The Story of Harald Fairhair, First King of Norway
The early history of Norway, and
Scandinavia in general, is characterized by powerful seafarers, traders, and
warriors and by rich heathen mythologies and ambitious chieftains. The fierce
sons of these northern lands dominated the sea routes of northern Europe for
centuries and singlehandedly changed the course of many a nation's history. But
they were never a single and dominant force.
Instead, they were divided up into
many small, petty kingdoms, ruled by overly ambitious chieftains - each one
wanting the finest loot and the perfect raids. That was, until a man stepped up
- a man to unite them all and form a new, vast kingdom with a single ruler at
its head. That man was Harald Fair hair.
Widely considered as the first King of Norway, this
shadowy historical figure is debated by scholars to this day. Did he truly
exist? Are the sagas correct? Today we will attempt to give our own answer, as
we explore the intriguing story about the man behind the modern Norwegian
nation - Harald Fair hair.
In His Father’s
Footsteps – Harald Fair hair Comes to Power
In Viking era Norway and Scandinavia,
literacy was largely non-existent, outside runic inscriptions. It only came to
these lands with Christianity, and that means that there are few written
sources from the early periods, other than the sagas -
written centuries later. In the Viking society, great deeds and great heroes were
the subject of songs and tales - but only in oral form.
Skaldic poetry was a great tradition
of the north - skilled skalds (bards) were used by the kings to sing praises of
their deeds, often creating larger than life figures. In a sense, good skalds
were essential propaganda units in early medieval Scandinavia. And the
king-to-be, Harald, knew this all too well.
But even so, oral tradition tends to
fade out in time, and the only written accounts mentioning Harald Fair hair -
less than a dozen of them - were assembled substantially after his life and
deeds had ended. From Theodricus
Monachus. None of these king sagas are
older than the 12th century.
What we can learn from these sources
is that Harald was already destined to walk on the path on which he did - since
his father had already begun the grand plan of uniting the petty kingdoms under
a single banner. That man was Halfdan the Black (Halfdanr Svarti), born around
810 AD into the legendary Scandinavian dynasty of the Ynglings. Both the Heimskringla and the Fagsrkinna, the sagas of the
12 th century, give us some important details about
Halfdan, and thus some history of Harald Fairhair.
Halfdan himself was born as a son of
a petty king - Gudrød the Magnificent, and his wife, Åsa Haraldsdottir, was
daughter of the King of Agder, another petty kingdom. Halfdan's father was
murdered when the boy was yet an infant, and his mother had to flee back to her
father's kingdom, Agder, where she raised her son. Fast forward about 19 years
when Halfdan the Black inherited the title of the King of Agder and he quickly
showed his skill in ruling, as he enlarged his lands and wealth.
His careful and tactical subduing of
the lesser kingdoms around him clearly paved the way for the future and for his
son to successfully unite them all. Halfdan first managed to take half of
Vingulmark - a petty kingdom ruled by King Gandalf Alfgeirsson. Then came
Raumarike - a kingdom he subdued after winning a series of conflicts with it
rulers.
After that, through a cunning
marriage he managed to claim the kingdom of the Sogn fjords. He married the
daughter of Sogn's king and had a son. This son was named the
heir of Sogn, but died young - leaving the kingdom to Halfdan, his father.
Through cunning, tactic warfare and
shrewd politics, Halfdan the Black managed to expand his inheritance and create
a large kingdom. His plans, sadly, fell into water - quite
literally - when his carriage fell through ice in Randsfjorden. Halfdan the Black
and all his party drowned. He left behind an heir - Harald Fairhair.
Right from the get-go, young Harald
and his uncle and protector, Guthorm, were under threat. With the death of
Halfdan, the kingdoms he conquered could quite easily and quickly turn to
revolt, seeking to retake their lost independence. The fact that worked against
Harald is that the kingdom was not a single form – it was scattered and
disconnected, and thus hard to manage.
Soon enough, this came to pass, and
young Harald Fairhair was to quickly discover the true meaning of kingship. His
first opponent was Hake Gandalfsson, son of the deposed and killed King of
Vingulmark, Gandalf Alfgeirsson. Hake’s brothers, Hysing and Helsing, were
killed in battle years previously, by Halfdan the Black.
Seeking vengeance, Hake – now
considered a berserker – quickly sought to depose of young and
seemingly inexperienced Harald. He assembled a vast army from Vestfold that
numbered some 300 well-armed warriors. In early medieval Norway, this
number was a large army and one tough to
defeat. The saga then tell us that – as great heroes do – Halfdan and Guthorm
cunningly defeated Hake
Gandalfsson with a much smaller army, seemingly through an ambush.
Through skillful governance of his
territories, Harald managed to raise more men in hopes of securing his kingdom.
This proved smart, because soon afterwards he faced his biggest obstacle. An
opposition formed in Norway, seeking to reclaim lost kingdoms and stand in the
path of what was quickly beginning to look like an attempt at unifying Norway.
The main opposition was Sulki, petty
King of Rogaland and his brother Earl Soti, then Eirik, King of Hordaland,
and with them Kjotvi the Wealthy, King of Agdir with his son Thorir
Haklang. They were joined by two brothers who ruled Telemark – Hadd the Hard
and Hroald Hrygg.
This was the core of Harald’s enemies. Both factions worked desperately to assemble as many troops as possible. Their conflict culminated in 872, at the Bbattle of Hafrsfjord near Stavanger. At the time this could have easily been one of the largest battles – naval or otherwise – fought in Norway.
The vast armies clashed in a great
naval battle in the fjord that was part of Rogaland. Most of the opponents of
Harald fell in battle – Eirik was killed, Sulki and Soti fell, and Thorir
Haklang went berserk and was slain. His father, Kjotvi the Wealthy was the only
opponent to survive, fleeing as he witnessed the overwhelming defeat. He is not
mentioned again after that.
Harald Fairhair’s victory at Hafrsfjord is widely considered in folk celebrations as the birth of an independent and unified Kingdom of Norway. And that is somewhat correct – after his great victory, Harald proclaimed himself as the sole king of a unified Norway – without opposition to his claim.
After his victory, Harald quickly
sought to cement his rule. And again, he had shown his shrewd diplomacy, by
marrying a daughter of a Danish king. At the time was the foremost
and powerful nation to his south, and he wanted them as allies.
Harald Fairhair not only secured an
alliance, but also portrayed himself as a true monarch of Norway – a
confirmation of his kingship. Further proof that Harald’s rule over the whole
of Norway was stable, is the fact that the king of Denmark led serious negotiations
before agreeing to give the hand of his daughter in marriage.
Plenty of skaldic poems that were
made during the supposed lifetime of Harald Fairhair survived, and they give us
both actual historic facts and some details that seem larger than life. One
such aspect is a highly romanticized tale of just how Harald decided to unite
Norway. As the poems and stories tell, Harald fell in love with a certain
woman, Gyda, which was among the fairest in Norway.
But she refused his declarations of
love, teasingly saying that she will only accept a king of a whole Norway for
her husband. He then swore to do exactly that, in order to gain her love.
Another romantic detail says that Harald swore not to comb his hair until he became King of Norway. He then became Harald Lufa (Harald Matted-Hair). After his conquests were finished, the tales say he was given a rich feast at Maeri, by Earl Rognvald.
The same earl then proceeded to at
last comb Harald’s long hair, showing to all how beautiful it was, and the king
finally earned the epithet Harald Fairhair. These are almost surely
skaldic embellishments and have no basis in reality, even though Earl Rognvald
is a historic figure – one of the first supporters of the newly crowned Harald,
alongside Earl Atli the Slender.
The latter could also be a very
interesting metaphor – one that was craftily snuck in by the Christian
chroniclers in the centuries after Harald. The metaphor is clear – the earl
removes the matted, dreadlocked hair of a warrior (a metaphor for heathen,
tribal Vikings) and reveals a king with lovely and fine hair (a metaphor for
the civilized Christian sovereigns).
Harald Fairhair’s victory at
Hafrsfjord and his rise to power as a monarch also had influence on neighboring
lands – most notably the settlement of Iceland.
A good number of nobles, warriors, and their families, who were against Harald
in the conflict, chose to flee rather than be subjugated. And their destination
was Iceland – freshly discovered and barely settled at the time.
Harald Fairhair also extended his
influence onto the Orkneys and Scotland. The Vikings who ruled there
as earl were obliged to pay tribute and accept him as their king.
The War of Harald
Fairhair’s Sons & Grandsons
In the subsequent writings, two of Harald’s sons are mentioned – Erik Bloodaxe and Haakon the Good. The younger, Haakon, was sent to the court of King Athelstan in Enland – seemingly to remain safe or as a diplomatic hostage or envoy. Either way, he spent his youth in Anglo Saxon and Danish England, while his older brother, Erik Bloodaxe, inherited the throne of Norway after his father Harald Fairhair died. By that time, Erik had grown sons of his own.
But soon after Erik became king,
Haakon Haraldsson set sail from Enland in
an attempt to seize the throne from his half-brother. Unlike the still pagan
Erik and the rest of the Norway, Haakon took to the religion of the Anglo
Saxons – he was a Christian.
There is a possibility that Haakon’s expedition was backed by the English.
Either way, Haakon landed in Norway
and began securing his allies. He promised to end the taxation over inherited
property, which was begun by his father Harald Fairhair. He became allied with
Sigurd, Earl of Lade, and quickly had a solid foothold in Norway, indirectly or
directly controlling considerable parts of it.
Erik Bloodaxe was soon out of favor
and found himself basically surrounded and without many allies. He was forced
to flee to the Orkneys, and from there to Jorvik in NorthumbriaHe was
killed there with his son Haeric, in the Battle of Stainmore in 954, against the
Earl of Bernicia.
But his sons remained as a force to
oppose Haakon in Norway. They led a series of bloody battles against
the forces of Haakon. In the first one, at Avaldsnes, Haakon won and one of
Eric’s sons, Guttorm, was killed. In the following year, the Battle of
Rastarkalv was fought and was another victory for Haakon. In it Eric’s son,
Gamle, died.
Several years after this defeat, in
961, the three remaining sons of Eric Bloodaxe returned to Norway and surprised
Haakon the Good at the Battle of Fitjar. This battle was yet again won by
Haakon, but he paid for it with his life. He was wounded and quickly died.
The title of the King of Norway then
passed to Harald Greycloak, the eldest surviving son of Eric Bloodaxe and the
grandson of Harald Fairhair. But his rule was marked by years of warfare in
Norway and he was finally murdered by allies of the Danish king Harald
Bluetooth who became the King of Norway, for a few years. He too was deposed
and murdered and the circle kept repeating…
The Swords Never
Sheathed
There is no doubt that the history of
Norway and its beginnings as a nation was marked by the warlike and somewhat
greedy nature of the Norsemen. True to their Viking lifestyle, their transition
from seafaring warriors to traders was not smooth.
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