The Story of Norway Part 2

"After many sharp fights," says an old author,[A] "he conquered in a short time all Ireland, and erected, wherever he went, high fortifications of masonry with deep moats, of which many ruins are yet to be seen in the country." At last he fell in love with the daughter of Maelsechnail, king in Meath, and demanded of him that he should send her to him, attended by fifteen young maidens. Thorgisl promised to meet her with the same number of high-born Nors.e.m.e.n on an island in Loch Erne.

But instead of maidens Maelsechnail sent fifteen beardless young men, disguised as women and armed with daggers. When Thorgisl arrived he was attacked by these and slain. On a previous occasion Maelsechnail had asked Thorgisl what he should do to get rid of some strange and injurious birds that had got into the country. "Destroy their nests,"

said Thorgisl. Accordingly Maelsechnail began at once to destroy the Norse castles, while the Irish slew or chased away the Nors.e.m.e.n.

[Footnote A: Giraldus Cambrensis, _De Topogr. Hiberniae_, cap. 37. Quoted from Munch, 1-438.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: BUCKLE FROM THE IRON AGE.]

It appears probable that Thorgisl's reign in Ireland lasted from 838 to 846, although a much longer period is given by the above-quoted chronicler. A more enduring sway over the country was gained by the Norse sea-king Olaf the White, who belonged to the great Yngling race.

In 852 a company of Danish vikings had possession of Dublin; but Olaf defeated them and compelled them to send him hostages. He then established himself in the city, built castles, and taxed the surrounding country. Two other Nors.e.m.e.n, the brothers Sigtrygg and Ivar, founded about the same time kingdoms--the former in Waterford, the latter in Limerick--without, however, being able to compete with Olaf in splendor and power. The dominion of the Nors.e.m.e.n in Dublin is said to have lasted for three hundred and fifty years. From Irish sources a somewhat different account is derived of these remarkable events. It is told that the Nors.e.m.e.n often sailed up the rivers, not as warriors, but as peaceful merchants, and that the Irish found it advantageous to trade with them. They thus gained considerable possessions in the cities, and when the vikings came there was already a party in the larger cities who favored them and made their conquests easy.

From Dublin Olaf the White made two cruises to Scotland, laid siege to Dumbarton, sailed southward to England, plundering and ravaging, and returned to Dublin with two hundred ships laden with precious booty. The Orkneys, the Hebrides, and the Faroe Isles were also, during this period, repeatedly visited by the vikings, and even to Iceland expeditions were made, which did not, however, result in permanent settlement. The Irish hermits and pious monks, who had retired from the world into the Arctic solitude, were disturbed in their devotions by the unwelcome visitors, and the majority returned to Ireland, while some are said to have remained until the island was regularly settled by the Nors.e.m.e.n.

To England the Nors.e.m.e.n went for the first time with hostile intent in 787. During the reign of King Beorthric in Wess.e.x a small flock of vikings landed in the neighborhood of Dorchester, killed some people, and were driven away again. The Anglo-Saxon chronicle [A] relates the incident in these words:

[Footnote A: _Monum. Hist. Brit._, pp. 336, 337. Quoted from Munch, i., 416.]

"In this year (787) King Beorthric married Eadburg, daughter of King Offa. In those days came for the first time Northmen and ships from Heredhaland. The _gerefa_ (commander) rode down to them and wished to drive them to the king's dwelling. For he knew not who they were; but they slew him there. These were the first ships belonging to Danish men which visited England."

It is noticeable that the ships are said in the same breath to have belonged to Northmen and to Danes, and it is obvious that the chronicler supposes the terms to be synonymous. The Heredhaland from which the men came was in all probability Hardeland in Jutland, where the Nors.e.m.e.n had at that time a colony.

The next attack of which we have an account was directed against the coast of Northumberland, and took place in the year 794. The monk Simeon of Durham,[A] who lived in the beginning of the twelfth century, writes as follows:

[Footnote A: Simeon of Durham, _Monum. Hist. Brit._, p. 668. Quoted from Munch, i., 417.]

"The heathen came from the northern countries to Britain like stinging wasps, roamed about like savage wolves, robbing, biting, killing not only horses, sheep, and cattle, but also priests, acolytes, monks, and nuns. They went to Lindisfarena church, destroying every thing in the most miserable manner, and trod the sanctuary with their profane feet, threw down the altars, robbed the treasures of the church, killed some of the brothers, carried others away in captivity, mocked many and flung them away naked, and threw some into the ocean. In 794 they harried King Ecgfridh's harbor, and plundered the monastery of Donmouth. But St.

Cuthbert did not permit them to escape unpunished; for their chieftain was visited with a cruel death by the English and, a short time after, their ships were destroyed by a storm, and many of them perished; a few who swam ash.o.r.e were killed without pity."

It is an odd circ.u.mstance that while an incessant stream of Norse vikings, during the first half of the ninth century, poured southward, devastating the sh.o.r.es of the Baltic and the Mediterranean, only a comparatively small number found their way to England. We hear in the Sagas of many individual warriors who visited the Saxon kings in England and took service under them, and of several who sailed up the Thames and put an embargo on the trade of the river, capturing every ship that ventured into their clutches. But as a field for conquest they left England (probably not from any fraternal consideration) to their kinsmen, the Danes, while they themselves turned their attention to France, Ireland, and the isles north of Scotland. In the Hebrides, the Orkneys, the Shetland Islands, and the Faeroe Isles, their descendants are still living, and Norse names are yet frequent.

[Ill.u.s.tration: RUIN OF NORSE TOWER AT MOSo, SHETLAND ISLANDS.]

Another notable circ.u.mstance in connection with the vikings is, that the very men whom foreign chroniclers describe as stinging wasps and savage wolves, and of whom the greatest atrocities are related during their sojourn abroad, became, as a rule, after their return home, men of weight and influence, with respect for tradition and law--men who, according to the standard of the time, were moral and honorable. There were exceptions, of course, but they go to prove the rule. The explanation is not far to seek. Religion in those days was tribal, and morality had no application outside the tribe. Every people is the chosen people of its own G.o.d or G.o.ds. As the Jews divided humanity into Jews and Gentiles, and the Greeks into Greeks and barbarians, so the Nors.e.m.e.n retaliated towards Jews and Greeks, by including them with all other nations in the Norse equivalent for barbarians. English, Irish, and Germans, often men of high birth, were constantly brought to Norway by the vikings as thralls, bartered and sold and forced to menial tasks.

No law extended its protection to them; and yet maltreatment of thralls was, both in Iceland and Norway, regarded as unworthy of a freeman. For all that, the vikings were children of their age, and practised only the rude morality which their religion prescribed. The humanitarian sentiment which regards all men as brethren and creatures of the same G.o.d is a comparatively modern growth, and it would be unfair to judge the old Nors.e.m.e.n by any such advanced standard. It is therefore quite credible that the vikings may have been guilty of deeds abroad which they would not have committed at home.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER IV.

HALFDAN THE SWARTHY.

The Yngling race traced its ancestry from the G.o.d Frey. Snorre Sturla.s.son, in his famous work, "The Sagas of the Kings of Norway,"[A]

mentions a long line of kings who were descended from Fjolne, a son of Frey, and reigned in Sweden having their residence in Upsala. Yngve was one of the G.o.d's surnames, and Yngling means a descendant of Yngve. One of the Ynglings, named Aun the Old, sacrificed every ten years one of his sons to Odin, having been promised that for every son he sacrificed, ten years should be added to his life. When he had thus slain seven sons, and was so old that he had to be fed like an infant, his people grew weary of him and saved the eighth son, whom he was about to sacrifice. Ingjald Ill-Ruler, when he took the kingdom on the death of his father Anund, sixth in descent from Aun the Old, made a great funeral feast, to which he invited all the neighboring kings. When he rose to drink the Brage goblet,[B] he vowed that he would increase his kingdom by one half toward all the four corners of the heavens, or die in the attempt. As a preliminary step he set fire to the hall, burned his guests, and took possession of their lands. When he died, about the middle of the seventh century, he was so detested by his people that they would not accept his son, nor any of his race, as his successor.

The son, whose name was Olaf, therefore gathered about him as many as would follow him, and emigrated to the great northern forests, where he felled the trees, gained much arable lands, and thereby acquired the nickname The Wood-cutter.[C] He and his people became prosperous, and a great influx of the discontented from the neighboring lands followed. In fact, so great was the number of immigrants that the country could not feed them, and they were threatened with famine. This they attributed, however, to the fact that Olaf was not in the favor of the G.o.ds, and they sacrificed him to Odin.

[Footnote A: "The Heimskringla, or the Sagas of the Kings of Norway," by the Icelander Snorre Sturla.s.son, was written in the twelfth century, and continued by his nephew Sturla Thordsson, is the princ.i.p.al source of the history of Norway up to the middle of the thirteenth century.]

[Footnote B: The toast to the G.o.d Brage.]

[Footnote C: Tretelgja.]

His son, Halfdan Whiteleg,[A] was a great warrior. He conquered Raumarike in Norway and the great and fertile district called Vestfold, west of the fjord called Folden (now the Christiania Fjord). Here he founded a famous temple in Skiringssal, which soon became a flourishing trading station and a favorite residence of the Norwegian kings. The third in descent from him was the great viking G.o.dfrey the Hunter, who waged war against Charlemagne, and G.o.dfrey's son was Halfdan the Swarthy.

[Footnote A: Hvitbein.]

Halfdan was but a year old in 810 when his father was killed. At the age of eighteen, he a.s.sumed the government of Agder, which he inherited from his maternal grandfather. By warfare and by marriage he also increased the great possessions he had received from his father, and, was, beyond dispute, the mightiest king in all Norway. It is told of him that he was a man of great intelligence, who loved justice and truth. He gave laws which he himself kept and compelled every one else to keep. In order that no one should with impunity tread the law under foot, he fixed a scale of fines which offenders should pay in accordance with their birth and dignity. This code was the so-called Eidsiva-Law, which had great influence in politically uniting the southern districts of Norway which Halfdan had gathered under his sway.

About King Halfdan's second marriage a story is told, which, whether originally true or not, has obviously been the subject of legendary adornment. It runs as follows:

There was a king in Ringerike whose name was Sigurd Hjort. He was a large and strong man. He had a daughter named Ragnhild, who was very beautiful, and a son named Guttorm. While Sigurd Hjort was out hunting he was attacked by the _berserk_ [A] Hake and thirty men. He fought desperately, and slew twelve of his a.s.sailants, and cut off Hake's hand, but in the end he had to bite the dust. The berserk then rode to his house and carried away Ragnhild and Guttorm, besides much valuable property. He determined to marry Ragnhild and would have done so at once, if his wound had not grown constantly more painful. At Yule-tide, when King Halfdan came to feast in Hedemark, he heard of the outrage and resolved to punish it. He sent one of his trusted warriors, named Haarek Gand, with a hundred armed men to Hake's house; they arrived in the early morning before any one was awake. They set sentinels at all the doors, then broke into the sleeping-rooms and carried off Sigurd Hjort's children and the stolen goods. Then they set fire to the house and burned it up. Hake escaped, but seeing Ragnhild drive gayly away over the ice with King Halfdan's men, he threw himself upon his sword and perished. Halfdan the Swarthy became enamored of Ragnhild, as soon as he saw her, and made her his wife.

[Footnote A: Berserks or berserkir were champions of extraordinary strength, who in battle were possessed with a sanguinary fury which made them irresistible. Many of them were reputed to be were-wolves, and to be invulnerable.]

While Queen Ragnhild was with child she dreamed marvellous dreams. Once she seemed to be standing in the garden, trying to take a thorn out of her chemise, but the thorn grew in her hand until it was like a long spindle--the one end of which struck root in the earth, while the other shot up into the air. Presently it looked like a big tree, and it grew bigger and bigger and taller and taller, until she stood in its shade and her eye could scarcely reach to the top of it. The lower part of the tree was red as blood; further up the trunk was green and fair, and the branches were radiantly white like snow. They were, however, of very unequal size, and it seemed to her that they spread out over the whole kingdom of Norway.

King Halfdan was much puzzled at hearing this dream, and perhaps a little jealous too. Why was it that his wife had such remarkable dreams, while he had none? He consulted a wise man as to the cause of this, and was by him advised to sleep in a pig-sty; then he would be sure to have remarkable dreams. The king did as he had been told, and dreamed that his hair was growing very long and beautiful. It fell in bright locks about his head and shoulders, but the locks were of unequal length and color; some seemed like little curly knots just sprouting from his scalp, while others hung down over his back, even unto the waist. But one lock there was that was brighter and more beautiful than all the rest.

The king related this dream to his sage friend, who interpreted it to mean that a mighty race of kings should spring from him, and that his descendants, though some of them should attain to great glory, should be unequal in fame. But one of them should be greater and more glorious than all the rest. The longest and brightest lock, says Snorre, was supposed to indicate Olaf the Saint.

When her time came, the queen bore a son who was named Harold. He grew rapidly in stature as in intelligence, and was much liked by all men. He was fond of manly sports and won admiration by his strength and his beauty. His mother loved him much, while his father often looked upon him with disfavor. Of his childhood many tales are told which cannot lay claim to credibility. Thus, it is said, that once, while King Halfdan was celebrating Yule-tide on Hadeland, all the dishes and the ale suddenly disappeared from the table. The guests went home, and the king, full of wrath, remained sitting. In order to find out who had dared thus to trifle with his dignity, he seized a Finn, who was a sorcerer, and tormented him. The Finn appealed to Harold, who, contrary to his father's command, rescued him and followed him to the mountains. After a while, they came to a place where a chieftain was having a grand feast with his men. There they remained until spring, and when Harold was about to take his leave, his host said to him: "Your father took it much to heart that I took some meat and beer away from him last winter; but for what you did to me I will reward you with glad tidings. Your father is now dead, and you will go home and inherit his kingdom. But some day you will be king of all Norway."

[Ill.u.s.tration: BUCKLE WITH BYZANTINE ORNAMENTATION, FOUND AT HOEN IN EKER.]

When Harold returned home, he found that the chieftain had spoken the truth. His father had been drowned while driving across the ice on the Randsfjord (860). He was mourned by all his people; for there had been good crops during his reign, and he had been a wise ruler and much beloved. When it was rumored that he was to be buried in Ringerike, the men of Hadeland and of Raumarike came and demanded that the corpse be given to them for burial. For they believed that the favor of the G.o.ds would rest upon the district where the king's barrow was. At last they agreed to divide the body into four parts. The men of Ringerike kept the trunk; the head was buried at Skiringssal in Vestfold; and the rest was divided between Hadeland and Hedemark. For a long time, sacrifices were made upon these barrows, and King Halfdan was worshipped as a G.o.d.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER V.

HAROLD THE FAIRHAIRED (860-930).

Harold was only ten years old when his father died, and the kings whom Halfdan had conquered thought that the chance was now favorable for recovering what they had lost. But Harold's guardian Guttorm, his mother's brother, conducted the government with power and ability, and a.s.sisted his nephew in his efforts to put down his enemies. A long series of battles was fought in which Harold was usually victorious. It was but natural that the young king, flushed with success, should resolve to extend his domain. He knew that there was no king in Norway whose power and resources were equal to his own, and the determination to conquer the whole country may therefore have naturally ripened in his mind. Snorre, however, tells a different story, and as it is a very pretty one, it may be worth repeating.

There was a maid named Gyda, the daughter of King Erik of Hordaland; she was being fostered by a rich yeoman in Valders. When Harold heard of her beauty, he sent his men to her and asked her to become his mistress. The maid's eyes flashed with anger while she listened to this message, and throwing her head back proudly she answered: "Tell your master that I will not sacrifice my maidenly honor for a king who has only a few counties to rule over. Strange it seems to me that there is no king here who can conquer all Norway, as King Erik has conquered Sweden and King Gorm Denmark."[A]

[Footnote A: King Gorm had not at that time conquered Denmark.]

The messengers, amazed at her insolence, warned her to give a more conciliatory answer. King Harold was surely good enough for her, they thought; but she would not listen to them. When, at last, they took their leave, she followed them out and said:

"Give this message from me to King Harold. I will promise to become his wedded wife, on this condition, that he shall for my sake conquer all Norway, and rule over it as freely as King Erik rules over Sweden and King Gorm over Denmark. For only then can he be called the king of a people."[B]