Chapter 3
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incentive to his enterprise, history does not record; but it is plain that Harald, who found himself in early manhood a king whose prestige stood high and whose dominions were already large, realized the enormous economic importance of uniting under a single leader the several trading-communities of the country, and himself determined, as paramount lord, to direct and safeguard the rich but dangerous commerce of Norway. These were the years when the Frisian traders trafficked constantly between the markets of western Europe and the fishermen and hunters of the north, and when Swedish merchant-princes were established along the waterways leading to the Arabic East and to Constantinople; but Norway, because of internal jealousies and the bitter piratical warfare waged by neighbour upon neighbour, took less than was her due by way of profit from this busy trade, so that the wisest heads, with gallant young Harald to urge them, had begun to understand that the development of Norway's commerce was a task that could be accomplished only by a supreme and resolute warrior-lord. It was to this grand and enviable position that Harald now dared to raise himself.
His first move was a direct and uncompromising attack upon the troublesome pirate-folk of the Sogn district of Vestland, (1) and the sequel to it was an alliance with the grateful Jarl Haakon Grjotgardsson, who was lord of a vast stretch of the western littoral that included all Halogaland, Namdal, the outer Tröndelag and most of north Möre; likewise with the chieftain of the adjacent coastal territory, the Jarl of Möre, Harald concluded a peace. But the demonstration against Sogn had not achieved its purpose, for the Vestland people further to the south still held themselves aloof contemptuously from the new combination and remained a serious danger to the shipping that coasted along this country of the great fjords, so that now Harald, for the fulfilment of his purpose, found himself faced with a war against the redoubtable vikings of Hordaland and Rogaland. Of the length and character of the struggle nothing is known, but of its result there is no doubt, for the victory was to Harald. Utstein in Boknfjord became a residence of the conqueror, and Avaldsnes, a little to the north in Karmsund, another of his strongholds. (2) Yet even so, the war in the west was not over, for Jaeder
1. And probably not, as Heimskringla relates, an onslaught upon the Tröndelag by way of Dovre. Harald's aim was to secure the friendship of the Tröndelag by ridding her merchants of the menace of the Vestland pirates.
2. Heimskringla, after recounting a conquest of Möre that includes the two battles of Solskel, interrupts the story of the war against Vestland by taking Harald off to fight Eric Segersäll, king of Sweden, who had invaded Ranrike and Vermland. Six years elapsed before Harald returned to western Norway.
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still held out against him and was supported by restive chieftains of Agder and rebels from the conquered fjordlands, so that the opposition to Harald's further advance stiffened. Finally ships and an army were collected, and the full strength of south-west Norway summoned to resist him; the names of many of the leaders who rallied against Harald are recorded in the sagas, some of them being no doubt the usual inventions that in the course of the centuries were added to most of the battle-rōles of early history. But the one man who was certainly the mainspring of these warlike preparations was Kjötve, a king either in Jaeder or Agder, and with him was a warrior Haklang, sometimes called Kjötve's son and thought by Gustav Storm and others to have been the viking Olaf of Dublin. (1)
Harald's preparation had been no less thorough than those of his adversaries, and about the year A.D. 9002 the memorable battle took place that was to decide the fate of the vikings still outside his dominion. His armament sailed suddenly south from the Tröndelag while his foes were concentrating in Jaeren, and when their assembly was almost complete and they proceeded to their appointed station in Hafrsfjord, they found that Harald had outsailed them and was there waiting for them, his fleet marshalled and prepared.
Long and hard was the battle that followed. There is no proper description of the fight, but the sagas tell of the great slaughter on both sides, the deaths of many chieftains of Vestland, and the flight of Kjötve. Harald had won and Vestland was fallen. Hafrsfjord was a decisive battle, and the fame of Harald's victory was henceforward numbered among the dearest themes of the scald and chronicler. Thus sang the poet Hornklofi:
Hast thou heard how yonder in Hafrsfjord the high-born king (Harald) fought with Kjötve the wealthy? Ships came from the west, ready for war, with grinning heads and carven beaks. They were laden with warriors, with white shields,
1. See n. 2, p. 280. The new dating for Hafrsfjord, of course, completely wrecks this identification.
2. Or, according to the old dating, c. A.D. 870. I myself believe that a date about 890 is nearer the mark, since on the evidence of Grettir's saga Hafrsfjord was fought within three years of a date when Cearbhall of Ossary (p. 282) was living, and this great Irishman died in 888. The evidence in the introduction to Eyrbyggja saga according to which Ketil Flatneb (p. 304) was dead by 884 must be disregarded.
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with western spears and Welsh swords. They tried their strength against the eager king, the lord of the Eastmen that dwells at Outstone, and he taught them to flee. The king launched his ship when he looked for the battle. The berserks roared in the midst of the battle, the wolfcoats howled and shook the iron (spears). (1)
Harald was now master of every state in Norway. But there were still many dangers ahead of him; the mutterings of the conquered people in Vestland, the emigration of the wealthy landowners who would not endure his rule, and the frequent return of these emigrants on piratical raids, were plain proof that he did not as yet command a united and contented nation. Two or more years elapsed before his title as overlord was everywhere recognized and his authority no longer disputed. Then, at last, Harald, deeming his great task achieved, allowed his shock of hair to be cut and combed.
The king spent much of these two years in the district that gave him the most trouble, Vestland. Here, especially in Sogn and Nordfjord, he was for a long time occupied in a series of minor and undignified struggles, and of these the sagas have many tales to tell, tales that usually end with the death or flight of some rebellious landowner. Such a one was Thorolf Kveldulfsson, an erstwhile henchman of the king's who had fought by Harald's side at Hafrsfjord. He had subsequently become an exceedingly wealthy man with a home at Sandness in Halogaland, but as he was rash enough to entertain Harald surrounded by a retinue exceeding in numbers that of the king, he very soon aroused the jealousy and anger of his sovereign. Harald's enmity made of Thorolf a rebel and a viking, and it was not long before he provoked the king's utmost fury by an audacious act of plundering in the Vik. Harald despatched two warships and two hundred men in pursuit of Thorolf to Halogaland, and himself followed with four ships and a large body of men. Thorolf was slain in the gallant defence of his burning home before the people of Halogaland and Namdal could rally to his cause. And there is little doubt that with this tragic fight at Sandness a possibly serious insurrection in the north was crushed. Not
1. G. Vigfusson and F. York Powell, Corpus Poeticum Boreale, Oxford, 1883, 1, p. 256. Welsh (valskr) means foreign, especially Gaulish. Lord of the Eastmen refers to Harald as king of the Norwegians east of Vestland, but Harald's manor of Outstone (Utstein) was on an island in Boknfjord. Beserks and wolfcoats were warriors in Harald's army; the names seem to have been interchangeable, but berserks are usually described as battling in a ferocious frenzy.
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for the first time had swift action been the secret of Harald's success.
The king's consolidation policy was not confined to domestic struggles. The Norwegians in the Scottish islands, who by this time included in their number many exiles and malcontents, were beginning to raid the western coast of Norway with increasing severity, and it became necessary to take steps to prevent these turbulent folk from becoming a serious menace to the security of Harald's new realm. The tale of how the king succeeded in destroying these nests of pirates is one that is complicated by many confusions and inaccuracies, (1) but it seems that about 910 he appointed Ketil Flatneb (p. 304) as governor of the Hebrides, while in the '20s, still profoundly dissatisfied with the behaviour of the western vikings, he himself undertook a serious punitive campaign. He set sail with a large fleet and accompanied by some of his bravest warriors; first he made for the west coast of Scotland, everywhere seeking out the viking settlements and putting the inmates to the sword; then he continued his progress and drove out the viking chiefs from the Hebrides; it is said that he even descended upon the Isle of Man. Next he went north to the Orkneys and Shetlands, which he laid under him, and Sigurd, brother of Ragnvald the jarl of Möre, was given the earldom of these two archipelagos, remaining behind when Harald and his host returned to Norway.
Harald has often been credited with the introduction of a revolutionary system of government in Norway, some novel and efficient system of central government that bound the various folks firmly together in a single political unit. This notion is in the main founded upon Snorri's enthusiastic chapter in the Heimskringla (2) wherein he describes the administrative system in the reign of Harald in such a way as to suggest it was the invention of the king. Actually, Harald made little contribution to the methods of government in Norway, and the old partition of the land into folks, the old legal alliances between these folks, the old judiciary functions of the things, all these were left unchanged. He did, however, treat his conquered provinces with something of the severity exercised by the vikings in the administration of the territories they won abroad, and it may well be that the effect of such treatment on the hitherto
1. For the difficulties, and an excellent attempt to resolve them, see D. W. H. Marshall, Sudreys in Early Viking Times, Glasgow, 1929, p. 32 ff.
2. H. hįrfagri, 6.
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