and piously +convincing. Two skalds of repute made biting lampoons upon +Thangbrand, whom Thangbrand, by two opportunities that offered, cut +down and did to death because of their skaldic quality. Another he +killed with his own hand, I know not for what reason. In brief, after +about a year, Thangbrand returned to Norway and king Olaf; declaring +the Icelanders to be a perverse, satirical, and inconvertible people, +having himself, the record says, "been the death of three men there." +King Olaf was in high rage at this result; but was persuaded by the +Icelanders about him to try farther, and by a wilder instrument. He +accordingly chose one Thormod, a pious, patient, and kindly man, who, +within the next year or so, did actually accomplish the matter; +namely, get Christianity, by open vote, declared at Thingvalla by the +general Thing of Iceland there; the roar of a big thunder-clap at the +right moment rather helping the conclusion, if I recollect. Whereupon +Olaf's joy was no doubt great. + +One general result of these successful operations was the discontent, +to all manner of degrees, on the part of many Norse individuals, +against this glorious and victorious, but peremptory and terrible king +of theirs. Tryggveson, I fancy, did not much regard all that; a man +of joyful, cheery temper, habitually contemptuous of danger. Another +trivial misfortune that befell in these conversion operations, and +became important to him, he did not even know of, and would have much +despised if he had. It was this: Sigrid, queen dowager of Sweden, +thought to be amongst the most shining women of the world, was also +known for one of the most imperious, revengeful, and relentless, and +had got for herself the name of Sigrid the Proud. In her high +widowhood she had naturally many wooers; but treated them in a manner +unexampled. Two of her suitors, a simultaneous Two, were, King Harald +Graenske (a cousin of King Tryggveson's, and kind of king in some +district, by sufferance of the late Hakon's),--this luckless Graenske +and the then Russian Sovereign as well, name not worth mentioning, +were zealous suitors of Queen Dowager Sigrid, and were perversely slow +to accept the negative, which in her heart was inexorable for both, +though the expression of it could not be quite so emphatic. By +ill-luck for them they came once,--from the far West, Graenske; from +the far East, the Russian;--and arrived both together at Sigrid's +court, to prosecute their importunate, and to her odious and tiresome +suit; much, how very much, to her impatience and disdain. She lodged +them both in some old mansion, which she had contiguous, and got +compendiously furnished for them; and there, I know not whether on the +first or on the second, or on what following night, this unparalleled +Queen Sigrid had the house surrounded, set on fire, and the two +suitors and their people burnt to ashes! No more of bother from these +two at least! This appears to be a fact; and it could not be unknown +to Tryggveson. + +In spite of which, however, there went from Tryggveson, who was now a +widower, some incipient marriage proposals to this proud widow; by +whom they were favorably received; as from the brightest man in all +the world, they might seem worth being. Now, in one of these +anti-heathen onslaughts of King Olaf's on the idol temples of +Hakon--(I think it was that case where Olaf's own battle-axe struck +down the monstrous refulgent Thor, and conquered an immense gold ring +from the neck of him, or from the door of his temple),--a huge gold +ring, at any rate, had come into Olaf's hands; and this he bethought +him might be a pretty present to Queen Sigrid, the now favorable, +though the proud. Sigrid received the ring with joy; fancied what a +collar it would make for her own fair neck; but noticed that her two +goldsmiths, weighing it on their fingers, exchanged a glance. "What +is that?" exclaimed Queen Sigrid. "Nothing," answered they, or +endeavored to answer, dreading mischief. But Sigrid compelled them to +break open the ring; and there was found, all along the inside of it, +an occult ring of copper, not a heart of gold at all! "Ha," said the +proud Queen, flinging it away, "he that could deceive in this matter +can deceive in many others!" And was in hot wrath with Olaf; though, +by degrees, again she took milder thoughts. + +Milder thoughts, we say; and consented to a meeting next autumn, at +some half-way station, where their great business might be brought to +a happy settlement and betrothment. Both Olaf Tryggveson and the high +dowager appear to have been tolerably of willing mind at this meeting; +but Olaf interposed, what was always one condition with him, "Thou +must consent to baptism, and give up thy idol-gods." "They are the +gods of all my forefathers," answered the lady, "choose thou what gods +thou pleasest, but leave me mine." Whereupon an altercation; and +Tryggveson, as was his wont, towered up into shining wrath, and +exclaimed at last, "Why should I care about thee then, old faded +heathen creature?" And impatiently wagging his glove, hit her, or +slightly switched her, on the face with it, and contemptuously turning +away, walked out of the adventure. "This is a feat that may cost thee +dear one day," said Sigrid. And in the end it came to do so, little +as the magnificent Olaf deigned to think of it at the moment. + +One of the last scuffles I remember of Olaf's having with his +refractory heathens, was at a Thing in Hordaland or Rogaland, far in +the North, where the chief opposition hero was one Jaernskaegg +("ironbeard") Scottice ("Airn-shag," as it were!). Here again was a +grand heathen temple, Hakon Jarl's building, with a splendid Thor in +it and much idol furniture. The king stated what was his constant +wish here as elsewhere, but had no sooner entered upon the subject of +Christianity than universal murmur, rising into clangor and violent +dissent, interrupted him, and Ironbeard took up the discourse in +reply. Ironbeard did not break down; on the contrary, he, with great +brevity, emphasis, and clearness, signified "that the proposal to +reject their old gods was in the highest degree unacceptable to this +Thing; that it was contrary to bargain, withal; so that if it were +insisted on, they would have to fight with the king about it; and in +fact were now ready to do so." In reply to this, Olaf, without word +uttered, but merely with some signal to the trusty armed men he had +with him, rushed off to the temple close at hand; burst into it, +shutting the door behind him; smashed Thor and Co. to destruction; +then reappearing victorious, found much confusion outside, and, in +particular, what was a most important item, the rugged Ironbeard done +to death by Olaf's men in the interim. Which entirely disheartened +the Thing from fighting at that moment; having now no leader who dared +to head them in so dangerous an enterprise. So that every one +departed to digest his rage in silence as he could. + +Matters having cooled for a week or two, there was another Thing held; +in which King Olaf testified regret for the quarrel that had fallen +out, readiness to pay what _mulct_ was due by law for that unlucky +homicide of Ironbeard by his people; and, withal, to take the fair +daughter of Ironbeard to wife, if all would comply and be friends with +him in other matters; which was the course resolved on as most +convenient: accept baptism, we; marry Jaernskaegg's daughter, you. +This bargain held on both sides. The wedding, too, was celebrated, +but that took rather a strange turn. On the morning of the +bride-night, Olaf, who had not been sleeping, though his fair partner +thought he had, opened his eyes, and saw, with astonishment, the fair +partner aiming a long knife ready to strike home upon him! Which at +once ended their wedded life; poor Demoiselle Ironbeard immediately +bundling off with her attendants home again; King Olaf into the +apartment of his servants, mentioning there what had happened, and +forbidding any of them to follow her. + +Olaf Tryggveson, though his kingdom was the smallest of the Norse +Three, had risen to a renown over all the Norse world, which neither +he of Denmark nor he of Sweden could pretend to rival. A magnificent, +far-shining man; more expert in all "bodily exercises" as the Norse +call them, than any man had ever been before him, or after was. Could +keep five daggers in the air, always catching the proper fifth by its +handle, and sending it aloft again; could shoot supremely, throw a +javelin with either hand; and, in fact, in battle usually throw two +together. These, with swimming, climbing, leaping, were the then +admirable Fine Arts of the North; in all which Tryggveson appears to +have been the Raphael and the Michael Angelo at once. Essentially +definable, too, if we look well into him, as a wild bit of real +heroism, in such rude guise and environment; a high, true, and great +human soul. A jovial burst of laughter in him, withal; a bright, +airy, wise way of speech; dressed beautifully and with care; a man +admired and loved exceedingly by those he liked; dreaded as death by +those he did not like. "Hardly any king," says Snorro, "was ever so +well obeyed; by one class out of zeal and love, by the rest out of +dread." His glorious course, however, was not to last long. + +King Svein of the Double-Beard had not yet completed his conquest of +England,--by no means yet, some thirteen horrid years of that still +before him!--when, over in Denmark, he found that complaints against +him and intricacies had arisen, on the part principally of one +Burislav, King of the Wends (far up the Baltic), and in a less degree +with the King of Sweden and other minor individuals. Svein earnestly +applied himself to settle these, and have his hands free. Burislav, +an aged heathen gentleman, proved reasonable and conciliatory; so, +too, the King of Sweden, and Dowager Queen Sigrid, his managing +mother. Bargain in both these cases got sealed and crowned by +marriage. Svein, who had become a widower lately, now wedded Sigrid; +and might think, possibly enough, he had got a proud bargain, though a +heathen one. Burislav also insisted on marriage with Princess Thyri, +the Double-Beard's sister. Thyri, inexpressibly disinclined to wed an +aged heathen of that stamp, pleaded hard with her brother; but the +Double-Bearded was inexorable; Thyri's wailings and entreaties went +for nothing. With some guardian foster-brother, and a serving-maid or +two, she had to go on this hated journey. Old Burislav, at sight of +her, blazed out into marriage-feast of supreme magnificence, and was +charmed to see her; but Thyri would not join the marriage party; +refused to eat with it or sit with it at all. Day after day, for six +days, flatly refused; and after nightfall of the sixth, glided out +with her foster-brother into the woods, into by-paths and +inconceivable wanderings; and, in effect, got home to Denmark. +Brother Svein was not for the moment there; probably enough gone to +England again. But Thyri knew too well he would not allow her to stay +here, or anywhere that he could help, except with the old heathen she +had just fled from. + +Thyri, looking round the world, saw no likely road for her, but to +Olaf Tryggveson in Norway; to beg protection from the most heroic man +she knew of in the world. Olaf, except by renown, was not known to +her; but by renown he well was. Olaf, at sight of her, promised +protection and asylum against all mortals. Nay, in discoursing with +Thyri Olaf perceived more and more clearly what a fine handsome being, +soul and body, Thyri was; and in a short space of time winded up by +proposing marriage to Thyri; who, humbly, and we may fancy with what +secret joy, consented to say yes, and become Queen of Norway. In the +due months they had a little son, Harald; who, it is credibly +recorded, was the joy of both his parents; but who, to their +inexpressible sorrow, in about a year died, and vanished from them. +This, and one other fact now to be mentioned, is all the wedded +history we have of Thyri. + +The other fact is, that Thyri had, by inheritance or covenant, not +depending on her marriage with old Burislav, considerable properties +in Wendland; which, she often reflected, might be not a little +behooveful to her here in Norway, where her civil-list was probably +but straitened. She spoke of this to her husband; but her husband +would take no hold, merely made her gifts, and said, "Pooh, pooh, +can't we live without old Burislav and his Wendland properties?" So +that the lady sank into ever deeper anxiety and eagerness about this +Wendland object; took to weeping; sat weeping whole days; and when +Olaf asked, "What ails thee, then?" would answer, or did answer once, +"What a different man my father Harald Gormson was [vulgarly called +Blue-tooth], compared with some that are now kings! For no King Svein +in the world would Harald Gormson have given up his own or his wife's +just rights!" Whereupon Tryggveson started up, exclaiming in some +heat, "Of thy brother Svein I never was afraid; if Svein and I meet in +contest, it will not be Svein, I believe, that conquers;" and went off +in a towering fume. Consented, however, at last, had to consent, to +get his fine fleet equipped and armed, and decide to sail with it to +Wendland to have speech and settlement with King Burislav. + +Tryggveson had already ships and navies that were the wonder of the +North. Especially in building war ships, the Crane, the Serpent, last +of all the Long Serpent,[7]--he had, for size, for outward beauty, and +inward perfection of equipment, transcended all example. + +This new sea expedition became an object of attention to all +neighbors; especially Queen Sigrid the Proud and Svein Double-Beard, +her now king, were attentive to it. + +"This insolent Tryggveson," Queen Sigrid would often say, and had long +been saying, to her Svein, "to marry thy sister without leave had or +asked of thee; and now flaunting forth his war navies, as if he, king +only of paltry Norway, were the big hero of the North! Why do you +suffer it, you kings really great?" + +By such persuasions and reiterations, King Svein of Denmark, King Olaf +of Sweden, and Jarl Eric, now a great man there, grown rich by +prosperous sea robbery and other good management, were brought to take +the matter up, and combine strenuously for destruction of King Olaf +Tryggveson on this grand Wendland expedition of his. Fleets and +forces were with best diligence got ready; and, withal, a certain Jarl +Sigwald, of Jomsburg, chieftain of the Jomsvikings, a powerful, +plausible, and cunning man, was appointed to find means of joining +himself to Tryggveson's grand voyage, of getting into Tryggveson's +confidence, and keeping Svein Double-Beard, Eric, and the Swedish King +aware of all his movements. + +King Olaf Tryggveson, unacquainted with all this, sailed away in +summer, with his splendid fleet; went through the Belts with +prosperous winds, under bright skies, to the admiration of both +shores. Such a fleet, with its shining Serpents, long and short, and +perfection of equipment and appearance, the Baltic never saw before. +Jarl Sigwald joined with new ships by the way: "Had," he too, "a +visit to King Burislav to pay; how could he ever do it in better +company?" and studiously and skilfully ingratiated himself with King +Olaf. Old Burislav, when they arrived, proved altogether courteous, +handsome, and amenable; agreed at once to Olaf's claims for his now +queen, did the rites of hospitality with a generous plenitude to Olaf; +who cheerily renewed acquaintance with that country, known to him in +early days (the cradle of his fortunes in the viking line), and found +old friends there still surviving, joyful to meet him again. Jarl +Sigwald encouraged these delays, King Svein and Co. not being yet +quite ready. "Get ready!" Sigwald directed them, and they diligently +did. Olaf's men, their business now done, were impatient to be home; +and grudged every day of loitering there; but, till Sigwald pleased, +such his power of flattering and cajoling Tryggveson, they could not +get away. + +At length, Sigwald's secret messengers reporting all ready on the part +of Svein and Co., Olaf took farewell of Burislav and Wendland, and all +gladly sailed away. Svein, Eric, and the Swedish king, with their +combined fleets, lay in wait behind some cape in a safe little bay of +some island, then called Svolde, but not in our time to be found; the +Baltic tumults in the fourteenth century having swallowed it, as some +think, and leaving us uncertain whether it was in the neighborhood of +Rugen Island or in the Sound of Elsinore. There lay Svein, Eric, and +Co. waiting till Tryggveson and his fleet came up, Sigwald's spy +messengers daily reporting what progress he and it had made. At +length, one bright summer morning, the fleet made appearance, sailing +in loose order, Sigwald, as one acquainted with the shoal places, +steering ahead, and showing them the way. + +Snorro rises into one of his pictorial fits, seized with enthusiasm at +the thought of such a fleet, and reports to us largely in what order +Tryggveson's winged Coursers of the Deep, in long series, for perhaps +an hour or more, came on, and what the three potentates, from their +knoll of vantage, said of each as it hove in sight, Svein thrice over +guessed this and the other noble vessel to be the Long Serpent; Eric, +always correcting him, "No, that is not the Long Serpent yet" (and +aside always), "Nor shall you be lord of it, king, when it does come." +The Long Serpent itself did make appearance. Eric, Svein, and the +Swedish king hurried on board, and pushed out of their hiding-place +into the open sea. Treacherous Sigwald, at the beginning of all this, +had suddenly doubled that cape of theirs, and struck into the bay out +of sight, leaving the foremost Tryggveson ships astonished, and +uncertain what to do, if it were not simply to strike sail and wait +till Olaf himself with the Long Serpent arrived. + +Olaf's chief captains, seeing the enemy's huge fleet come out, and how +the matter lay, strongly advised King Olaf to elude this stroke of +treachery, and, with all sail, hold on his course, fight being now on +so unequal terms. Snorro says, the king, high on the quarter-deck +where he stood, replied, "Strike the sails; never shall men of mine +think of flight. I never fled from battle. Let God dispose of my +life; but flight I will never take." And so the battle arrangements +immediately began, and the battle with all fury went loose; and lasted +hour after hour, till almost sunset, if I well recollect. "Olaf stood +on the Serpent's quarter-deck," says Snorro, "high over the others. +He had a gilt shield and a helmet inlaid with gold; over his armor he +had a short red coat, and was easily distinguished from other men." +Snorro's account of the battle is altogether animated, graphic, and so +minute that antiquaries gather from it, if so disposed (which we but +little are), what the methods of Norse sea-fighting were; their +shooting of arrows, casting of javelins, pitching of big stones, +ultimately boarding, and mutual clashing and smashing, which it would +not avail us to speak of here. Olaf stood conspicuous all day, +throwing javelins, of deadly aim, with both hands at once; +encouraging, fighting and commanding like a highest sea-king. + +The Danish fleet, the Swedish fleet, were, both of them, quickly dealt +with, and successively withdrew out of shot-range. And then Jarl Eric +came up, and fiercely grappled with the Long Serpent, or, rather, with +her surrounding comrades; and gradually, as they were beaten empty of +men, with the Long Serpent herself. The fight grew ever fiercer, more +furious. Eric was supplied with new men from the Swedes and Danes; +Olaf had no such resource, except from the crews of his own beaten +ships, and at length this also failed him; all his ships, except the +Long Serpent, being beaten and emptied. Olaf fought on unyielding. +Eric twice boarded him, was twice repulsed. Olaf kept his +quarterdeck; unconquerable, though left now more and more hopeless, +fatally short of help. A tall young man, called Einar Tamberskelver, +very celebrated and important afterwards in Norway, and already the +best archer known, kept busy with his bow. Twice he nearly shot Jarl +Eric in his ship. "Shoot me that man," said Jarl Eric to a bowman +near him; and, just as Tamberskelver was drawing his bow the third +time, an arrow hit it in the middle and broke it in two. "What is +this that has broken?" asked King Olaf. "Norway from thy hand, king," +answered Tamberskelver. Tryggveson's men, he observed with surprise, +were striking violently on Eric's; but to no purpose: nobody fell. +"How is this?" asked Tryggveson. "Our swords are notched and +blunted, king; they do not cut." Olaf stept down to his arm-chest; +delivered out new swords; and it was observed as he did it, blood ran +trickling from his wrist; but none knew where the wound was. Eric +boarded a third time. Olaf, left with hardly more than one man, +sprang overboard (one sees that red coat of his still glancing in the +evening sun), and sank in the deep waters to his long rest. + +Rumor ran among his people that he still was not dead; grounding on +some movement by the ships of that traitorous Sigwald, they fancied +Olaf had dived beneath the keels of his enemies, and got away with +Sigwald, as Sigwald himself evidently did. "Much was hoped, supposed, +spoken," says one old mourning Skald; "but the truth was, Olaf +Tryggveson was never seen in Norseland more." Strangely he remains +still a shining figure to us; the wildly beautifulest man, in body and +in soul, that one has ever heard of in the North. + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +JARLS ERIC AND SVEIN. + +Jarl Eric, splendent with this victory, not to speak of that over the +Jomsburgers with his father long ago, was now made Governor of Norway: +Governor or quasi-sovereign, with his brother, Jarl. Svein, as +partner, who, however, took but little hand in governing;--and, under +the patronage of Svein Double-Beard and the then Swedish king (Olaf +his name, Sigrid the Proud, his mother's), administered it, they say, +with skill and prudence for above fourteen years. Tryggveson's death +is understood and laboriously computed to have happened in the year +1000; but there is no exact chronology in these things, but a +continual uncertain guessing after such; so that one eye in History as +regards them is as if put out;--neither indeed have I yet had the luck +to find any decipherable and intelligible map of Norway: so that the +other eye of History is much blinded withal, and her path through +those wild regions and epochs is an extremely dim and chaotic one. An +evil that much demands remedying, and especially wants some first +attempt at remedying, by inquirers into English History; the whole +period from Egbert, the first Saxon King of England, on to Edward the +Confessor, the last, being everywhere completely interwoven with that +of their mysterious, continually invasive "Danes," as they call them, +and inextricably unintelligible till these also get to be a little +understood, and cease to be utterly dark, hideous, and mythical to us +as they now are. + +King Olaf Tryggveson is the first Norseman who is expressly mentioned +to have been in England by our English History books, new or old; and +of him it is merely said that he had an interview with King Ethelred +II. at Andover, of a pacific and friendly nature,--though it is +absurdly added that the noble Olaf was converted to Christianity by +that extremely stupid Royal Person. Greater contrast in an interview +than in this at Andover, between heroic Olaf Tryggveson and Ethelred +the forever Unready, was not perhaps seen in the terrestrial Planet +that day. Olaf or "Olaus," or "Anlaf," as they name him, did "engage +on oath to Ethelred not to invade England any more," and kept his +promise, they farther say. Essentially a truth, as we already know, +though the circumstances were all different; and the promise was to a +devout High Priest, not to a crowned Blockhead and cowardly +Do-nothing. One other "Olaus" I find mentioned in our Books, two or +three centuries before, at a time when there existed no such +individual; not to speak of several Anlafs, who sometimes seem to mean +Olaf and still oftener to mean nobody possible. Which occasions not a +little obscurity in our early History, says the learned Selden. A +thing remediable, too, in which, if any Englishman of due genius (or +even capacity for standing labor), who understood the Icelandic and +Anglo-Saxon languages, would engage in it, he might do a great deal of +good, and bring the matter into a comparatively lucid state. Vain +aspirations,--or perhaps not altogether vain. + +At the time of Olaf Tryggveson's death, and indeed long before, King +Svein Double-Beard had always for chief enterprise the Conquest of +England, and followed it by fits with extreme violence and impetus; +often advancing largely towards a successful conclusion; but never, +for thirteen years yet, getting it concluded. He possessed long since +all England north of Watling Street. That is to say, Northumberland, +East Anglia (naturally full of Danish settlers by this time), were +fixedly his; Mercia, his oftener than not; Wessex itself, with all the +coasts, he was free to visit, and to burn and rob in at discretion. +There or elsewhere, Ethelred the Unready had no battle in him +whatever; and, for a forty years after the beginning of his reign, +England excelled in anarchic stupidity, murderous devastation, utter +misery, platitude, and sluggish contemptibility, all the countries one +has read of. Apparently a very opulent country, too; a ready skill in +such arts and fine arts as there were; Svein's very ships, they say, +had their gold dragons, top-mast pennons, and other metallic splendors +generally wrought for them in England. "Unexampled prosperity" in the +manufacture way not unknown there, it would seem! But co-existing +with such spiritual bankruptcy as was also unexampled, one would hope. +Read Lupus (Wulfstan), Archbishop of York's amazing _Sermon_ on the +subject,[8] addressed to contemporary audiences; setting forth such a +state of things,--sons selling their fathers, mothers, and sisters as +Slaves to the Danish robber; themselves living in debauchery, +blusterous gluttony, and depravity; the details of which are well-nigh +incredible, though clearly stated as things generally known,--the +humor of these poor wretches sunk to a state of what we may call +greasy desperation, "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die." The +manner in which they treated their own English nuns, if young, +good-looking, and captive to the Danes; buying them on a kind of +brutish or subter-brutish "Greatest Happiness Principle" (for the +moment), and by a Joint-Stock arrangement, far transcends all human +speech or imagination, and awakens in one the momentary red-hot +thought, The Danes have served you right, ye accursed! The so-called +soldiers, one finds, made not the least fight anywhere; could make +none, led and guided as they were, and the "Generals" often enough +traitors, always ignorant, and blockheads, were in the habit, when +expressly commanded to fight, of taking physic, and declaring that +nature was incapable of castor-oil and battle both at once. This +ought to be explained a little to the modern English and their +War-Secretaries, who undertake the conduct of armies. The undeniable +fact is, defeat on defeat was the constant fate of the English; during +these forty years not one battle in which they were not beaten. No +gleam of victory or real resistance till the noble Edmund Ironside +(whom it is always strange to me how such an Ethelred could produce +for son) made his appearance and ran his brief course, like a great +and far-seen meteor, soon extinguished without result. No remedy for +England in that base time, but yearly asking the victorious, +plundering, burning and murdering Danes, "How much money will you take +to go away?" Thirty thousand pounds in silver, which the annual +_Danegelt_ soon rose to, continued to be about the average yearly sum, +though generally on the increasing hand; in the last year I think it +had risen to seventy-two thousand pounds in silver, raised yearly by a +tax (Income-tax of its kind, rudely levied), the worst of all +remedies, good for the day only. Nay, there was one remedy still +worse, which the miserable Ethelred once tried: that of massacring +"all the Danes settled in England" (practically, of a few thousands or +hundreds of them), by treachery and a kind of Sicilian Vespers. Which +issued, as such things usually do, in terrible monition to you not to +try the like again! Issued, namely, in redoubled fury on the Danish +part; new fiercer invasion by Svein's Jarl Thorkel; then by Svein +himself; which latter drove the miserable Ethelred, with wife and +family, into Normandy, to wife's brother, the then Duke there; and +ended that miserable struggle by Svein's becoming King of England +himself. Of this disgraceful massacre, which it would appear has been +immensely exaggerated in the English books, we can happily give the +exact date (A.D. 1002); and also of Svein's victorious accession (A.D. +1013),[9]--pretty much the only benefit one gets out of contemplating +such a set of objects. + +King Svein's first act was to levy a terribly increased Income-Tax for +the payment of his army. Svein was levying it with a stronghanded +diligence, but had not yet done levying it, when, at Gainsborough one +night, he suddenly died; smitten dead, once used to be said, by St. +Edmund, whilom murdered King of the East Angles; who could not bear to +see his shrine and monastery of St. Edmundsbury plundered by the +Tyrant's tax-collectors, as they were on the point of being. In all +ways impossible, however,--Edmund's own death did not occur till two +years after Svein's. Svein's death, by whatever cause, befell 1014; +his fleet, then lying in the Humber; and only Knut,[10] his eldest son +(hardly yet eighteen, count some), in charge of it; who, on short +counsel, and arrangement about this questionable kingdom of his, +lifted anchor; made for Sandwich, a safer station at the moment; "cut +off the feet and noses" (one shudders, and hopes not, there being some +discrepancy about it!) of his numerous hostages that had been +delivered to King Svein; set them ashore;--and made for Denmark, his +natural storehouse and stronghold, as the hopefulest first thing he +could do. + +Knut soon returned from Denmark, with increase of force sufficient for +the English problem; which latter he now ended in a victorious, and +essentially, for himself and chaotic England, beneficent manner. +Became widely known by and by, there and elsewhere, as Knut the Great; +and is thought by judges of our day to have really merited that title. +A most nimble, sharp-striking, clear-thinking, prudent and effective +man, who regulated this dismembered and distracted England in its +Church matters, in its State matters, like a real King. Had a +Standing Army (_House Carles_), who were well paid, well drilled and +disciplined, capable of instantly quenching insurrection or breakage +of the peace; and piously endeavored (with a signal earnestness, and +even devoutness, if we look well) to do justice to all men, and to +make all men rest satisfied with justice. In a word, he successfully +strapped up, by every true method and regulation, this miserable, +dislocated, and dissevered mass of bleeding Anarchy into something +worthy to be called an England again;--only that he died too soon, and +a second "Conqueror" of us, still weightier of structure, and under +improved auspices, became possible, and was needed here! To +appearance, Knut himself was capable of being a Charlemagne of England +and the North (as has been already said or quoted), had he only lived +twice as long as he did. But his whole sum of years seems not to have +exceeded forty. His father Svein of the Forkbeard is reckoned to have +been fifty to sixty when St. Edmund finished him at Gainsborough. We +now return to Norway, ashamed of this long circuit which has been a +truancy more or less. + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +KING OLAF THE THICK-SET'S VIKING DAYS, + +King Harald Graenske, who, with another from Russia accidentally +lodging beside him, got burned to death in Sweden, courting that +unspeakable Sigrid the Proud,--was third cousin or so to Tryggve, +father of our heroic Olaf. Accurately counted, he is great-grandson +of Bjorn the Chapman, first of Haarfagr's sons whom Eric Bloodaxe made +away with. His little "kingdom," as he called it, was a district +named the Greenland (_Graeneland_); he himself was one of those little +Haarfagr kinglets whom Hakon Jarl, much more Olaf Tryggveson, was +content to leave reigning, since they would keep the peace with him. +Harald had a loving wife of his own, Aasta the name of her, soon +expecting the birth of her and his pretty babe, named Olaf,--at the +time he went on that deplorable Swedish adventure, the foolish, fated +creature, and ended self and kingdom altogether. Aasta was greatly +shocked; composed herself however; married a new husband, Sigurd Syr, +a kinglet, and a great-grandson of Harald Fairhair, a man of great +wealth, prudence, and influence in those countries; in whose house, as +favorite and well-beloved stepson, little Olaf was wholesomely and +skilfully brought up. In Sigurd's house he had, withal, a special +tutor entertained for him, one Rane, known as Rane the Far-travelled, +by whom he could be trained, from the earliest basis, in Norse +accomplishments and arts. New children came, one or two; but Olaf, +from his mother, seems always to have known that he was the +distinguished and royal article there. One day his Foster-father, +hurrying to leave home on business, hastily bade Olaf, no other being +by, saddle his horse for him. Olaf went out with the saddle, chose +the biggest he-goat about, saddled that, and brought it to the door by +way of horse. Old Sigurd, a most grave man, grinned sardonically at +the sight. "Hah, I see thou hast no mind to take commands from me; +thou art of too high a humor to take commands." To which, says +Snorro, Boy Olaf answered little except by laughing, till Sigurd +saddled for himself, and rode away. His mother Aasta appears to have +been a thoughtful, prudent woman, though always with a fierce royalism +at the bottom of her memory, and a secret implacability on that head. + +At the age of twelve Olaf went to sea; furnished with a little fleet, +and skilful sea-counsellor, expert old Rane, by his Foster-father, and +set out to push his fortune in the world. Rane was a steersman and +counsellor in these incipient times; but the crew always called Olaf +"King," though at first, as Snorro thinks, except it were in the hour +of battle, he merely pulled an oar. He cruised and fought in this +capacity on many seas and shores; passed several years, perhaps till +the age of nineteen or twenty, in this wild element and way of life; +fighting always in a glorious and distinguished manner. In the hour +of battle, diligent enough "to amass property," as the Vikings termed +it; and in the long days and nights of sailing, given over, it is +likely, to his own thoughts and the unfathomable dialogue with the +ever-moaning Sea; not the worst High School a man could have, and +indeed infinitely preferable to the most that are going even now, for +a high and deep young soul. + +His first distinguished expedition was to Sweden: natural to go +thither first, to avenge his poor father's death, were it nothing +more. Which he did, the Skalds say, in a distinguished manner; making +victorious and handsome battle for himself, in entering Maelare Lake; +and in getting out of it again, after being frozen there all winter, +showing still more surprising, almost miraculous contrivance and +dexterity. This was the first of his glorious victories, of which the +Skalds reckon up some fourteen or thirteen very glorious indeed, +mostly in the Western and Southern countries, most of all in England; +till the name of Olaf Haraldson became quite famous in the Viking and +strategic world. He seems really to have learned the secrets of his +trade, and to have been, then and afterwards, for vigilance, +contrivance, valor, and promptitude of execution, a superior fighter. +Several exploits recorded of him betoken, in simple forms, what may be +called a military genius. + +The principal, and to us the alone interesting, of his exploits seem +to have lain in England, and, what is further notable, always on the +anti-Svein side. English books do not mention him at all that I can +find; but it is fairly credible that, as the Norse records report, in +the end of Ethelred's reign, he was the ally or hired general of +Ethelred, and did a great deal of sea-fighting, watching, sailing, and +sieging for this miserable king and Edmund Ironside, his son. Snorro +says expressly, London, the impregnable city, had to be besieged again +for Ethelred's behoof (in the interval between Svein's death and young +Knut's getting back from Denmark), and that our Olaf Haraldson was the +great engineer and victorious captor of London on that singular +occasion,--London captured for the first time. The Bridge, as usual, +Snorro says, offered almost insuperable obstacles. But the +engineering genius of Olaf contrived huge "platforms of wainscoting +[old walls of wooden houses, in fact], bound together by withes;" +these, carried steadily aloft above the ships, will (thinks Olaf) +considerably secure them and us from the destructive missiles, big +boulder stones, and other, mischief profusely showered down on us, +till we get under the Bridge with axes and cables, and do some good +upon it. Olaf's plan was tried; most of the other ships, in spite of +their wainscoting and withes, recoiled on reaching the Bridge, so +destructive were the boulder and other missile showers. But Olaf's +ships and self got actually under the Bridge; fixed all manner of +cables there; and then, with the river current in their favor, and the +frightened ships rallying to help in this safer part of the +enterprise, tore out the important piles and props, and fairly broke +the poor Bridge, wholly or partly, down into the river, and its Danish +defenders into immediate surrender. That is Snorro's account. + +On a previous occasion, Olaf had been deep in a hopeful combination +with Ethelred's two younger sons, Alfred and Edward, afterwards King +Edward the Confessor: That they two should sally out from Normandy in +strong force, unite with Olaf in ditto, and, landing on the Thames, do +something effectual for themselves. But impediments, bad weather or +the like, disheartened the poor Princes, and it came to nothing. Olaf +was much in Normandy, what they then called Walland; a man held in +honor by those Norman Dukes. + +What amount of "property" he had amassed I do not know, but could +prove, were it necessary, that he had acquired some tactical or even +strategic faculty and real talent for war. At Lymfjord, in Jutland, +but some years after this (A.D. 1027), he had a sea-battle with the +great Knut himself,--ships combined with flood-gates, with roaring, +artificial deluges; right well managed by King Olaf; which were within +a hair's-breadth of destroying Knut, now become a King and Great; and +did in effect send him instantly running. But of this more +particularly by and by. + +What still more surprises me is the mystery, where Olaf, in this +wandering, fighting, sea-roving life, acquired his deeply religious +feeling, his intense adherence to the Christian Faith. I suppose it +had been in England, where many pious persons, priestly and other, +were still to be met with, that Olaf had gathered these doctrines; and +that in those his unfathomable dialogues with the ever-moaning Ocean, +they had struck root downwards in the soul of him, and borne fruit +upwards to the degree so conspicuous afterwards. It is certain he +became a deeply pious man during these long Viking cruises; and +directed all his strength, when strength and authority were lent him, +to establishing the Christian religion in his country, and suppressing +and abolishing Vikingism there; both of which objects, and their +respective worth and unworth, he, must himself have long known so +well. + +It was well on in A.D. 1016 that Knut gained his last victory, at +Ashdon, in Essex, where the earth pyramids and antique church near by +still testify the thankful piety of Knut,--or, at lowest his joy at +having _won_ instead of lost and perished, as he was near doing there. +And it was still this same year when the noble Edmund Ironside, after +forced partition-treaty "in the Isle of Alney," got scandalously +murdered, and Knut became indisputable sole King of England, and +decisively settled himself to his work of governing there. In the +year before either of which events, while all still hung uncertain for +Knut, and even Eric Jarl of Norway had to be summoned in aid of him, +in that year 1015, as one might naturally guess and as all Icelandic +hints and indications lead us to date the thing, Olaf had decided to +give up Vikingism in all its forms; to return to Norway, and try +whether he could not assert the place and career that belonged to him +there. Jarl Eric had vanished with all his war forces towards +England, leaving only a boy, Hakon, as successor, and Svein, his own +brother,--a quiet man, who had always avoided war. Olaf landed in +Norway without obstacle; but decided to be quiet till he had himself +examined and consulted friends. + +His reception by his mother Aasta was of the kindest and proudest, and +is lovingly described by Snorro. A pretty idyllic, or epic piece, of +_Norse_ Homeric type: How Aasta, hearing of her son's advent, set all +her maids and menials to work at the top of their speed; despatched a +runner to the harvest-field, where her husband Sigurd was, to warn him +to come home and dress. How Sigurd was standing among his harvest +folk, reapers and binders; and what he had on,--broad slouch hat, with +veil (against the midges), blue kirtle, hose of I forget what color, +with laced boots; and in his hand a stick with silver head and ditto +ring upon it;--a personable old gentleman, of the eleventh century, in +those parts. Sigurd was cautious, prudentially cunctatory, though +heartily friendly in his counsel to Olaf as to the King question. +Aasta had a Spartan tone in her wild maternal heart; and assures Olaf +that she, with a half-reproachful glance at Sigurd, will stand by him +to the death in this his just and noble enterprise. Sigurd promises +to consult farther in his neighborhood, and to correspond by messages; +the result is, Olaf resolutely pushing forward himself, resolves to +call a Thing, and openly claim his kingship there. The Thing itself +was willing enough: opposition parties do here and there bestir +themselves; but Olaf is always swifter than they. Five kinglets +somewhere in the Uplands,[11]--all descendants of Haarfagr; but averse +to break the peace, which Jarl Eric and Hakon Jarl both have always +willingly allowed to peaceable people,--seem to be the main opposition +party. These five take the field against Olaf with what force they +have; Olaf, one night, by beautiful celerity and strategic practice +which a Friedrich or a Turenne might have approved, surrounds these +Five; and when morning breaks, there is nothing for them but either +death, or else instant surrender, and swearing of fealty to King Olaf. +Which latter branch of the alternative they gladly accept, the whole +five of them, and go home again. + +This was a beautiful bit of war-practice by King Olaf on land. By +another stroke still more compendious at sea, he had already settled +poor young Hakon, and made him peaceable for a long while. Olaf by +diligent quest and spy-messaging, had ascertained that Hakon, just +returning from Denmark and farewell to Papa and Knut, both now under +way for England, was coasting north towards Trondhjem; and intended on +or about such a day to land in such and such a fjord towards the end +of this Trondhjem voyage. Olaf at once mans two big ships, steers +through the narrow mouth of the said fjord, moors one ship on the +north shore, another on the south; fixes a strong cable, well sunk +under water, to the capstans of these two; and in all quietness waits +for Hakon. Before many hours, Hakon's royal or quasi-royal barge +steers gaily into this fjord; is a little surprised, perhaps, to see +within the jaws of it two big ships at anchor, but steers gallantly +along, nothing doubting. Olaf with a signal of "All hands," works his +two capstans; has the cable up high enough at the right moment, +catches with it the keel of poor Hakon's barge, upsets it, empties it +wholly into the sea. Wholly into the sea; saves Hakon, however, and +his people from drowning, and brings them on board. His dialogue with +poor young Hakon, especially poor young Hakon's responses, is very +pretty. Shall I give it, out of Snorro, and let the reader take it +for as authentic as he can? It is at least the true image of it in +authentic Snorro's head, little more than two centuries later. + +"Jarl Hakon was led up to the king's ship. He was the handsomest man +that could be seen. He had long hair as fine as silk, bound about his +head with a gold ornament. When he sat down in the forehold the king +said to him: + +_King._ "'It is not false, what is said of your family, that ye are +handsome people to look at; but now your luck has deserted you.' + +_Hakon._ "'It has always been the case that success is changeable; +and there is no luck in the matter. It has gone with your family as +with mine to have by turns the better lot. I am little beyond +childhood in years; and at any rate we could not have defended +ourselves, as we did not expect any attack on the way. It may turn +out better with us another time.' + +_King._ "'Dost thou not apprehend that thou art in such a condition +that, hereafter, there can be neither victory nor defeat for thee?' + +_Hakon._ "'That is what only thou canst determine, King, according to +thy pleasure.' + +_King._ "'What wilt thou give me, Jarl, if, for this time, I let thee +go, whole and unhurt?' + +_Hakon._ "'What wilt thou take, King?' + +_King._ "'Nothing, except that thou shalt leave the country; give up +thy kingdom; and take an oath that thou wilt never go into battle +against me.'"[12] + +Jarl Hakon accepted the generous terms; went to England and King Knut, +and kept his bargain for a good few years; though he was at last +driven, by pressure of King Knut, to violate it,--little to his +profit, as we shall see. One victorious naval battle with Jarl Svein, +Hakon's uncle, and his adherents, who fled to Sweden, after his +beating,--battle not difficult to a skilful, hard-hitting king,--was +pretty much all the actual fighting Olaf had to do in this enterprise. +He various times met angry Bonders and refractory Things with arms in +their hand; but by skilful, firm management,--perfectly patient, but +also perfectly ready to be active,--he mostly managed without coming +to strokes; and was universally recognized by Norway as its real king. +A promising young man, and fit to be a king, thinks Snorro. Only of +middle stature, almost rather shortish; but firm-standing, and +stout-built; so that they got to call him Olaf the Thick (meaning Olaf +the Thick-set, or Stout-built), though his final epithet among them +was infinitely higher. For the rest, "a comely, earnest, +prepossessing look; beautiful yellow hair in quantity; broad, honest +face, of a complexion pure as snow and rose;" and finally (or firstly) +"the brightest eyes in the world; such that, in his anger, no man +could stand them." He had a heavy task ahead, and needed all his +qualities and fine gifts to get it done. + + + +CHAPTER X. + +REIGN OF KING OLAF THE SAINT. + +The late two Jarls, now gone about their business, had both been +baptized, and called themselves Christians. But during their +government they did nothing in the conversion way; left every man to +choose his own God or Gods; so that some had actually two, the +Christian God by land, and at sea Thor, whom they considered safer in +that element. And in effect the mass of the people had fallen back +into a sluggish heathenism or half-heathenism, the life-labor of Olaf +Tryggveson lying ruinous or almost quite overset. The new Olaf, son +of Harald, set himself with all his strength to mend such a state of +matters; and stood by his enterprise to the end, as the one highest +interest, including all others, for his People and him. His method +was by no means soft; on the contrary, it was hard, rapid, +severe,--somewhat on the model of Tryggveson's, though with more of +_bishoping_ and preaching superadded. Yet still there was a great +deal of mauling, vigorous punishing, and an entire intolerance of +these two things: Heathenism and Sea-robbery, at least of Sea-robbery +in the old style; whether in the style we moderns still practise, and +call privateering, I do not quite know. But Vikingism proper had to +cease in Norway; still more, Heathenism, under penalties too severe to +he borne; death, mutilation of limb, not to mention forfeiture and +less rigorous coercion. Olaf was inexorable against violation of the +law. "Too severe," cried many; to whom one answers, "Perhaps in part +_yes_, perhaps also in great part _no_; depends altogether on the +previous question, How far the law was the eternal one of God Almighty +in the universe, How far the law merely of Olaf (destitute of right +inspiration) left to his own passions and whims?" + +Many were the jangles Olaf had with the refractory Heathen Things and +Ironbeards of a new generation: very curious to see. Scarcely ever +did it come to fighting between King and Thing, though often enough +near it; but the Thing discerning, as it usually did in time, that the +King was stronger in men, seemed to say unanimously to itself, "We +have lost, then; baptize us, we must burn our old gods and conform." +One new feature we do slightly discern: here and there a touch of +theological argument on the heathen side. At one wild Thing, far up +in the Dovrefjeld, of a very heathen temper, there was much of that; +not to be quenched by King Olaf at the moment; so that it had to be +adjourned till the morrow, and again till the next day. Here are some +traits of it, much abridged from Snorro (who gives a highly punctual +account), which vividly represent Olaf's posture and manner of +proceeding in such intricacies. + +The chief Ironbeard on this occasion was one Gudbrand, a very rugged +peasant; who, says Snorro, was like a king in that district. Some +days before, King Olaf, intending a religious Thing in those deeply +heathen parts, with alternative of Christianity or conflagration, is +reported, on looking down into the valley and the beautiful village of +Loar standing there, to have said wistfully, "What a pity it is that +so beautiful a village should be burnt!" Olaf sent out his +message-token all the, same, however, and met Gudbrand and an immense +assemblage, whose humor towards him was uncompliant to a high degree +indeed. Judge by this preliminary speech of Gudbrand to his +Thing-people, while Olaf was not yet arrived, but only advancing, +hardly got to Breeden on the other side of the hill: "A man has come +to Loar who is called Olaf," said Gudbrand, "and will force upon us +another faith than we had before, and will break in pieces all our +Gods. He says he has a much greater and more powerful God; and it is +wonderful that the earth does not burst asunder under him, or that our +God lets him go about unpunished when he dares to talk such things. I +know this for certain, that if we carry Thor, who has always stood by +us, out of our Temple that is standing upon this farm, Olaf's God will +melt away, and he and his men be made nothing as soon as Thor looks +upon them." Whereupon the Bonders all shouted as one man, "Yea!" + +Which tremendous message they even forwarded to Olaf, by Gudbrand's +younger son at the head of 700 armed men; but did not terrify Olaf +with it, who, on the contrary, drew up his troops, rode himself at the +head of them, and began a speech to the Bonders, in which he invited +them to adopt Christianity, as the one true faith for mortals. + +Far from consenting to this, the Bonders raised a general shout, +smiting at the same time their shields with their weapons; but Olaf's +men advancing on them swiftly, and flinging spears, they turned and +ran, leaving Gudbrand's son behind, a prisoner, to whom Olaf gave his +life: "Go home now to thy father, and tell him I mean to be with him +soon." + +The son goes accordingly, and advises his father not to face Olaf; but +Gudbrand angrily replies: "Ha, coward! I see thou, too, art taken by +the folly that man is going about with;" and is resolved to fight. +That night, however, Gudbrand has a most remarkable Dream, or Vision: +a Man surrounded by light, bringing great terror with him, who warns +Gudbrand against doing battle with Olaf. "If thou dost, thou and all +thy people will fall; wolves will drag away thee and thine; ravens +will tear thee in stripes!" And lo, in telling this to Thord +Potbelly, a sturdy neighbor of his and henchman in the Thing, it is +found that to Thord also has come the self same terrible Apparition! +Better propose truce to Olaf (who seems to have these dreadful Ghostly +Powers on his side), and the holding of a Thing, to discuss matters +between us. Thing assembles, on a day of heavy rain. Being all +seated, uprises King Olaf, and informs them: "The people of Lesso, +Loar, and Vaage, have accepted Christianity, and broken down their +idol-houses: they believe now in the True God, who has made heaven +and earth, and knows all things;" and sits down again without more +words. + +"Gudbrand replies, 'We know nothing about him of whom thou speakest. +Dost thou call him God, whom neither thou nor any one else can see? +But we have a God who can be seen every day, although he is not out +to-day because the weather is wet; and he will appear to thee terrible +and very grand; and I expect that fear will mix with thy very blood +when he comes into the Thing. But since thou sayest thy God is so +great, let him make it so that to-morrow we have a cloudy day, but +without rain, and then let us meet again.' + +"The king accordingly returned home to his lodging, taking Gudbrand's +son as a hostage; but he gave them a man as hostage in exchange. In +the evening the king asked Gudbrand's son What their God was like? He +replied that he bore the likeness of Thor; had a hammer in his hand; +was of great size, but hollow within; and had a high stand, upon which +he stood when he was out. 'Neither gold nor silver are wanting about +him, and every day he receives four cakes of bread, besides meat.' +They then went to bed; but the king watched all night in prayer. When +day dawned the king went to mass; then to table, and from thence to +the Thing. The weather was such as Gudbrand desired. Now the Bishop +stood up in his choir-robes, with bishop's coif on his head, and +bishop's crosier in his hand. He spoke to the Bonders of the true +faith, told the many wonderful acts of God, and concluded his speech +well. + +"Thord Potbelly replies, 'Many things we are told of by this learned +man with the staff in his hand, crooked at the top like a ram's horn. +But since you say, comrades, that your God is so powerful, and can do +so many wonders, tell him to make it clear sunshine to-morrow +forenoon, and then we shall meet here again, and do one of two +things,--either agree with you about this business, or fight you.' +And they separated for the day." + +Overnight the king instructed Kolbein the Strong, an immense fellow, +the same who killed Gunhild's two brothers, that he, Kolbein, must +stand next him to-morrow; people must go down to where the ships of +the Bonders lay, and punctually bore holes in every one of them; +_item_, to the farms where their horses wore, and punctually unhalter +the whole of them, and let them loose: all which was done. Snorro +continues:-- + +"Now the king was in prayer all night, beseeching God of his goodness +and mercy to release him from evil. When mass was ended, and morning +was gray, the king went to the Thing. When he came thither, some +Bonders had already arrived, and they saw a great crowd coming along, +and bearing among them a huge man's image, glancing with gold and +silver. When the Bonders who were at the Thing saw it, they started +up, and bowed themselves down before the ugly idol. Thereupon it was +set down upon the Thing field; and on the one side of it sat the +Bonders, and on the other the King and his people. + +"Then Dale Gudbrand stood up and said, 'Where now, king, is thy God? +I think he will now carry his head lower; and neither thou, nor the +man with the horn, sitting beside thee there, whom thou callest +Bishop, are so bold to-day as on the former days. For now our God, +who rules over all, is come, and looks on you with an angry eye; and +now I see well enough that you are terrified, and scarcely dare raise +your eyes. Throw away now all your opposition, and believe in the God +who has your fate wholly in his hands.' + +"The king now whispers to Kolbein the Strong, without the Bonders +perceiving it, 'If it come so in the course of my speech that the +Bonders look another way than towards their idol, strike him as hard +as thou canst with thy club.' + +"The king then stood up and spoke. 'Much hast thou talked to us this +morning, and greatly hast thou wondered that thou canst not see our +God; but we expect that he will soon come to us. Thou wouldst +frighten us with thy God, who is both blind and deaf, and cannot even +move about without being carried; but now I expect it will be but a +short time before he meets his fate: for turn your eyes towards the +east,--behold our God advancing in great light.' + +"The sun was rising, and all turned to look. At that moment Kolbein +gave their God a stroke, so that he quite burst asunder; and there ran +out of him mice as big almost as cats, and reptiles and adders. The +Bonders were so terrified that some fled to their ships; but when they +sprang out upon them the ships filled with water, and could not get +away. Others ran to their horses, but could not find them. The king +then ordered the Bonders to be called together, saying he wanted to +speak with them; on which the Bonders came back, and the Thing was +again seated. + +"The king rose up and said, 'I do not understand what your noise and +running mean. You yourselves see what your God can do,--the idol you +adorned with gold and silver, and brought meat and provisions to. You +see now that the protecting powers, who used and got good of all that, +were the mice and adders, the reptiles and lizards; and surely they do +ill who trust to such, and will not abandon this folly. Take now your +gold and ornaments that are lying strewed on the grass, and give them +to your wives and daughters, but never hang them hereafter upon stocks +and stones. Here are two conditions between us to choose upon: +either accept Christianity, or fight this very day, and the victory be +to them to whom the God we worship gives it.' + +"Then Dale Gudbrand stood up and said, 'We have sustained great damage +upon our God; but since he will not help us, we will believe in the +God whom thou believest in.' + +"Then all received Christianity. The Bishop baptized Gudbrand and his +son. King Olaf and Bishop Sigurd left behind them teachers; and they +who met as enemies parted as friends. And afterwards Gudbrand built a +church in the valley."[13] + +Olaf was by no means an unmerciful man,--much the reverse where he saw +good cause. There was a wicked old King Raerik, for example, one of +those five kinglets whom, with their bits of armaments, Olaf by +stratagem had surrounded one night, and at once bagged and subjected +when morning rose, all of them consenting; all of them except this +Raerik, whom Olaf, as the readiest sure course, took home with him; +blinded, and kept in his own house; finding there was no alternative +but that or death to the obstinate old dog, who was a kind of distant +cousin withal, and could not conscientiously be killed. Stone-blind +old Raerik was not always in murderous humor. Indeed, for most part +he wore a placid, conciliatory aspect, and said shrewd amusing things; +but had thrice over tried, with amazing cunning of contrivance, though +stone-blind, to thrust a dagger into Olaf and the last time had all +but succeeded. So that, as Olaf still refused to have him killed, it +had become a problem what was to be done with him. Olaf's good humor, +as well as _his_ quiet, ready sense and practicality, are manifested +in his final settlement of this Raerik problem. Olaf's laugh, I can +perceive, was not so loud as Tryggveson's but equally hearty, coming +from the bright mind of him! + +Besides blind Raerik, Olaf had in his household one Thorarin, an +Icelander; a remarkably ugly man, says Snorro, but a far-travelled, +shrewdly observant, loyal-minded, and good-humored person, whom Olaf +liked to talk with. "Remarkably ugly," says Snorro, "especially in +his hands and feet, which were large and ill-shaped to a degree." One +morning Thorarin, who, with other trusted ones, slept in Olaf's +apartment, was lazily dozing and yawning, and had stretched one of his +feet out of the bed before the king awoke. The foot was still there +when Olaf did open his bright eyes, which instantly lighted on this +foot. + +"Well, here is a foot," says Olaf, gayly, "which one seldom sees the +match of; I durst venture there is not another so ugly in this city of +Nidaros." + +"Hah, king!" said Thorarin, "there are few things one cannot match if +one seek long and take pains. I would bet, with thy permission, King, +to find an uglier." + +"Done!" cried Olaf. Upon which Thorarin stretched out the other +foot. + +"A still uglier," cried he; "for it has lost the little toe." + +"Ho, ho!" said Olaf; "but it is I who have gained the bet. The _less_ +of an ugly thing the less ugly, not the more!" + +Loyal Thorarin respectfully submitted. + +"What is to be my penalty, then? The king it is that must decide." + +"To take me that wicked old Raerik to Leif Ericson in Greenland." + +Which the Icelander did; leaving two vacant seats henceforth at Olaf's +table. Leif Ericson, son of Eric discoverer of America, quietly +managed Raerik henceforth; sent him to Iceland,--I think to father +Eric himself; certainly to some safe hand there, in whose house, or in +some still quieter neighboring lodging, at his own choice, old Raerik +spent the last three years of his life in a perfectly quiescent +manner. + +Olaf's struggles in the matter of religion had actually settled that +question in Norway. By these rough methods of his, whatever we may +think of them, Heathenism had got itself smashed dead; and was no more +heard of in that country. Olaf himself was evidently a highly devout +and pious man;--whosoever is born with Olaf's temper now will still +find, as Olaf did, new and infinite field for it! Christianity in +Norway had the like fertility as in other countries; or even rose to a +higher, and what Dahlmann thinks, exuberant pitch, in the course of +the two centuries which followed that of Olaf. Him all testimony +represents to us as a most righteous no less than most religious king. +Continually vigilant, just, and rigorous was Olaf's administration of +the laws; repression of robbery, punishment of injustice, stern +repayment of evil-doers, wherever he could lay hold of them. + +Among the Bonder or opulent class, and indeed everywhere, for the poor +too can be sinners and need punishment, Olaf had, by this course of +conduct, naturally made enemies. His severity so visible to all, and +the justice and infinite beneficence of it so invisible except to a +very few. But, at any rate, his reign for the first ten years was +victorious; and might have been so to the end, had it not been +intersected, and interfered with, by King Knut in his far bigger orbit +and current of affairs and interests. Knut's English affairs and +Danish being all settled to his mind, he seems, especially after that +year of pilgrimage to Rome, and association with the Pontiffs and +Kaisers of the world on that occasion, to have turned his more +particular attention upon Norway, and the claims he himself had there. +Jarl Hakon, too, sister's son of Knut, and always well seen by him, +had long been busy in this direction, much forgetful of that oath to +Olaf when his barge got canted over by the cable of two capstans, and +his life was given him, not without conditions altogether! + +About the year 1026 there arrived two splendid persons out of England, +bearing King Knut the Great's letter and seal, with a message, likely +enough to be far from welcome to Olaf. For some days Olaf refused to +see them or their letter, shrewdly guessing what the purport would be. +Which indeed was couched in mild language, but of sharp meaning +enough: a notice to King Olaf namely, That Norway was properly, by +just heritage, Knut the Great's; and that Olaf must become the great +Knut's liegeman, and pay tribute to him, or worse would follow. King +Olaf listening to these two splendid persons and their letter, in +indignant silence till they quite ended, made answer: "I have heard +say, by old accounts there are, that King Gorm of Denmark +[Blue-tooth's father, Knut's great-grandfather] was considered but a +small king; having Denmark only and few people to rule over. But the +kings who succeeded him thought that insufficient for them; and it has +since come so far that King Knut rules over both Denmark and England, +and has conquered for himself a part of Scotland. And now he claims +also my paternal bit of heritage; cannot be contented without that +too. Does he wish to rule over all the countries of the North? Can +he eat up all the kale in England itself, this Knut the Great? He +shall do that, and reduce his England to a desert, before I lay my +head in his hands, or show him any other kind of vassalage. And so I +bid you tell him these my words: I will defend Norway with battle-axe +and sword as long as life is given me, and will pay tax to no man for +my kingdom." Words which naturally irritated Knut to a high degree. + +Next year accordingly (year 1027), tenth or eleventh year of Olaf's +reign, there came bad rumors out of England: That Knut was equipping +an immense army,--land-army, and such a fleet as had never sailed +before; Knut's own ship in it,--a Gold Dragon with no fewer than sixty +benches of oars. Olaf and Onund King of Sweden, whose sister he had +married, well guessed whither this armament was bound. They were +friends withal, they recognized their common peril in this imminence; +and had, in repeated consultations, taken measures the best that their +united skill (which I find was mainly Olaf's but loyally accepted by +the other) could suggest. It was in this year that Olaf (with his +Swedish king assisting) did his grand feat upon Knut in Lymfjord of +Jutland, which was already spoken of. The special circumstances of +which were these: + +Knut's big armament arriving on the Jutish coasts too late in the +season, and the coast country lying all plundered into temporary wreck +by the two Norse kings, who shrank away on sight of Knut, there was +nothing could be done upon them by Knut this year,--or, if anything, +what? Knut's ships ran into Lymfjord, the safe-sheltered frith, or +intricate long straggle of friths and straits, which almost cuts +Jutland in two in that region; and lay safe, idly rocking on the +waters there, uncertain what to do farther. At last he steered in his +big ship and some others, deeper into the interior of Lymfjord, deeper +and deeper onwards to the mouth of a big river called the Helge +(_Helge-aa_, the Holy River, not discoverable in my poor maps, but +certainly enough still existing and still flowing somewhere among +those intricate straits and friths), towards the bottom of which Helge +river lay, in some safe nook, the small combined Swedish and Norse +fleet, under the charge of Onund, the Swedish king, while at the top +or source, which is a biggish mountain lake, King Olaf had been doing +considerable engineering works, well suited to such an occasion, and +was now ready at a moment's notice. Knut's fleet having idly taken +station here, notice from the Swedish king was instantly sent; +instantly Olaf's well-engineered flood-gates were thrown open; from +the swollen lake a huge deluge of water was let loose; Olaf himself +with all his people hastening down to join his Swedish friend, and get +on board in time; Helge river all the while alongside of him, with +ever-increasing roar, and wider-spreading deluge, hastening down the +steeps in the night-watches. So that, along with Olaf or some way +ahead of him, came immeasurable roaring waste of waters upon Knut's +negligent fleet; shattered, broke, and stranded many of his ships, and +was within a trifle of destroying the Golden Dragon herself, with Knut +on board. Olaf and Onund, we need not say, were promptly there in +person, doing their very best; the railings of the Golden Dragon, +however, were too high for their little ships; and Jarl Ulf, husband +of Knut's sister, at the top of his speed, courageously intervening, +spoiled their stratagem, and saved Knut from this very dangerous pass. + +Knut did nothing more this winter. The two Norse kings, quite unequal +to attack such an armament, except by ambush and engineering, sailed +away; again plundering at discretion on the Danish coast; carrying +into Sweden great booties and many prisoners; but obliged to lie fixed +all winter; and indeed to leave their fleets there for a series of +winters,--Knut's fleet, posted at Elsinore on both sides of the Sound, +rendering all egress from the Baltic impossible, except at his +pleasure. Ulf's opportune deliverance of his royal brother-in-law did +not much bestead poor Ulf himself. He had been in disfavor before, +pardoned with difficulty, by Queen Emma's intercession; an ambitious, +officious, pushing, stirring, and, both in England and Denmark, almost +dangerous man; and this conspicuous accidental merit only awoke new +jealousy in Knut. Knut, finding nothing pass the Sound worth much +blockading, went ashore; "and the day before Michaelmas," says Snorro, +"rode with a great retinue to Roeskilde." Snorro continues his tragic +narrative of what befell there: + +"There Knut's brother-in-law, Jarl Ulf, had prepared a great feast for +him. The Jarl was the most agreeable of hosts; but the King was +silent and sullen. The Jarl talked to him in every way to make him +cheerful, and brought forward everything he could think of to amuse +him; but the King remained stern, and speaking little. At last the +Jarl proposed a game of chess, which he agreed to. A chess-board was +produced, and they played together. Jarl Ulf was hasty in temper, +stiff, and in nothing yielding; but everything he managed went on well +in his hands: and he was a great warrior, about whom there are many +stories. He was the most powerful man in Denmark next to the King. +Jarl Ulf's sister, Gyda, was married to Jarl Gudin (Godwin) Ulfnadson; +and their sons were, Harald King of England, and Jarl Tosti, Jarl +Walthiof, Jarl Mauro-Kaare, and Jarl Svein. Gyda was the name of +their daughter, who was married to the English King Edward, the Good +(whom we call the Confessor). + +"When they had played a while, the King made a false move; on which +the Jarl took a knight from him; but the King set the piece on the +board again, and told the Jarl to make another move. But the Jarl +flew angry, tumbled the chess-board over, rose, and went away. The +King said, 'Run thy ways, Ulf the Fearful.' The Jarl turned round at +the door and said, 'Thou wouldst have run farther at Helge river hadst +thou been left to battle there. Thou didst not call me Ulf the +Fearful when I hastened to thy help while the Swedes were beating thee +like a dog.' The Jarl then went out, and went to bed. + +"The following morning, while the King was putting on his clothes, he +said to his footboy, 'Go thou to Jarl Ulf and kill him.' The lad +went, was away a while, and then came back. The King said, 'Hast thou +killed the Jarl?' 'I did not kill him, for he was gone to St. +Lucius's church.' There was a man called Ivar the White, a Norwegian +by birth, who was the King's courtman and chamberlain. The King said +to him, 'Go thou and kill the Jarl.' Ivar went to the church, and in +at the choir, and thrust his sword through the Jarl, who died on the +spot. Then Ivar went to the King, with the bloody sword in his hand. + +"The King said, 'Hast thou killed the Jarl?' 'I have killed him,' +said he. 'Thou hast done well,' answered the King." I + +From a man who built so many churches (one on each battlefield where +he had fought, to say nothing of the others), and who had in him such +depths of real devotion and other fine cosmic quality, this does seem +rather strong! But it is characteristic, withal,--of the man, and +perhaps of the times still more.[14] In any case, it is an event worth +noting, the slain Jarl Ulf and his connections being of importance in +the history of Denmark and of England also. Ulf's wife was Astrid, +sister of Knut, and their only child was Svein, styled afterwards +"Svein Estrithson" ("Astrid-son") when he became noted in the +world,--at this time a beardless youth, who, on the back of this +tragedy, fled hastily to Sweden, where were friends of Ulf. After +some ten years' eclipse there, Knut and both his sons being now dead, +Svein reappeared in Denmark under a new and eminent figure, "Jarl of +Denmark," highest Liegeman to the then sovereign there. Broke his +oath to said sovereign, declared himself, Svein Estrithson, to be real +King of Denmark; and, after much preliminary trouble, and many +beatings and disastrous flights to and fro, became in effect such,--to +the wonder of mankind; for he had not had one victory to cheer him on, +or any good luck or merit that one sees, except that of surviving +longer than some others. Nevertheless he came to be the Restorer, so +called, of Danish independence; sole remaining representative of Knut +(or Knut's sister), of Fork-beard, Blue-tooth, and Old Gorm; and +ancestor of all the subsequent kings of Denmark for some 400 years; +himself coming, as we see, only by the Distaff side, all of the Sword +or male side having died so soon. Early death, it has been observed, +was the Great Knut's allotment, and all his posterity's as +well;--fatal limit (had there been no others, which we see there were) +to his becoming "Charlemagne of the North" in any considerable degree! +Jarl Ulf, as we have seen, had a sister, Gyda by name, wife to Earl +Godwin ("Gudin Ulfnadsson," as Snorro calls him) a very memorable +Englishman, whose son and hers, King Harald, _Harold_ in English +books, is the memorablest of all. These things ought to be better +known to English antiquaries, and will perhaps be alluded to again. + +This pretty little victory or affront, gained over Knut in _Lymfjord_, +was among the last successes of Olaf against that mighty man. Olaf, +the skilful captain he was, need not have despaired to defend his +Norway against Knut and all the world. But he learned henceforth, +month by month ever more tragically, that his own people, seeing +softer prospects under Knut, and in particular the chiefs of them, +industriously bribed by Knut for years past, had fallen away from him; +and that his means of defence were gone. Next summer, Knut's grand +fleet sailed, unopposed, along the coast of Norway; Knut summoning a +Thing every here and there, and in all of them meeting nothing but +sky-high acclamation and acceptance. Olaf, with some twelve little +ships, all he now had, lay quiet in some safe fjord, near Lindenaes, +what we now call the Naze, behind some little solitary isles on the +southeast of Norway there; till triumphant Knut had streamed home +again. Home to England again "Sovereign of Norway" now, with nephew +Hakon appointed Jarl and Vice-regent under him! This was the news +Olaf met on venturing out; and that his worst anticipations were not +beyond the sad truth all, or almost all, the chief Bonders and men of +weight in Norway had declared against him, and stood with triumphant +Knut. + +Olaf, with his twelve poor ships, steered vigorously along the coast +to collect money and force,--if such could now anywhere be had. He +himself was resolute to hold out, and try. "Sailing swiftly with a +fair wind, morning cloudy with some showers," he passed the coast of +Jedderen, which was Erling Skjalgson's country, when he got sure +notice of an endless multitude of ships, war-ships, armed merchant +ships, all kinds of shipping-craft, down to fishermen's boats, just +getting under way against him, under the command of Erling +Skjalgson,-- the powerfulest of his subjects, once much a friend of +Olaf's but now gone against him to this length, thanks to Olaf's +severity of justice, and Knut's abundance in gold and promises for +years back. To that complexion had it come with Erling; sailing with +this immense assemblage of the naval people and populace of Norway to +seize King Olaf, and bring him to the great Knut dead or alive. + +Erling had a grand new ship of his own, which far outsailed the +general miscellany of rebel ships, and was visibly fast gaining +distance on Olaf himself,--who well understood what Erling's puzzle +was, between the tail of his game (the miscellany of rebel ships, +namely) that could not come up, and the head or general prize of the +game which was crowding all sail to get away; and Olaf took advantage +of the same. "Lower your sails!" said Olaf to his men (though we must +go slower). + +"Ho you, we have lost sight of them!" said Erling to his, and put on +all his speed; Olaf going, soon after this, altogether +invisible,--behind a little island that he knew of, whence into a +certain fjord or bay (Bay of Fungen on the maps), which he thought +would suit him. "Halt here, and get out your arms," said Olaf, and +had not to wait long till Erling came bounding in, past the rocky +promontory, and with astonishment beheld Olaf's fleet of twelve with +their battle-axes and their grappling-irons all in perfect readiness. +These fell on him, the unready Erling, simultaneous, like a cluster of +angry bees; and in a few minutes cleared his ship of men altogether, +except Erling himself. Nobody asked his life, nor probably would have +got it if he had. Only Erling still stood erect on a high place on +the poop, fiercely defensive, and very difficult to get at. "Could +not be reached at all," says Snorro, "except by spears or arrows, and +these he warded off with untiring dexterity; no man in Norway, it was +said, had ever defended himself so long alone against many,"--an +almost invincible Erling, had his cause been good. Olaf himself +noticed Erling's behavior, and said to him, from the foredeck below, +"Thou hast turned against me to-day, Erling." "The eagles fight +breast to breast," answers he. This was a speech of the king's to +Erling once long ago, while they stood fighting, not as now, but side +by side. The king, with some transient thought of possibility going +through his head, rejoins, "Wilt thou surrender, Erling?" "That will +I," answered he; took the helmet off his head; laid down sword and +shield; and went forward to the forecastle deck. The king pricked, I +think not very harshly, into Erling's chin or beard with the point of +his battle-axe, saying, "I must mark thee as traitor to thy Sovereign, +though." Whereupon one of the bystanders, Aslak Fitiaskalle, stupidly +and fiercely burst up; smote Erling on the head with his axe; so that +it struck fast in his brain and was instantly the death of Erling. +"Ill-luck attend thee for that stroke; thou hast struck Norway out of +my hand by it!" cried the king to Aslak; but forgave the poor fellow, +who had done it meaning well. The insurrectionary Bonder fleet +arriving soon after, as if for certain victory, was struck with +astonishment at this Erling catastrophe; and being now without any +leader of authority, made not the least attempt at battle; but, full +of discouragement and consternation, thankfully allowed Olaf to sail +away on his northward voyage, at discretion; and themselves went off +lamenting, with Erling's dead body. + +This small victory was the last that Olaf had over his many enemies at +present. He sailed along, still northward, day after day; several +important people joined him; but the news from landward grew daily +more ominous: Bonders busily arming to rear of him; and ahead, Hakon +still more busily at Trondhjem, now near by, "--and he will end thy +days, King, if he have strength enough!" Olaf paused; sent scouts to +a hill-top: "Hakon's armament visible enough, and under way +hitherward, about the Isle of Bjarno, yonder!" Soon after, Olaf +himself saw the Bonder armament of twenty-five ships, from the +southward, sail past in the distance to join that of Hakon; and, worse +still, his own ships, one and another (seven in all), were slipping +off on a like errand! He made for the Fjord of Fodrar, mouth of the +rugged strath called Valdal,--which I think still knows Olaf and has +now an "Olaf's Highway," where, nine centuries ago, it scarcely had a +path. Olaf entered this fjord, had his land-tent set up, and a cross +beside it, on the small level green behind the promontory there. +Finding that his twelve poor ships were now reduced to five, against a +world all risen upon him, he could not but see and admit to himself +that there was no chance left; and that he must withdraw across the +mountains and wait for a better time. + +His journey through that wild country, in these forlorn and straitened +circumstances, has a mournful dignity and homely pathos, as described +by Snorro: how he drew up his five poor ships upon the beach, packed +all their furniture away, and with his hundred or so of attendants and +their journey-baggage, under guidance of some friendly Bonder, rode up +into the desert and foot of the mountains; scaled, after three days' +effort (as if by miracle, thought his attendants and thought Snorro), +the well-nigh precipitous slope that led across, never without +miraculous aid from Heaven and Olaf could baggage-wagons have ascended +that path! In short, How he fared along, beset by difficulties and +the mournfulest thoughts; but patiently persisted, steadfastly trusted +in God; and was fixed to return, and by God's help try again. An +evidently very pious and devout man; a good man struggling with +adversity, such as the gods, we may still imagine with the ancients, +do look down upon as their noblest sight. + +He got to Sweden, to the court of his brother-in-law; kindly and nobly +enough received there, though gradually, perhaps, ill-seen by the now +authorities of Norway. So that, before long, he quitted Sweden; left +his queen there with her only daughter, his and hers, the only child +they had; he himself had an only son, "by a bondwoman," Magnus by +name, who came to great things afterwards; of whom, and of which, by +and by. With this bright little boy, and a selected escort of +attendants, he moved away to Russia, to King Jarroslav; where he might +wait secure against all risk of hurting kind friends by his presence. +He seems to have been an exile altogether some two years,--such is +one's vague notion; for there is no chronology in Snorro or his Sagas, +and one is reduced to guessing and inferring. He had reigned over +Norway, reckoning from the first days of his landing there to those +last of his leaving it across the Dovrefjeld, about fifteen years, ten +of them shiningly victorious. + +The news from Norway were naturally agitating to King Olaf and, in the +fluctuation of events there, his purposes and prospects varied much. +He sometimes thought of pilgriming to Jerusalem, and a henceforth +exclusively religious life; but for most part his pious thoughts +themselves gravitated towards Norway, and a stroke for his old place +and task there, which he steadily considered to have been committed to +him by God. Norway, by the rumors, was evidently not at rest. Jarl +Hakon, under the high patronage of his uncle, had lasted there but a +little while. I know not that his government was especially +unpopular, nor whether he himself much remembered his broken oath. It +appears, however, he had left in England a beautiful bride; and +considering farther that in England only could bridal ornaments and +other wedding outfit of a sufficiently royal kind be found, he set +sail thither, to fetch her and them himself. One evening of +wildish-looking weather he was seen about the northeast corner of the +Pentland Frith; the night rose to be tempestuous; Hakon or any timber +of his fleet was never seen more. Had all gone down,--broken oaths, +bridal hopes, and all else; mouse and man,--into the roaring waters. +There was no farther Opposition-line; the like of which had lasted +ever since old heathen Hakon Jarl, down to this his grandson Hakon's +_finis_ in the Pentland Frith. With this Hakon's disappearance it now +disappeared. + +Indeed Knut himself, though of an empire suddenly so great, was but a +temporary phenomenon. Fate had decided that the grand and wise Knut +was to be short-lived; and to leave nothing as successors but an +ineffectual young Harald Harefoot, who soon perished, and a still +stupider fiercely-drinking Harda-Knut, who rushed down of apoplexy +(here in London City, as I guess), with the goblet at his mouth, +drinking health and happiness at a wedding-feast, also before long. + +Hakon having vanished in this dark way, there ensued a pause, both on +Knut's part and on Norway's. Pause or interregnum of some months, +till it became certain, first, whether Hakon were actually dead, +secondly, till Norway, and especially till King Knut himself, could +decide what to do. Knut, to the deep disappointment, which had to +keep itself silent, of three or four chief Norway men, named none of +these three or four Jarl of Norway; but bethought him of a certain +Svein, a bastard son of his own,--who, and almost still more his +English mother, much desired a career in the world fitter for him, +thought they indignantly, than that of captain over Jomsburg, where +alone the father had been able to provide for him hitherto. Svein was +sent to Norway as king or vice-king for Father Knut; and along with +him his fond and vehement mother. Neither of whom gained any favor +from the Norse people by the kind of management they ultimately came +to show. + +Olaf on news of this change, and such uncertainty prevailing +everywhere in Norway as to the future course of things, whether Svein +would come, as was rumored of at last, and be able to maintain himself +if he did,--thought there might be something in it of a chance for +himself and his rights. And, after lengthened hesitation, much +prayer, pious invocation, and consideration, decided to go and try it. +The final grain that had turned the balance, it appears, was a +half-waking morning dream, or almost ocular vision he had of his +glorious cousin Olaf Tryggveson, who severely admonished, exhorted, +and encouraged him; and disappeared grandly, just in the instant of +Olaf's awakening; so that Olaf almost fancied he had seen the very +figure of him, as it melted into air. "Let us on, let us on!" thought +Olaf always after that. He left his son, not in Russia, but in Sweden +with the Queen, who proved very good and carefully helpful in wise +ways to him:--in Russia Olaf had now nothing more to do but give his +grateful adieus, and get ready. + +His march towards Sweden, and from that towards Norway and the passes +of the mountains, down Vaerdal, towards Stickelstad, and the crisis +that awaited, is beautifully depicted by Snorro. It has, all of it, +the description (and we see clearly, the fact itself had), a kind of +pathetic grandeur, simplicity, and rude nobleness; something Epic or +Homeric, without the metre or the singing of Homer, but with all the +sincerity, rugged truth to nature, and much more of piety, devoutness, +reverence for what is forever High in this Universe, than meets us in +those old Greek Ballad-mongers. Singularly visual all of it, too, +brought home in every particular to one's imagination, so that it +stands out almost as a thing one actually saw. + +Olaf had about three thousand men with him; gathered mostly as he +fared along through Norway. Four hundred, raised by one Dag, a +kinsman whom he had found in Sweden and persuaded to come with him, +marched usually in a separate body; and were, or might have been, +rather an important element. Learning that the Bonders were all +arming, especially in Trondhjem country, Olaf streamed down towards +them in the closest order he could. By no means very close, +subsistence even for three thousand being difficult in such a country. +His speech was almost always free and cheerful, though his thoughts +always naturally were of a high and earnest, almost sacred tone; +devout above all. Stickelstad, a small poor hamlet still standing +where the valley ends, was seen by Olaf, and tacitly by the Bonders as +well, to be the natural place for offering battle. There Olaf issued +out from the hills one morning: drew himself up according to the best +rules of Norse tactics, rules of little complexity, but perspicuously +true to the facts. I think he had a clear open ground still rather +raised above the plain in front; he could see how the Bonder army had +not yet quite arrived, but was pouring forward, in spontaneous rows or +groups, copiously by every path. This was thought to be the biggest +army that ever met in Norway; "certainly not much fewer than a hundred +times a hundred men," according to Snorro; great Bonders several of +them, small Bonders very many,--all of willing mind, animated with a +hot sense of intolerable injuries. "King Olaf had punished great and +small with equal rigor," says Snorro; "which appeared to the chief +people of the country too severe; and animosity rose to the highest +when they lost relatives by the King's just sentence, although they +were in reality guilty. He again would rather renounce his dignity +than omit righteous judgment. The accusation against him, of being +stingy with his money, was not just, for he was a most generous man +towards his friends. But that alone was the cause of the discontent +raised against him, that he appeared hard and severe in his +retributions. Besides, King Knut offered large sums of money, and the +great chiefs were corrupted by this, and by his offering them greater +dignities than they had possessed before." On these grounds, against +the intolerable man, great and small were now pouring along by every +path. + +Olaf perceived it would still be some time before the Bonder army was +in rank. His own Dag of Sweden, too, was not yet come up; he was to +have the right banner; King Olaf's own being the middle or grand one; +some other person the third or left banner. All which being perfectly +ranked and settled, according to the best rules, and waiting only the +arrival of Dag, Olaf bade his men sit down, and freshen themselves +with a little rest. There were religious services gone through: a +matins-worship such as there have been few; sternly earnest to the +heart of it, and deep as death and eternity, at least on Olaf's own +part. For the rest Thormod sang a stave of the fiercest Skaldic +poetry that was in him; all the army straightway sang it in chorus +with fiery mind. The Bonder of the nearest farm came up, to tell Olaf +that he also wished to fight for him "Thanks to thee; but don't," said +Olaf; "stay at home rather, that the wounded may have some shelter." +To this Bonder, Olaf delivered all the money he had, with solemn order +to lay out the whole of it in masses and prayers for the souls of such +of his enemies as fell. "Such of thy enemies, King?" "Yes, surely," +said Olaf, "my friends will all either conquer, or go whither I also +am going." + +At last the Bonder army too was got ranked; three commanders, one of +them with a kind of loose chief command, having settled to take charge +of it; and began to shake itself towards actual advance. Olaf, in the +mean while, had laid his head on the knees of Finn Arneson, his +trustiest man, and fallen fast asleep. Finn's brother, Kalf Arneson, +once a warm friend of Olaf, was chief of the three commanders on the +opposite side. Finn and he addressed angry speech to one another from +the opposite ranks, when they came near enough. Finn, seeing the +enemy fairly approach, stirred Olaf from his sleep. "Oh, why hast +thou wakened me from such a dream?" said Olaf, in a deeply solemn +tone. "What dream was it, then?" asked Finn. "Idreamt that there +rose a ladder here reaching up to very Heaven," said Olaf; "I had +climbed and climbed, and got to the very last step, and should have +entered there hadst thou given me another moment." "King, I doubt +thou art _fey_; I do not quite like that dream." + +The actual fight began about one of the clock in a most bright last +day of July, and was very fierce and hot, especially on the part of +Olaf's men, who shook the others back a little, though fierce enough +they too; and had Dag been on the ground, which he wasn't yet, it was +thought victory might have been won. Soon after battle joined, the +sky grew of a ghastly brass or copper color, darker and darker, till +thick night involved all things; and did not clear away again till +battle was near ending. Dag, with his four hundred, arrived in the +darkness, and made a furious charge, what was afterwards, in the +speech of the people, called "Dag's storm." Which had nearly +prevailed, but could not quite; victory again inclining to the so +vastly larger party. It is uncertain still how the matter would have +gone; for Olaf himself was now fighting with his own hand, and doing +deadly execution on his busiest enemies to right and to left. But one +of these chief rebels, Thorer Hund (thought to have learnt magic from +the Laplanders, whom he long traded with, and made money by), +mysteriously would not fall for Olaf's best strokes. Best strokes +brought only dust from the (enchanted) deer-skin coat of the fellow, +to Olaf's surprise,--when another of the rebel chiefs rushed forward, +struck Olaf with his battle-axe, a wild slashing wound, and miserably +broke his thigh, so that he staggered or was supported back to the +nearest stone; and there sat down, lamentably calling on God to help +him in this bad hour. Another rebel of note (the name of him long +memorable in Norway) slashed or stabbed Olaf a second time, as did +then a third. Upon which the noble Olaf sank dead; and forever +quitted this doghole of a world,--little worthy of such men as Olaf +one sometimes thinks. But that too is a mistake, and even an +important one, should we persist in it. + +With Olaf's death the sky cleared again. Battle, now near done, ended +with complete victory to the rebels, and next to no pursuit or result, +except the death of Olaf everybody hastening home, as soon as the big +Duel had decided itself. Olaf's body was secretly carried, after +dark, to some out-house on the farm near the spot; whither a poor +blind beggar, creeping in for shelter that very evening, was +miraculously restored to sight. And, truly with a notable, almost +miraculous, speed, the feelings of all Norway for King Olaf changed +themselves, and were turned upside down, "within a year," or almost +within a day. Superlative example of _Extinctus amabitur idem._ Not +"Olaf the Thick-set" any longer, but "Olaf the Blessed" or Saint, now +clearly in Heaven; such the name and character of him from that time +to this. Two churches dedicated to him (out of four that once stood) +stand in London at this moment. And the miracles that have been done +there, not to speak of Norway and Christendom elsewhere, in his name, +were numerous and great for long centuries afterwards. Visibly a +Saint Olaf ever since; and, indeed, in _Bollandus_ or elsewhere, I +have seldom met with better stuff to make a Saint of, or a true +World-Hero in all good senses. + +Speaking of the London Olaf Churches, I should have added that from +one of these the thrice-famous Tooley Street gets its name,--where +those Three Tailors, addressing Parliament and the Universe, sublimely +styled themselves, "We, the People of England." Saint Olave Street, +Saint Oley Street, Stooley Street, Tooley Street; such are the +metamorphoses of human fame in the world! + +The battle-day of Stickelstad, King Olaf's death-day, is generally +believed to have been Wednesday, July 31, 1033. But on investigation, +it turns out that there was no total eclipse of the sun visible in +Norway that year; though three years before, there was one; but on the +29th instead of the 31st. So that the exact date still remains +uncertain; Dahlmann, the latest critic, inclining for 1030, and its +indisputable eclipse.[15] + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +MAGNUS THE GOOD AND OTHERS. + +St. Olaf is the highest of these Norway Kings, and is the last that +much attracts us. For this reason, if a reason were not superfluous, +we might here end our poor reminiscences of those dim Sovereigns. But +we will, nevertheless, for the sake of their connection with bits of +English History, still hastily mention the Dames of one or two who +follow, and who throw a momentary gleam of life and illumination on +events and epochs that have fallen so extinct among ourselves at +present, though once they were so momentous and memorable. + +The new King Svein from Jomsburg, Knut's natural son, had no success +in Norway, nor seems to have deserved any. His English mother and he +were found to be grasping, oppressive persons; and awoke, almost from +the instant that Olaf was suppressed and crushed away from Norway into +Heaven, universal odium more and more in that country. +Well-deservedly, as still appears; for their taxings and extortions of +malt, of herring, of meal, smithwork and every article taxable in +Norway, were extreme; and their service to the country otherwise +nearly imperceptible. In brief their one basis there was the power of +Knut the Great; and that, like all earthly things, was liable to +sudden collapse,--and it suffered such in a notable degree. King +Knut, hardly yet of middle age, and the greatest King in the then +world, died at Shaftesbury, in 1035, as Dahlmann thinks[16],--leaving +two legitimate sons and a busy, intriguing widow (Norman Emma, widow +of Ethelred the Unready), mother of the younger of these two; neither +of whom proved to have any talent or any continuance. In spite of +Emma's utmost efforts, Harald, the elder son of Knut, not hers, got +England for his kingdom; Emma and her Harda-Knut had to be content +with Denmark, and go thither, much against their will. Harald in +England,--light-going little figure like his father before him,--got +the name of Harefoot here; and might have done good work among his now +orderly and settled people; but he died almost within year and day; +and has left no trace among us, except that of "Harefoot," from his +swift mode of walking. Emma and her Harda-Knut now returned joyful to +England. But the violent, idle, and drunken Harda-Knut did no good +there; and, happily for England and him, soon suddenly ended, by +stroke of apoplexy at a marriage festival, as mentioned above. In +Denmark he had done still less good. And indeed,--under him, in a +year or two, the grand imperial edifice, laboriously built by Knut's +valor and wisdom, had already tumbled all to the ground, in a most +unexpected and remarkable way. As we are now to indicate with all +brevity. + + + +Svein's tyrannies in Norway had wrought such fruit that, within the +four years after Olaf's death, the chief men in Norway, the very +slayers of King Olaf, Kalf Arneson at the head of them, met secretly +once or twice; and unanimously agreed that Kalf Arneson must go to +Sweden, or to Russia itself; seek young Magnus, son of Olaf home: +excellent Magnus, to be king over all Norway and them, instead of this +intolerable Svein. Which was at once done,--Magnus brought home in a +kind of triumph, all Norway waiting for him. Intolerable Svein had +already been rebelled against: some years before this, a certain +young Tryggve out of Ireland, authentic son of Olaf Tryggveson, and of +that fine Irish Princess who chose him in his low habiliments and low +estate, and took him over to her own Green Island,--this royal young +Tryggve Olafson had invaded the usurper Svein, in a fierce, valiant, +and determined manner; and though with too small a party, showed +excellent fight for some time; till Svein, zealously bestirring +himself, managed to get him beaten and killed. But that was a couple +of years ago; the party still too small, not including one and all as +now! Svein, without stroke of sword this time, moved off towards +Denmark; never showing face in Norway again. His drunken brother, +Harda-Knut, received him brother-like; even gave him some territory to +rule over and subsist upon. But he lived only a short while; was gone +before Harda-Knut himself; and we will mention him no more. + +Magnus was a fine bright young fellow, and proved a valiant, wise, and +successful King, known among his people as Magnus the Good. He was +only natural son of King Olaf but that made little difference in those +times and there. His strange-looking, unexpected Latin name he got in +this way: Alfhild, his mother, a slave through ill-luck of war, +though nobly born, was seen to be in a hopeful way; and it was known +in the King's house how intimately Olaf was connected with that +occurrence, and how much he loved this "King's serving-maid," as she +was commonly designated. Alfhild was brought to bed late at night; +and all the world, especially King Olaf was asleep; Olaf's strict +rule, then and always, being, Don't awaken me:--seemingly a man +sensitive about his sleep. The child was a boy, of rather weakly +aspect; no important person present, except Sigvat, the King's +Icelandic Skald, who happened to be still awake; and the Bishop of +Norway, who, I suppose, had been sent for in hurry. "What is to be +done?" said the Bishop: "here is an infant in pressing need of +baptism; and we know not what the name is: go, Sigvat, awaken the +King, and ask." "I dare not for my life," answered Sigvat; "King's +orders are rigorous on that point." "But if the child die +unbaptized," said the Bishop, shuddering; too certain, he and +everybody, where the child would go in that case! "I will myself give +him a name," said Sigvat, with a desperate concentration of all his +faculties; "he shall be namesake of the greatest of mankind,--imperial +Carolus Magnus; let us call the infant Magnus!" King Olaf, on the +morrow, asked rather sharply how Sigvat had dared take such a liberty; +but excused Sigvat, seeing what the perilous alternative was. And +Magnus, by such accident, this boy was called; and he, not another, is +the prime origin and introducer of that name Magnus, which occurs +rather frequently, not among the Norman Kings only, but by and by +among the Danish and Swedish; and, among the Scandinavian populations, +appears to be rather frequent to this day. + +Magnus, a youth of great spirit, whose own, and standing at his beck, +all Norway now was, immediately smote home on Denmark; desirous +naturally of vengeance for what it had done to Norway, and the sacred +kindred of Magnus. Denmark, its great Knut gone, and nothing but a +drunken Harda-Knut, fugitive Svein and Co., there in his stead, was +become a weak dislocated Country. And Magnus plundered in it, burnt +it, beat it, as often as he pleased; Harda-Knut struggling what he +could to make resistance or reprisals, but never once getting any +victory over Magnus. Magnus, I perceive, was, like his Father, a +skilful as well as valiant fighter by sea and land; Magnus, with good +battalions, and probably backed by immediate alliance with Heaven and +St. Olaf, as was then the general belief or surmise about him, could +not easily be beaten. And the truth is, he never was, by Harda-Knut +or any other. Harda-Knut's last transaction with him was, To make a +firm Peace and even Family-treaty sanctioned by all the grandees of +both countries, who did indeed mainly themselves make it; their two +Kings assenting: That there should be perpetual Peace, and no thought +of war more, between Denmark and Norway; and that, if either of the +Kings died childless while the other was reigning, the other should +succeed him in both Kingdoms. A magnificent arrangement, such as has +several times been made in the world's history; but which in this +instance, what is very singular, took actual effect; drunken Harda- +Knut dying so speedily, and Magnus being the man he was. One would +like to give the date of this remarkable Treaty; but cannot with +precision. Guess somewhere about 1040:[17] actual fruition of it came +to Magnus, beyond question, in 1042, when Harda-Knut drank that +wassail bowl at the wedding in Lambeth, and fell down dead; which in +the Saxon Chronicle is dated 3d June of that year. Magnus at once +went to Denmark on hearing this event; was joyfully received by the +headmen there, who indeed, with their fellows in Norway, had been main +contrivers of the Treaty; both Countries longing for mutual peace, and +the end of such incessant broils. + +Magnus was triumphantly received as King in Denmark. The only +unfortunate thing was, that Svein Estrithson, the exile son of Ulf, +Knut's Brother-in-law, whom Knut, as we saw, had summarily killed +twelve years before, emerged from his exile in Sweden in a flattering +form; and proposed that Magnus should make him Jarl of Denmark, and +general administrator there, in his own stead. To which the sanguine +Magnus, in spite of advice to the contrary, insisted on acceding. +"Too powerful a Jarl," said Einar Tamberskelver--the same Einar whose +bow was heard to break in Olaf Tryggveson's last battle ("Norway +breaking from thy hand, King!"), who had now become Magnus's chief +man, and had long been among the highest chiefs in Norway; "too +powerful a Jarl," said Einar earnestly. But Magnus disregarded it; +and a troublesome experience had to teach him that it was true. In +about a year, crafty Svein, bringing ends to meet, got himself +declared King of Denmark for his own behoof, instead of Jarl for +another's: and had to be beaten and driven out by Magnus. Beaten +every year; but almost always returned next year, for a new +beating,--almost, though not altogether; having at length got one +dreadful smashing-down and half-killing, which held him quiet for a +while,--so long as Magnus lived. Nay in the end, he made good his +point, as if by mere patience in being beaten; and did become King +himself, and progenitor of all the Kings that followed. King Svein +Estrithson; so called from Astrid or Estrith, his mother, the great +Knut's sister, daughter of Svein Forkbeard by that amazing Sigrid the +Proud, who _burnt_ those two ineligible suitors of hers both at once, +and got a switch on the face from Olaf Tryggveson, which proved the +death of that high man. + +But all this fine fortune of the often beaten Estrithson was posterior +to Magnus's death; who never would have suffered it, had he been +alive. Magnus was a mighty fighter; a fiery man; very proud and +positive, among other qualities, and had such luck as was never seen +before. Luck invariably good, said everybody; never once was +beaten,--which proves, continued everybody, that his Father Olaf and +the miraculous power of Heaven were with him always. Magnus, I +believe, did put down a great deal of anarchy in those countries. One +of his earliest enterprises was to abolish Jomsburg, and trample out +that nest of pirates. Which he managed so completely that Jomsburg +remained a mere reminiscence thenceforth; and its place is not now +known to any mortal. + +One perverse thing did at last turn up in the course of Magnus: a new +Claimant for the Crown of Norway, and he a formidable person withal. +This was Harald, half-brother of the late Saint Olaf; uncle or +half-uncle, therefore, of Magnus himself. Indisputable son of the +Saint's mother by St. Olaf's stepfather, who was, himself descended +straight from Harald Haarfagr. This new Harald was already much heard +of in the world. As an ardent Boy of fifteen he had fought at King +Olaf's side at Stickelstad; would not be admonished by the Saint to go +away. Got smitten down there, not killed; was smuggled away that +night from the field by friendly help; got cured of his wounds, +forwarded to Russia, where he grew to man's estate, under bright +auspices and successes. Fell in love with the Russian Princess, but +could not get her to wife; went off thereupon to Constantinople as +_Vaeringer_ (Life-Guardsman of the Greek Kaiser); became Chief Captain +of the Vaeringers, invincible champion of the poor Kaisers that then +were, and filled all the East with the shine and noise of his +exploits. An authentic _Waring_ or _Baring_, such the surname we now +have derived from these people; who were an important institution in +those Greek countries for several ages: Vaeringer Life-Guard, +consisting of Norsemen, with sometimes a few English among them. +Harald had innumerable adventures, nearly always successful, sing the +Skalds; gained a great deal of wealth, gold ornaments, and gold coin; +had even Queen Zoe (so they sing, though falsely) enamored of him at +one time; and was himself a Skald of eminence; some of whose verses, +by no means the worst of their kind, remain to this day. + +This character of Waring much distinguishes Harald to me; the only +Vaeringer of whom I could ever get the least biography, true or +half-true. It seems the Greek History-books but indifferently +correspond with these Saga records; and scholars say there could have +been no considerable romance between Zoe and him, Zoe at that date +being 60 years of age! Harald's own lays say nothing of any Zoe, but +are still full of longing for his Russian Princess far away. + +At last, what with Zoes, what with Greek perversities and perfidies, +and troubles that could not fail, he determined on quitting Greece; +packed up his immensities of wealth in succinct shape, and actually +returned to Russia, where new honors and favors awaited him from old +friends, and especially, if I mistake not, the hand of that adorable +Princess, crown of all his wishes for the time being. Before long, +however, he decided farther to look after his Norway Royal heritages; +and, for that purpose, sailed in force to the Jarl or quasi-King of +Denmark, the often-beaten Svein, who was now in Sweden on his usual +winter exile after beating. Svein and he had evidently interests in +common. Svein was charmed to see him, so warlike, glorious and +renowned a man, with masses of money about him, too. Svein did by and +by become treacherous; and even attempted, one night, to assassinate +Harald in his bed on board ship: but Harald, vigilant of Svein, and a +man of quick and sure insight, had providently gone to sleep +elsewhere, leaving a log instead of himself among the blankets. In +which log, next morning, treacherous Svein's battle-axe was found +deeply sticking: and could not be removed without difficulty! But +this was after Harald and King Magnus himself bad begun treating; with +the fairest prospects,--which this of the $vein battle-axe naturally +tended to forward, as it altogether ended the other copartnery. + +Magnus, on first hearing of Vaeringer Harald and his intentions, made +instant equipment, and determination to fight his uttermost against +the same. But wise persons of influence round him, as did the like +sort round Vaeringer Harald, earnestly advised compromise and +peaceable agreement. Which, soon after that of Svein's nocturnal +battle-axe, was the course adopted; and, to the joy of all parties, +did prove a successful solution. Magnus agreed to part his kingdom +with Uncle Harald; uncle parting his treasures, or uniting them with +Magnus's poverty. Each was to be an independent king, but they were +to govern in common; Magnus rather presiding. He, to sit, for +example, in the High Seat alone; King Harald opposite him in a seat +not quite so high, though if a stranger King came on a visit, both the +Norse Kings were to sit in the High Seat. With various other +punctilious regulations; which the fiery Magnus was extremely strict +with; rendering the mutual relation a very dangerous one, had not both +the Kings been honest men, and Harald a much more prudent and tolerant +one than Magnus. They, on the whole, never had any weighty quarrel, +thanks now and then rather to Harald than to Magnus. Magnus too was +very noble; and Harald, with his wide experience and greater length of +years, carefully held his heat of temper well covered in. + +Prior to Uncle Harald's coming, Magnus had distinguished himself as a +Lawgiver. His Code of Laws for the Trondhjem Province was considered +a pretty piece of legislation; and in subsequent times got the name of +_Gray-goose_ (Gragas); one of the wonderfulest names ever given to a +wise Book. Some say it came from the gray color of the parchment, +some give other incredible origins; the last guess I have heard is, +that the name merely denotes antiquity; the witty name in Norway for a +man growing old having been, in those times, that he was now "becoming +a gray-goose." Very fantastic indeed; certain, however, that +Gray-goose is the name of that venerable Law Book; nay, there is +another, still more famous, belonging to Iceland, and not far from a +century younger, the Iceland _Gray-goose._ The Norway one is perhaps +of date about 1037, the other of about 1118; peace be with them both! +Or, if anybody is inclined to such matters let him go to Dahlmann, for +the amplest information and such minuteness of detail as might almost +enable him to be an Advocate, with Silk Gown, in any Court depending +on these Gray-geese. + +Magnus did not live long. He had a dream one night of his Father +Olaf's coming to him in shining presence, and announcing, That a +magnificent fortune and world-great renown was now possible for him; +but that perhaps it was his duty to refuse it; in which case his +earthly life would be short. "Which way wilt thou do, then?" said the +shining presence. "Thou shalt decide for me, Father, thou, not I!" +and told his Uncle Harald on the morrow, adding that he thought he +should now soon die; which proved to be the fact. The magnificent +fortune, so questionable otherwise, has reference, no doubt, to the +Conquest of England; to which country Magnus, as rightful and actual +King of _Denmark_, as well as undisputed heir to drunken Harda-Knut, +by treaty long ago, had now some evident claim. The enterprise itself +was reserved to the patient, gay, and prudent Uncle Harald; and to him +it did prove fatal,--and merely paved the way for Another, luckier, +not likelier! + +Svein Estrithson, always beaten during Magnus's life, by and by got an +agreement from the prudent Harald to _be_ King of Denmark, then; and +end these wearisome and ineffectual brabbles; Harald having other work +to do. But in the autumn of 1066, Tosti, a younger son of our English +Earl Godwin, came to Svein's court with a most important announcement; +namely, that King Edward the Confessor, so called, was dead, and that +Harold, as the English write it, his eldest brother would give him, +Tosti, no sufficient share in the kingship. Which state of matters, +if Svein would go ahead with him to rectify it, would be greatly to +the advantage of Svein. Svein, taught by many beatings, was too wise +for this proposal; refused Tosti, who indignantly stepped over into +Norway, and proposed it to King Harald there. Svein really had +acquired considerable teaching, I should guess, from his much beating +and hard experience in the world; one finds him afterwards the +esteemed friend of the famous Historian Adam of Bremen, who reports +various wise humanities, and pleasant discoursings with Svein +Estrithson. + +As for Harald Hardrade, "Harald the Hard or Severe," as he was now +called, Tosti's proposal awakened in him all his old Vaeringer +ambitious and cupidities into blazing vehemence. He zealously +consented; and at once, with his whole strength, embarked in the +adventure. Fitted out two hundred ships, and the biggest army he +could carry in them; and sailed with Tosti towards the dangerous +Promised Land. Got into the Tyne and took booty; got into the Humber, +thence into the Ouse; easily subdued any opposition the official +people or their populations could make; victoriously scattered these, +victoriously took the City of York in a day; and even got himself +homaged there, "King of Northumberland," as per covenant,--Tosti +proving honorable,--Tosti and he going with faithful strict +copartnery, and all things looking prosperous and glorious. Except +only (an important exception!) that they learnt for certain, English +Harold was advancing with all his strength; and, in a measurable space +of hours, unless care were taken, would be in York himself. Harald +and Tosti hastened off to seize the post of Stamford Bridge on Derwent +River, six or seven miles east of York City, and there bar this +dangerous advent. Their own ships lay not far off in Ouse River, in +case of the worst. The battle that ensued the next day, September 20, +1066, is forever memorable in English history. + +Snorro gives vividly enough his view of it from the Icelandic side: A +ring of stalwart Norsemen, close ranked, with their steel tools in +hand; English Harold's Army, mostly cavalry, prancing and pricking all +around; trying to find or make some opening in that ring. For a long +time trying in vain, till at length, getting them enticed to burst out +somewhere in pursuit, they quickly turned round, and quickly made an +end, of that matter. Snorro represents English Harold, with a first +party of these horse coming up, and, with preliminary salutations, +asking if Tosti were there, and if Harald were; making generous +proposals to Tosti; but, in regard to Harald and what share of England +was to be his, answering Tosti with the words, "Seven feet of English +earth, or more if he require it, for a grave." Upon which Tosti, like +an honorable man and copartner, said, "No, never; let us fight you +rather till we all die." "Who is this that spoke to you?" inquired +Harald, when the cavaliers had withdrawn. "My brother Harold," +answers Tosti; which looks rather like a Saga, but may be historical +after all. Snorro's history of the battle is intelligible only after +you have premised to it, what he never hints at, that the scene was on +the east side of the bridge and of the Derwent; the great struggle for +the bridge, one at last finds, was after the fall of Harald; and to +the English Chroniclers, said struggle, which was abundantly severe, +is all they know of the battle. + +Enraged at that breaking loose of his steel ring of infantry, Norse +Harald blazed up into true Norse fury, all the old Vaeringer and +Berserkir rage awakening in him; sprang forth into the front of the +fight, and mauled and cut and smashed down, on both hands of him, +everything he met, irresistible by any horse or man, till an arrow cut +him through the windpipe, and laid him low forever. That was the end +of King Harald and of his workings in this world. The circumstance +that he was a Waring or Baring and had smitten to pieces so many +Oriental cohorts or crowds, and had made love-verses (kind of iron +madrigals) to his Russian Princess, and caught the fancy of +questionable Greek queens, and had amassed such heaps of money, while +poor nephew Magnus had only one gold ring (which had been his +father's, and even his father's _mother's_, as Uncle Harald noticed), +and nothing more whatever of that precious metal to combine with +Harald's treasures:--all this is new to me, naturally no hint of it in +any English book; and lends some gleam of romantic splendor to that +dim business of Stamford Bridge, now fallen so dull and torpid to most +English minds, transcendently important as it once was to all +Englishmen. Adam of Bremen says, the English got as much gold plunder +from Harald's people as was a heavy burden for twelve men;[18] a thing +evidently impossible, which nobody need try to believe. Young Olaf, +Harald's son, age about sixteen, steering down the Ouse at the top of +his speed, escaped home to Norway with all his ships, and subsequently +reigned there with Magnus, his brother. Harald's body did lie in +English earth for about a year; but was then brought to Norway for +burial. He needed more than seven feet of grave, say some; +Laing, interpreting Snorro's measurements, makes Harald eight feet in +stature,--I do hope, with some error in excess! + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +OLAF THE TRANQUIL, MAGNUS BAREFOOT, AND SIGURD THE CRUSADER. + +The new King Olaf, his brother Magnus having soon died, bore rule in +Norway for some five-and-twenty years. Rule soft and gentle, not like +his father's, and inclining rather to improvement in the arts and +elegancies than to anything severe or dangerously laborious. A +slim-built, witty-talking, popular and pretty man, with uncommonly +bright eyes, and hair like floss silk: they called him Olaf _Kyrre_ +(the Tranquil or Easygoing). + +The ceremonials of the palace were much improved by him. Palace still +continued to be built of huge logs pyramidally sloping upwards, with +fireplace in the middle of the floor, and no egress for smoke or +ingress for light except right overhead, which, in bad weather, you +could shut, or all but shut, with a lid. Lid originally made of mere +opaque board, but changed latterly into a light frame, covered +(_glazed_, so to speak) with entrails of animals, clarified into +something of pellucidity. All this Olaf, I hope, further perfected, +as he did the placing of the court ladies, court officials, and the +like; but I doubt if the luxury of a glass window were ever known to +him, or a cup to drink from that was not made of metal or horn. In +fact it is chiefly for his son's sake I mention him here; and with the +son, too, I have little real concern, but only a kind of fantastic. + +This son bears the name of Magnus _Barfod_ (Barefoot, or Bareleg); and +if you ask why so, the answer is: He was used to appear in the +streets of Nidaros (Trondhjem) now and then in complete Scotch +Highland dress. Authentic tartan plaid and philibeg, at that +epoch,--to the wonder of Trondhjem and us! The truth is, he had a +mighty fancy for those Hebrides and other Scotch possessions of his; +and seeing England now quite impossible, eagerly speculated on some +conquest in Ireland as next best. He did, in fact, go diligently +voyaging and inspecting among those Orkney and Hebridian Isles; +putting everything straight there, appointing stringent authorities, +jarls,--nay, a king, "Kingdom of the Suderoer" (Southern Isles, now +called _Sodor_),--and, as first king, Sigurd, his pretty little boy of +nine years. All which done, and some quarrel with Sweden fought out, +he seriously applied himself to visiting in a still more emphatic +manner; namely, to invading, with his best skill and strength, the +considerable virtual or actual kingdom he had in Ireland, intending +fully to enlarge it to the utmost limits of the Island if possible. +He got prosperously into Dublin (guess A.D. 1102). Considerable +authority he already had, even among those poor Irish Kings, or +kinglets, in their glibs and yellow-saffron gowns; still more, I +suppose, among the numerous Norse Principalities there. "King Murdog, +King of Ireland," says the Chronicle of Man, "had obliged himself, +every Yule-day, to take a pair of shoes, hang them over his shoulder, +as your servant does on a journey, and walk across his court, at +bidding and in presence of Magnus Barefoot's messenger, by way of +homage to the said "King." Murdog on this greater occasion did +whatever homage could be required of him; but that, though +comfortable, was far from satisfying the great King's ambitious mind. +The great King left Murdog; left his own Dublin; marched off westward +on a general conquest of Ireland. Marched easily victorious for a +time; and got, some say, into the wilds of Connaught, but there saw +himself beset by ambuscades and wild Irish countenances intent on +mischief; and had, on the sudden, to draw up for battle;--place, I +regret to say, altogether undiscoverable to me; known only that it was +boggy in the extreme. Certain enough, too certain and evident, Magnus +Barefoot, searching eagerly, could find no firm footing there; nor, +fighting furiously up to the knees or deeper, any result but honorable +death! Date is confidently marked "24 August, 1103,"--as if people +knew the very day of the month. The natives did humanely give King +Magnus Christian burial. The remnants of his force, without further +molestation, found their ships on the Coast of Ulster; and sailed +home,--without conquest of Ireland; nay perhaps, leaving royal Murdog +disposed to be relieved of his procession with the pair of shoes. + +Magnus Barefoot left three sons, all kings at once, reigning peaceably +together. But to us, at present, the only noteworthy one of them was +Sigurd; who, finding nothing special to do at home, left his brothers +to manage for him, and went off on a far Voyage, which has rendered +him distinguishable in the crowd. Voyage through the Straits of +Gibraltar, on to Jerusalem, thence to Constantinople; and so home +through Russia, shining with such renown as filled all Norway for the +time being. A King called Sigurd Jorsalafarer (Jerusalemer) or Sigurd +the Crusader henceforth. His voyage had been only partially of the +Viking type; in general it was of the Royal-Progress kind rather; +Vikingism only intervening in cases of incivility or the like. His +reception in the Courts of Portugal, Spain, Sicily, Italy, had been +honorable and sumptuous. The King of Jerusalem broke out into utmost +splendor and effusion at sight of such a pilgrim; and Constantinople +did its highest honors to such a Prince of Vaeringers. And the truth +is, Sigurd intrinsically was a wise, able, and prudent man; who, +surviving both his brothers, reigned a good while alone in a solid and +successful way. He shows features of an original, +independent-thinking man; something of ruggedly strong, sincere, and +honest, with peculiarities that are amiable and even pathetic in the +character and temperament of him; as certainly, the course of life he +took was of his own choosing, and peculiar enough. He happens +furthermore to be, what he least of all could have chosen or expected, +the last of the Haarfagr Genealogy that had any success, or much +deserved any, in this world. The last of the Haarfagrs, or as good as +the last! So that, singular to say, it is in reality, for one thing +only that Sigurd, after all his crusadings and wonderful adventures, +is memorable to us here: the advent of an Irish gentleman called +"Gylle Krist" (Gil-christ, Servant of Christ), who,--not over welcome, +I should think, but (unconsciously) big with the above +result,--appeared in Norway, while King Sigurd was supreme. Let us +explain a little. + +This Gylle Krist, the unconsciously fatal individual, who "spoke Norse +imperfectly," declared himself to be the natural son of whilom Magnus +Barefoot; born to him there while engaged in that unfortunate +"Conquest of Ireland." "Here is my mother come with me," said +Gilchrist, "who declares my real baptismal name to have been Harald, +given me by that great King; and who will carry the red-hot +ploughshares or do any reasonable ordeal in testimony of these facts. +I am King Sigurd's veritable half-brother: what will King Sigurd +think it fair to do with me?" Sigurd clearly seems to have believed +the man to be speaking truth; and indeed nobody to have doubted but he +was. Sigurd said, "Honorable sustenance shalt thou have from me here. +But, under pain of extirpation, swear that, neither in my time, nor in +that of my young son Magnus, wilt thou ever claim any share in this +Government." Gylle swore; and punctually kept his promise during +Sigurd's reign. But during Magnus's, he conspicuously broke it; and, +in result, through many reigns, and during three or four generations +afterwards, produced unspeakable contentions, massacrings, confusions +in the country he had adopted. There are reckoned, from the time of +Sigurd's death (A.D. 1130), about a hundred years of civil war: no +king allowed to distinguish himself by a solid reign of well-doing, or +by any continuing reign at all,--sometimes as many as four kings +simultaneously fighting;--and in Norway, from sire to son, nothing but +sanguinary anarchy, disaster and bewilderment; a Country sinking +steadily as if towards absolute ruin. Of all which frightful misery +and discord Irish Gylle, styled afterwards King Harald Gylle, was, by +ill destiny and otherwise, the visible origin: an illegitimate Irish +Haarfagr who proved to be his own destruction, and that of the +Haarfagr kindred altogether! + +Sigurd himself seems always to have rather favored Gylle, who was a +cheerful, shrewd, patient, witty, and effective fellow; and had at +first much quizzing to endure, from the younger kind, on account of +his Irish way of speaking Norse, and for other reasons. One evening, +for example, while the drink was going round, Gylle mentioned that the +Irish had a wonderful talent of swift running and that there were +among them people who could keep up with the swiftest horse. At +which, especially from young Magnus, there were peals of laughter; and +a declaration from the latter that Gylle and he would have it tried +to-morrow morning! Gylle in vain urged that he had not himself +professed to be so swift a runner as to keep up with the Prince's +horses; but only that there were men in Ireland who could. Magnus was +positive; and, early next morning, Gylle had to be on the ground; and +the race, naturally under heavy bet, actually went off. Gylle started +parallel to Magnus's stirrup; ran like a very roe, and was clearly +ahead at the goal. "Unfair," said Magnus; "thou must have had hold of +my stirrup-leather, and helped thyself along; we must try it again." +Gylle ran behind the horse this second time; then at the end, sprang +forward; and again was fairly in ahead. "Thou must have held by the +tail," said Magnus; "not by fair running was this possible; we must +try a third time!" Gylle started ahead of Magnus and his horse, this +third time; kept ahead with increasing distance, Magnus galloping his +very best; and reached the goal more palpably foremost than ever. So +that Magnus had to pay his bet, and other damage and humiliation. And +got from his father, who heard of it soon afterwards, scoffing rebuke +as a silly fellow, who did not know the worth of men, but only the +clothes and rank of them, and well deserved what he had got from +Gylle. All the time King Sigurd lived, Gylle seems to have had good +recognition and protection from that famous man; and, indeed, to have +gained favor all round, by his quiet social demeanor and the qualities +he showed. + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +MAGNUS THE BLIND, HARALD GYLLE, AND MUTUAL EXTINCTION OF THE +HAARFAGRS. + +On Sigurd the Crusader's death, Magnus naturally came to the throne; +Gylle keeping silence and a cheerful face for the time. But it was +not long till claim arose on Gylle's part, till war and fight arose +between Magnus and him, till the skilful, popular, ever-active and +shifty Gylle had entirely beaten Magnus; put out his eyes, mutilated +the poor body of him in a horrid and unnamable manner, and shut him up +in a convent as out of the game henceforth. There in his dark misery +Magnus lived now as a monk; called "Magnus the Blind" by those Norse +populations; King Harald Gylle reigning victoriously in his stead. +But this also was only for a time. There arose avenging kinsfolk of +Magnus, who had no Irish accent in their Norse, and were themselves +eager enough to bear rule in their native country. By one of +these,--a terribly stronghanded, fighting, violent, and regardless +fellow, who also was a Bastard of Magnus Barefoot's, and had been made +a Priest, but liked it unbearably ill, and had broken loose from it +into the wildest courses at home and abroad; so that his current name +got to be "Slembi-diakn," Slim or Ill Deacon, under which he is much +noised of in Snorro and the Sagas: by this Slim-Deacon, Gylle was put +an end to (murdered by night, drunk in his sleep); and poor blind +Magnus was brought out, and again set to act as King, or King's Cloak, +in hopes Gylle's posterity would never rise to victory more. But +Gylle's posterity did, to victory and also to defeat, and were the +death of Magnus and of Slim-Deacon too, in a frightful way; and all +got their own death by and by in a ditto. In brief, these two +kindreds (reckoned to be authentic enough Haarfagr people, both kinds +of them) proved now to have become a veritable crop of dragon's teeth; +who mutually fought, plotted, struggled, as if it had been their +life's business; never ended fighting and seldom long intermitted it, +till they had exterminated one another, and did at last all rest in +death. One of these later Gylle temporary Kings I remember by the +name of Harald Herdebred, Harald of the Broad Shoulders. The very +last of them I think was Harald Mund (Harald of the _Wry-Mouth_), who +gave rise to two Impostors, pretending to be Sons of his, a good while +after the poor Wry-Mouth itself and all its troublesome belongings +were quietly underground. What Norway suffered during that sad +century may be imagined. + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +SVERRIR AND DESCENDANTS, TO HAKON THE OLD. + +The end of it was, or rather the first abatement, and _beginnings_ of +the end, That, when all this had gone on ever worsening for some forty +years or so, one Sverrir (A.D. 1177), at the head of an armed mob of +poor people called _Birkebeins_, came upon the scene. A strange +enough figure in History, this Sverrir and his Birkebeins! At first a +mere mockery and dismal laughing-stock to the enlightened Norway +public. Nevertheless by unheard-of fighting, hungering, exertion, and +endurance, Sverrir, after ten years of such a death-wrestle against +men and things, got himself accepted as King; and by wonderful +expenditure of ingenuity, common cunning, unctuous Parliamentary +Eloquence or almost Popular Preaching, and (it must be owned) general +human faculty and valor (or value) in the over-clouded and distorted +state, did victoriously continue such. And founded a new Dynasty in +Norway, which ended only with Norway's separate existence, after near +three hundred years. + +This Sverrir called himself a Son of Harald Wry-Mouth; but was in +reality the son of a poor Comb-maker in some little town of Norway; +nothing heard of Sonship to Wry-Mouth till after good success +otherwise. His Birkebeins (that is to say, _Birchlegs;_ the poor +rebellious wretches having taken to the woods; and been obliged, +besides their intolerable scarcity of food, to thatch their bodies +from the cold with whatever covering could be got, and their legs +especially with birch bark; sad species of fleecy hosiery; whence +their nickname),--his Birkebeins I guess always to have been a kind of +Norse _Jacquerie_: desperate rising of thralls and indigent people, +driven mad by their unendurable sufferings and famishings,--theirs the +_deepest_ stratum of misery, and the densest and heaviest, in this the +general misery of Norway, which had lasted towards the third +generation and looked as if it would last forever:--whereupon they had +risen proclaiming, in this furious dumb manner, unintelligible except +to Heaven, that the same could not, nor would not, be endured any +longer! And, by their Sverrir, strange to say, they did attain a kind +of permanent success; and, from being a dismal laughing-stock in +Norway, came to be important, and for a time all-important there. +Their opposition nicknames, "_Baglers_ (from Bagall, _baculus_, +bishop's staff; Bishop Nicholas being chief Leader)," "_Gold-legs_," +and the like obscure terms (for there was still a considerable course +of counter-fighting ahead, and especially of counter-nicknaming), I +take to have meant in Norse prefigurement seven centuries ago, +"bloated Aristocracy," "tyrannous-_Bourgeoisie_,"--till, in the next +century, these rents were closed again! + +King Sverrir, not himself bred to comb-making, had, in his fifth year, +gone to an uncle, Bishop in the Faroe Islands; and got some +considerable education from him, with a view to Priesthood on the part +of Sverrir. But, not liking that career, Sverrir had fled and +smuggled himself over to the Birkebeins; who, noticing the learned +tongue, and other miraculous qualities of the man, proposed to make +him Captain of them; and even threatened to kill him if he would not +accept,--which thus at the sword's point, as Sverrir says, he was +obliged to do. It was after this that he thought of becoming son of +Wry-Mouth and other higher things. + +His Birkebeins and he had certainly a talent of campaigning which has +hardly ever been equalled. They fought like devils against any odds +of number; and before battle they have been known to march six days +together without food, except, perhaps, the inner barks of trees, and +in such clothing and shoeing as mere birch bark:--at one time, +somewhere in the Dovrefjeld, there was serious counsel held among them +whether they should not all, as one man, leap down into the frozen +gulfs and precipices, or at once massacre one another wholly, and so +finish. Of their conduct in battle, fiercer than that of _Baresarks_, +where was there ever seen the parallel? In truth they are a dim +strange object to one, in that black time; wondrously bringing light +into it withal; and proved to be, under such unexpected circumstances, +the beginning of better days! + +Of Sverrir's public speeches there still exist authentic specimens; +wonderful indeed, and much characteristic of such a Sverrir. A +comb-maker King, evidently meaning several good and solid things; and +effecting them too, athwart such an element of Norwegian +chaos-come-again. His descendants and successors were a comparatively +respectable kin. The last and greatest of them I shall mention is +Hakon VII., or Hakon the Old; whose fame is still lively among us, +from the Battle of Largs at least. + + + +CHAPTER XV. + +HAKON THE OLD AT LARGS. + +In the Norse annals our famous Battle of Largs makes small figure, or +almost none at all among Hakon's battles and feats. They do say +indeed, these Norse annalists, that the King of Scotland, Alexander +III. (who had such a fate among the crags about Kinghorn in time +coming), was very anxious to purchase from King Hakon his sovereignty +of the Western Isles, but that Hakon pointedly refused; and at length, +being again importuned and bothered on the business, decided on giving +a refusal that could not be mistaken. Decided, namely, to go with a +big expedition, and look thoroughly into that wing of his Dominions; +where no doubt much has fallen awry since Magnus Barefoot's grand +visit thither, and seems to be inviting the cupidity of bad neighbors! +"All this we will put right again," thinks Hakon, "and gird it up into +a safe and defensive posture." Hakon sailed accordingly, with a +strong fleet; adjusting and rectifying among his Hebrides as he went +long, and landing withal on the Scotch coast to plunder and punish as +he thought fit. The Scots say he had claimed of them Arran, Bute, and +the Two Cumbraes ("given my ancestors by Donald Bain," said Hakon, to +the amazement of the Scots) "as part of the Sudoer" (Southern Isles): +--so far from selling that fine kingdom!--and that it was after taking +both Arran and Bute that he made his descent at Largs. + +Of Largs there is no mention whatever in Norse books. But beyond any +doubt, such is the other evidence, Hakon did land there; land and +fight, not conquering, probably rather beaten; and very certainly +"retiring to his ships," as in either case he behooved to do! It is +further certain he was dreadfully maltreated by the weather on those +wild coasts; and altogether credible, as the Scotch records bear, that +he was so at Largs very specially. The Norse Records or Sagas say +merely, he lost many of his ships by the tempests, and many of his men +by land fighting in various parts,--tacitly including Largs, no doubt, +which was the last of these misfortunes to him. "In the battle here +he lost 15,000 men, say the Scots, we 5,000"! Divide these numbers by +ten, and the excellently brief and lucid Scottish summary by Buchanan +may be taken as the approximately true and exact.[19] Date of the +battle is A.D. 1263. + +To this day, on a little plain to the south of the village, now town, +of Largs, in Ayrshire, there are seen stone cairns and monumental +heaps, and, until within a century ago, one huge, solitary, upright +stone; still mutely testifying to a battle there,--altogether clearly, +to this battle of King Hakon's; who by the Norse records, too, was in +these neighborhoods at that same date, and evidently in an aggressive, +high kind of humor. For "while his ships and army were doubling the +Mull of Cantire, he had his own boat set on wheels, and therein, +splendidly enough, had himself drawn across the Promontory at a +flatter part," no doubt with horns sounding, banners waving. "All to +the left of me is mine and Norway's," exclaimed Hakon in his +triumphant boat progress, which such disasters soon followed. + +Hakon gathered his wrecks together, and sorrowfully made for Orkney. +It is possible enough, as our Guide Books now say, he may have gone by +Iona, Mull, and the narrow seas inside of Skye; and that the +_Kyle-Akin_, favorably known to sea-bathers in that region, may +actually mean the Kyle (narrow strait) of Hakon, where Hakon may have +dropped anchor, and rested for a little while in smooth water and +beautiful environment, safe from equinoctial storms. But poor Hakon's +heart was now broken. He went to Orkney; died there in the winter; +never beholding Norway more. + +He it was who got Iceland, which had been a Republic for four +centuries, united to his kingdom of Norway: a long and intricate +operation,--much presided over by our Snorro Sturleson, so often +quoted here, who indeed lost his life (by assassination from his +sons-in-law) and out of great wealth sank at once into poverty of +zero,--one midnight in his own cellar, in the course of that bad +business. Hakon was a great Politician in his time; and succeeded in +many things before he lost Largs. Snorro's death by murder had +happened about twenty years before Hakon's by broken heart. He is +called Hakon the Old, though one finds his age was but fifty-nine, +probably a longish life for a Norway King. Snorro's narrative ceases +when Snorro himself was born; that is to say, at the threshold of King +Sverrir; of whose exploits and doubtful birth it is guessed by some +that Snorro willingly forbore to speak in the hearing of such a Hakon. + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + +EPILOGUE. + +Haarfagr's kindred lasted some three centuries in Norway; Sverrir's +lasted into its third century there; how long after this, among the +neighboring kinships, I did not inquire. For, by regal affinities, +consanguinities, and unexpected chances and changes, the three +Scandinavian kingdoms fell all peaceably together under Queen +Margaret, of the Calmar Union (A.D. 1397); and Norway, incorporated +now with Denmark, needed no more kings. + +The History of these Haarfagrs has awakened in me many thoughts: Of +Despotism and Democracy, arbitrary government by one and +self-government (which means no government, or anarchy) by all; of +Dictatorship with many faults, and Universal Suffrage with little +possibility of any virtue. For the contrast between Olaf Tryggveson, +and a Universal-Suffrage Parliament or an "Imperial" Copper Captain +has, in these nine centuries, grown to be very great. And the eternal +Providence that guides all this, and produces alike these entities +with their epochs, is not its course still through the great deep? +Does not it still speak to us, if we have ears? Here, clothed in +stormy enough passions and instincts, unconscious of any aim but their +own satisfaction, is the blessed beginning of Human Order, Regulation, +and real Government; there, clothed in a highly different, but again +suitable garniture of passions, instincts, and equally unconscious as +to real aim, is the accursed-looking ending (temporary ending) of +Order, Regulation, and Government;--very dismal to the sane onlooker +for the time being; not dismal to him otherwise, his hope, too, being +steadfast! But here, at any rate, in this poor Norse theatre, one +looks with interest on the first transformation, so mysterious and +abstruse, of human Chaos into something of articulate Cosmos; +witnesses the wild and strange birth-pangs of Human Society, and +reflects that without something similar (little as men expect such +now), no Cosmos of human society ever was got into existence, nor can +ever again be. + +The violences, fightings, crimes--ah yes, these seldom fail, and they +are very lamentable. But always, too, among those old populations, +there was one saving element; the now want of which, especially the +unlamented want, transcends all lamentation. Here is one of those +strange, piercing, winged-words of Ruskin, which has in it a terrible +truth for us in these epochs now come:-- + +"My friends, the follies of modern Liberalism, many and great though +they be, are practically summed in this denial or neglect of the +quality and intrinsic value of things. Its rectangular beatitudes, +and spherical benevolences,--theology of universal indulgence, and +jurisprudence which will hang no rogues, mean, one and all of them, in +the root, incapacity of discerning, or refusal to discern, worth and +unworth in anything, and least of all in man; whereas Nature and +Heaven command you, at your peril, to discern worth from unworth in +everything, and most of all in man. Your main problem is that ancient +and trite one, 'Who is best man?' and the Fates forgive much,--forgive +the wildest, fiercest, cruelest experiments,--if fairly made for the +determination of that. + +Theft and blood-guiltiness are not pleasing in their sight; yet the +favoring powers of the spiritual and material world will confirm to +you your stolen goods, and their noblest voices applaud the lifting of +Your spear, and rehearse the sculpture of your shield, if only your +robbing and slaying have been in fair arbitrament of that question, +'Who is best man?' But if you refuse such inquiry, and maintain every +man for his neighbor's match,--if you give vote to the simple and +liberty to the vile, the powers of those spiritual and material worlds +in due time present you inevitably with the same problem, soluble now +only wrong side upwards; and your robbing and slaying must be done +then to find out, 'Who is worst man?' Which, in so wide an order of +merit, is, indeed, not easy; but a complete Tammany Ring, and lowest +circle in the Inferno of Worst, you are sure to find, and to be +governed by."[20] + +All readers will admit that there was something naturally royal in +these Haarfagr Kings. A wildly great kind of kindred; counts in it +two Heroes of a high, or almost highest, type: the first two Olafs, +Tryggveson and the Saint. And the view of them, withal, as we chance +to have it, I have often thought, how essentially Homeric it +was:--indeed what is "Homer" himself but the _Rhapsody_ of five +centuries of Greek Skalds and wandering Ballad-singers, done (i.e. +"stitched together") by somebody more musical than Snorro was? Olaf +Tryggveson and Olaf Saint please me quite as well in their prosaic +form; offering me the truth of them as if seen in their real +lineaments by some marvellous opening (through the art of Snorro) +across the black strata of the ages. Two high, almost among the +highest sons of Nature, seen as they veritably were; fairly comparable +or superior to god-like Achilleus, goddess-wounding Diomedes, much +more to the two Atreidai, Regulators of the Peoples. + +I have also thought often what a Book might be made of Snorro, did +there but arise a man furnished with due literary insight, and +indefatigable diligence; who, faithfully acquainting himself with the +topography, the monumental relies and illustrative actualities of +Norway, carefully scanning the best testimonies as to place and time +which that country can still give him, carefully the best collateral +records and chronologies of other countries, and who, himself +possessing the highest faculty of a Poet, could, abridging, arranging, +elucidating, reduce Snorro to a polished Cosmic state, unweariedly +purging away his much chaotic matter! A modern "highest kind of +Poet," capable of unlimited slavish labor withal;--who, I fear, is not +soon to be expected in this world, or likely to find his task in the +_Heimskringla_ if he did appear here. + + + +Footnotes: +_______________________________ + +[1] J. G. Dahlmann, _Geschichte von Dannemark_, 3 vols. 8vo. +Hamburg, 1840-1843. + +[2] "Settlement," dated 912, by Munch, Henault, &c. The Saxon +Chronicle says (anno 876): "In this year Rolf overran Normandy +with his army, and he reigned fifty winters." + +[3] Dahlmann, ii. 87. + +[4] Dahlmann, ii. 93. + +[5] _Laing's Snorro_, i. 344. + +[6] G. Buchanani _Opera Omnia_, i. 103, 104 (Curante Ruddimano, +Edinburgi, 1715). + +[7] His Long Serpent, judged by some to be of the size of a frigate of +forty-five guns (Laing). + +[8] This sermon was printed by Hearne; and is given also by +Langebek in his excellent Collection, _Rerum Danicarum Scriptores +Medii AEri._ Hafniae. 1772-1834. + +[9] Kennet, i. 67; Rapin, i. 119, 121 (from the _Saxon Chronicle_ +both). + +[10] Knut born A.D. 988 according to Munch's calculation (ii. +126). + +[11] Snorro, Laing's Translation, ii. p. 31 et seq., will minutely +specify. + +[12] Snorro, ii. pp. 24, 25. + +[13] Snorro, ii. pp. 156-161. + +[14] Snorro, ii. pp. 252, 253. + +[15] _Saxon Chronicle_ says expressly, under A.D. 1030: "In this +year King Olaf was slain in Norway by his own people, and was +afterwards sainted." + +[16] _Saxon Chronicle_ says: "1035. In this year died King Cnut. ... +He departed at Shaftesbury, November 12, and they conveyed him thence +to Winchester, and there buried him." + +[17] Munch gives the date 1038 (ii. 840), Adam of Bremen 1040. + +[18] Camden, Rapin, &c. quote. + +[19] _Buchanani Hist._ i. 130. + +[20] _Fors Clavigera_, Letter XIV. Pp. 8-10. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg Etext Early Kings of Norway, by Thomas Carlyle + diff --git a/old/knrwy10.zip b/old/knrwy10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..97c1580 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/knrwy10.zip |