Historic Tales: The Romance of Reality. Vol. 09 (of 15), Scandinavian
by Charles Morris · English · Gutenberg #20549 · 524,637 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Historic Tales: The Romance of Reality. Vol. 09 (of 15), Scandinavian
Author: Charles Morris
Release date: February 9, 2007 [eBook #20549]
Most recently updated: January 1, 2021
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/20549
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORIC TALES: THE ROMANCE OF REALITY. VOL. 09 (OF 15), SCANDINAVIAN ***
Produced by Chris Curnow and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
Transcriber's note: Ten minor typographical errors have been
corrected in this text version.
Édition d'Élite
Historical Tales
The Romance of Reality
By
CHARLES MORRIS
_Author of "Half-Hours with the Best American Authors," "Tales from the
Dramatists," etc._
IN FIFTEEN VOLUMES
Volume IX
Scandinavian
J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
PHILADELPHIA AND LONDON
Copyright, 1908, by J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY.
[Illustration: From Stereograph Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N.Y.
OLD BRIDGE AT OEREBRO.]
_CONTENTS_
PAGE
HOW KING ROLF WON HIS BRIDE 9
RAGNAR LODBROK AND HIS WIVES AND SONS 19
HAROLD FAIR-HAIRED FOUNDS THE KINGDOM OF NORWAY 31
GORM THE OLD, DENMARK'S FIRST KING 42
ERIK BLOOD-AXE AND EGIL THE ICELANDER 49
THE SEA-KINGS AND THEIR DARING FEATS 60
HAAKON THE GOOD AND THE SONS OF GUNHILD 69
EARL HAAKON AND THE JOMSVIKINGS 78
HOW OLAF, THE SLAVE-BOY, WON THE THRONE 89
OLAF DETHRONES ODIN AND DIES A HERO 98
OLAF THE SAINT AND HIS WORK FOR CHRIST 108
CANUTE THE GREAT, KING OF SIX NATIONS 121
MAGNUS THE GOOD AND HAROLD HARDRULER 132
SVERRE, THE COOK'S SON, AND THE BIRCHLEGS 145
THE FRIENDS AND FOES OF A BOY PRINCE 160
KING VALDEMAR I. AND BISHOP ABSOLON 169
THE FORTUNES AND MISFORTUNES OF VALDEMAR II 176
BIRGER JARL AND THE CONQUEST OF FINLAND 186
THE FIRST WAR BETWEEN SWEDEN AND RUSSIA 196
THE CRIME AND PUNISHMENT OF KING BIRGER 202
QUEEN MARGARET AND THE CALMAR UNION 211
HOW SIR TORD FOUGHT FOR CHARLES OF SWEDEN 217
STEN STURE'S GREAT VICTORY OVER THE DANES 226
HOW THE DITMARSHERS KEPT THEIR FREEDOM 236
THE BLOOD-BATH OF STOCKHOLM 241
THE ADVENTURES OF GUSTAVUS VASA 252
THE FALL OF CHRISTIAN II. THE TYRANT 271
THE WEST GOTHLAND INSURRECTION 283
THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF KING ERIK 296
GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS ON THE FIELD OF LEIPSIC 310
CHARLES X. AND THE INVASION OF DENMARK 319
CHARLES XII. THE FIREBRAND OF SWEDEN 326
THE ENGLISH INVADERS AND THE DANISH FLEET 343
A FRENCH SOLDIER BECOMES KING OF SWEDEN AND NORWAY 349
THE DISMEMBERMENT OF DENMARK 358
BREAKING THE BOND BETWEEN NORWAY AND SWEDEN 362
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
SCANDINAVIAN.
PAGE
THE OLD BRIDGE AT OEREBRO, ONE OF THE MOST
ANCIENT TOWNS OF SWEDEN. _Frontispiece._
HOUSE OF PARLIAMENT, NORWAY 35
HOME OF PEASANTS, NORWAY 50
BUSY FARMERS IN A HILLSIDE FIELD ABOVE ARE, SWEDEN 80
A NORDFJORD BRIDE AND GROOM WITH GUESTS AND
PARENTS. BRIGSDAL, NORWAY 95
NORWEGIAN PEASANTS 115
NORWEGIAN FARM BUILDINGS 135
LINKOPING FROM TANNEFORS 165
VILLAGE LIFE AND HOMES IN SWEDEN 190
MORNING GREETINGS OF NEIGHBORS, SWEDEN 210
GRIPSHOLM CASTLE, MARI 220
SKURUSUND, STOCKHOLM 230
SKANSEN RIVER 242
THE FAMOUS XVI. CENTURY CASTLE AT UPSALA, SWEDEN 256
NORWEGIAN CARRIAGE CALLED STOLKJAEM 285
ARMORY AND COSTUME HALL OF THE ROYAL MUSEUM, SWEDEN 300
STATUE OF GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS 312
THE RETURN OF CHARLES XII. OF SWEDEN 340
KRONBERG CASTLE ON THE SOUND, DENMARK 348
THE BOURSE, COPENHAGEN, DENMARK 360
_HOW KING ROLF WON HIS BRIDE._
At one time very many centuries ago, we cannot say just when, for this
was in the days of the early legends, there reigned over Upsala in Sweden
a king named Erik. He had no son and only one daughter, but this girl was
worth a dozen sons and daughters of some kings. Torborg she was named,
and there were few women so wise and beautiful and few men so strong and
valiant. She cared nothing for women's work, but was the equal of any man
of the court in riding, fighting with sword and shield, and other
athletic sports. This troubled King Erik very much, for he thought that
the princess should sit in her maiden chamber like other kings'
daughters; but she told him that when she came to succeed him on the
throne she would need to know how to defend her kingdom, and now was the
time for her to learn.
That she might become the better fitted to rule, she asked him to give
her some province to govern, and this he did, making her queen of a third
of his kingdom, and giving her an army of stout and bold warriors. Her
court was held at Ulleraker in Upland, and here she would not let any one
treat her as a woman, dressing always in men's clothing and bidding her
men to call her King Torborg. To fail in this would be at risk of their
heads. As her fame spread abroad, there were many who came to court her,
for she was at once very beautiful and the heiress of a great kingdom.
But she treated all such with laughter and contempt. It is even said that
she put out the eyes of some, and cut off the hands and feet of others,
but this we do not like to believe. At any rate, she drove away those who
troubled her too much with lance and spear. So it was plain that only a
strong and bold man could win this warlike maiden for his wife.
At that time King Götrik who ruled in Gothland, a country in southern
Sweden, had sent his younger son Rolf to be brought up at the court of
his foster-brother King Ring of Denmark. His elder son Kettil he kept at
home, but did not love him much on account of his pride and obstinacy. So
it happened that when Götrik was very old and like to die, he decided
that Rolf, who was very tall and strong, and very fit and able, should
succeed him, though he was the younger son. All agreed to this, even
Kettil, so Rolf was sent for and made king of Gothland, which he ruled
with skill and valor.
One day Rolf and Kettil, who loved each other as brothers should, were
talking together, and Kettil said that one thing was wanting to the glory
and honor of Rolf's rule, and that was a queen of noble birth and goodly
presence.
"And whom have you in mind?" asked Rolf.
"There is Torborg, the king of Upsala's daughter. If you can win her for
wife it will be the greatest marriage in the north."
To this advice Rolf would not listen. He had heard of how the shrewish
Torborg treated her suitors, and felt that wooing her would be like
taking a wild wolf by the ears. So he stayed unmarried for several years
more, though Kettil often spoke of the matter, and one day said to him
contemptuously:
"Many a man has a large body with little courage, and I fear you are such
a one; for though you stand as a man, you do not dare to speak to a
woman."
"I will show you that I am a man," said Rolf, very angry at these words.
He sent to Denmark for his foster-brother Ingiald, son of King Ring, and
when he came the two set out with sixty armed men for the court of King
Erik in Upsala.
One morning, about this time, Queen Ingerd of Upsala awoke and told King
Erik of a strange dream she had dreamed. She had seen in her sleep a
troop of wolves running from Gothland towards Sweden, a great lion and a
little bear leading them; but these, instead of being fierce and shaggy,
were smooth-haired and gentle.
"What do you think it means?" asked the king.
"I think that the lion is the ghost of a king, and that the white bear is
some king's son, the wolves being their followers. I fancy it means that
Rolf of Gothland and Ingiald of Denmark are coming hither, bent on a
mission of peace, since they appear so tame. Do you think that King Rolf
is coming to woo our daughter, Torborg?"
"Nonsense, woman; the king of so small a realm would show great assurance
to seek for wife so great a princess as our daughter."
So when Rolf and his followers came to Upsala King Erik showed his
displeasure, inviting him to his table but giving him no seat of honor at
the feast. Rolf sat silent and angry at this treatment, but when Erik
asked him why he had come, he told him courteously enough the reason of
his visit.
"I know how fond you Goths are of a joke," said Erik, with a laugh. "You
have a way of saying one thing when you mean another. But I can guess
what brings you. Gothland is little and its revenues are small and you
have many people to keep and feed. Food is now scarce in Gothland, and
you have come here that you may not suffer from hunger. It was a good
thought for you to come to Upsala for help, and you are welcome to go
about my kingdom with your men for a month; then you can return home
plump and well fed."
This jesting speech made Rolf very angry, though he said little in reply.
But when the king told Queen Ingerd that evening what he had said she was
much displeased.
"King Rolf may have a small kingdom," she said, "but he has gained fame
by his courage and ability, and is as powerful as many kings with a wider
rule. You did not well to mock him."
The next day Erik, thus admonished, begged Rolf's pardon, saying that the
ale had made him speak foolishly, and thus he became reconciled with his
guest. As for Rolf's desire to win his daughter, he would first have to
gain Torborg's consent, which would be no easy matter. The king promised
not to interfere but would do no more.
Soon after this Rolf and his men arrived at Ulleraker, reaching there
when the whole of Torborg's court were assembled in the great hall.
Fearing a hostile reception, Rolf took wary precautions. He choose twelve
of his stoutest men, with himself and Ingiald at their head, to enter the
court with drawn swords in their hands. If they were attacked, they were
to go out backward fighting, but they were bidden to conduct themselves
like men and let nothing alarm them. The others remained outside, keeping
the horses in readiness to mount.
When the party entered the hall, Rolf at their head, all there were
struck with his great size and noble aspect. No one assailed them and he
walked up the hall, on whose high seat at the front he saw what seemed a
tall and finely formed man, dressed in royal robes. Knowing that this
must be the haughty princess whose hand he had come to seek, he took off
his helmet, bowed low before her, and began to tell what brought him to
her court.
He had scarcely begun when she stopped him. She said that he must be
joking; that she knew his real errand was to get food and that this she
would give him; but he must apply for it to the chief of the kitchen,
not to her.
Rolf had not come so far to be laughed out of the court, and he sturdily
went on with what he had to say, speaking to her as a woman, and
demanding her hand in marriage. At this she changed her jesting manner,
her cheeks grew red with anger, and springing up, she seized her weapons
and called upon her men to lay hold upon and bind the fool that had dared
affront their monarch. Shouting and confusion followed and a sharp attack
was made on the intruders, but Rolf put on his helmet and bade his men to
retire, which they did in good order. He walked backward through the
whole hall, shield on arm and sword in hand, parrying and dealing blows,
so that when he left the room, though no blade had touched him, a dozen
of the courtiers lay bleeding. But being greatly overmatched, he ordered
his men to mount, and they rode away unscathed.
Back to West Gothland they went and told Kettil how poorly they had
fared.
"You have suffered a sore insult and affront at a woman's hand," said
Kettil, "and my advice is that it be speedily avenged," but Rolf replied
that he was not yet ready to act.
Torborg had not taken the trouble to ask the name of her wooer, but when
she learned who it was she knew very well that the matter had not reached
its end and that her would-be lover would return stronger than before. As
she did not want him or any man for husband she made great preparations
for an attack, gathering a large body of warriors and having a wall of
great strength and the finest workmanship built round the town. It was so
high and thick that no battering ram could shake it, while water-cisterns
were built into it to put out the fire if any one sought to burn it. From
this we may judge that the wall was of wood. This done, Torborg made
merry with her court, thinking that no lover in the wide world would now
venture to annoy her.
She did not know the kind of man she had to deal with in King Rolf. He
had fought with men and fancied he was fit to conquer a woman. The next
summer he had a battle with Asmund, son of the king of Scotland, and when
it was over they became friends and foster-brothers and went on viking
cruises together. Next spring Rolf armed and manned six ships and, taking
Kettil and Ingiald and Asmund with him, set sail for Upsala. He proposed
now to woo the warrior princess in another fashion.
Queen Ingerd about this time dreamed again, her dream being the same as
before, except that this time there were two white bears, and a hog which
was small but spiteful, its bristles pointing forward and its mouth
snarling as if ready to bite anything that came before it. And the bears
did not look as gentle as before, but seemed irritated.
She interpreted this dream to mean that Rolf was coming again to avenge
the affront he had received, and that the fierce hog must stand for
Kettil, of whose character she had been told.
When Rolf now arrived King Erik received him with honor, and again agreed
to remain his friend, no matter how stormy a courtship he might have.
From Upsala he set out for Ulleraker and sent a herald to Princess
Torborg, asking speech with her. She presented herself at the top of the
wall, surrounded by armed men. King Rolf renewed his suit, and told her
plainly that if she did not accept his proposal he had come to burn the
town and slay every man within its walls.
"You shall first serve as a goatherd in West Gothland before you get any
power over me and mine," answered Torborg haughtily.
Rolf lost no time in assailing the walls, but found them stoutly
defended. The Swedes within poured boiling water and hot pitch on their
assailants, threw down stones and beams, and hurled spears and arrows
from the wall. For fourteen days the siege continued without effect,
until the Goths, weary of their hard fighting and the mockery of the
defenders, began to complain and wanted to return home. The townspeople
derided them by showing costly goods from the ramparts and bidding them
come and take them, and ridiculed them in many other ways.
King Rolf now saw that he must take other measures. He had a cover
constructed of boards and brushwood and supported by stout beams, making
a strong roof which was set against the wall and defied all the boiling
water and missiles of the Swedes. Under its shelter a hole was dug
through the wall and soon the Goths were in the queen's citadel.
To their surprise they found it empty. Not a soul was to be seen, but in
every room they found well-cooked food and many articles of value.
"This is a fine capture," said Kettil. "Let us enjoy ourselves and divide
the spoil."
"Not so," said Rolf. "It is a lure to draw us off. I will not rest till I
have the princess in my power."
They sought the palace through and through, but no one was there. Finally
a secret passage was discovered, leading underground, and the king
entered it, the others following. They emerged in a forest where they
found Torborg and all her men and where a sharp battle began. No warrior
could have fought more bravely than the man-like princess, and her men
stood up for her boldly, but they gradually gave way before the onset of
Rolf and his tried warriors.
Rolf now bade Kettil to take Torborg prisoner, but not to wound her,
saying that it would be shameful to use arms against a woman. Kettil
sprang forward and gave the princess a sharp blow with the flat of his
sword, reviling her at the same time with rude words. In return, Torborg
gave him so hard a blow on the ear with her battle-axe that he fell
prostrate, with his heels in the air.
"That is the way we treat our dogs when they bark too loud," she said.
Kettil sprang up, burning with anger, but at the same moment Rolf rushed
forward and grasped the warlike princess in his powerful arms, so that
she was forced to surrender.
He told her that she was his prisoner, but that he did not wish to win a
wife in the viking manner and that he would leave it to her father to
judge what should be done. Taken captive in his arms, there was nothing
else for her to do, and she went with him to Upsala, where King Erik was
delighted at Rolf's success. As for the warlike princess, she laid down
her arms at her father's feet, put on a woman's garments, and seemed glad
enough to have been won as a bride in so warlike a manner and by so
heroic a wooer.
Soon after this the marriage took place, the festivities being the
grandest the court could afford and lasting for fourteen days, after
which Rolf and his followers returned home, his new queen with him. The
sagas say, as we can well believe after so strenuous a wooing, that
afterwards King Rolf and Queen Torborg lived a long and happy life.
_RAGNAR LODBROK AND HIS WIVES AND SONS._
The old sagas, or hero tales of the north, are full of stories of
enchantment and strange marvels. We have told one of these tales in the
record of King Rolf and Princess Torborg. We have now to tell that of
Ragnar Lodbrok, a hero king of the early days, whose story is full of
magical incidents. That this king reigned and was a famous man in his
days there is no reason to doubt, but around his career gathered many
fables, as was apt to be the case with the legends of great men in those
days. To show what these tales were like we take from the sagas the
marvellous record of Ragnar and his wives.
In East Gothland in the ancient days there lived a mighty jarl, or earl,
named Herröd, who was descended from the gods. He had a daughter named
Tora, who was famed for her beauty and virtue, but proved as hard to win
for a wife as Princess Torborg had been. She dwelt in a high room which
had a wall built around it like a castle, and was called Castle Deer,
because she surpassed all other women in beauty as much as the deer
surpasses all other animals.
Her father, who was very fond of her, gave her as a toy a small and
wonderfully beautiful snake which he had received in a charmed egg in
Bjarmaland. It proved to be an unwelcome gift. The snake was at first
coiled in a little box, but soon grew until the box would not hold it,
and in time was so big that the room would not hold it. So huge did it
become in the end that it lay coiled in a ring around the outer walls,
being so long that its head and tail touched.
It got to be so vicious that no one dared come near it except the maiden
and the man who fed it, and his task was no light one, for it devoured an
ox at a single meal. The jarl was sorry enough now that he had given his
daughter such a present. It was one not easy to get rid of, dread of the
snake having spread far and wide, and though he offered his daughter with
a great dower to the man who should kill it, no one for a long time
ventured to strive for the reward. The venom which it spat out was enough
to destroy any warrior.
At length a suitor for the hand of the lovely princess was found in
Ragnar, the young son of Sigurd Ring, then one of the greatest monarchs
of the age, with all Sweden and Norway under his sway, as the sagas tell.
Ragnar, though still a boy, had gained fame as a dauntless warrior, and
was a fit man to dare the venture with the great snake, though for a long
time he seemed to pay no heed to the princess.
But meanwhile he had made for himself a strange coat. It was wrought out
of a hairy hide, which he boiled in pitch, drew through sand, and then
dried and hardened in the sun. The next summer he sailed to East
Gothland, hid his ships in a small bay, and at dawn of the next day
proceeded toward the maiden's bower, spear in hand and wearing his
strange coat.
There lay the dreaded serpent, coiled in a ring round the wall. Ragnar,
nothing daunted, struck it boldly with his spear, and before it could
move in defence struck it a second blow, pressing the spear until it
pierced through the monster's body. So fiercely did the snake struggle
that the spear broke in two, and it would have destroyed Ragnar with the
venom it poured out if he had not worn his invulnerable coat.
The noise of the struggle and the fierceness of the snake's convulsions,
which shook the whole tower, roused Tora and her maids, and she looked
from her window to see what it meant. She saw there a tall man, but could
not distinguish his features in the grey dawn. The serpent was now in its
death throes, though this she did not know, and she called out:
"Who are you, and what do you want?"
Ragnar answered in this verse:
"For the maid fair and wise
I would venture my life.
The scale-fish got its death wound
From a youth of fifteen!"
Then he went away, taking the broken handle of the spear with him. Tora
listened in surprise, for she learned from the verse that a boy of
fifteen had slain the great monster, and she marvelled at his great size
for his years, wondering if he were man or wizard. When day came she told
her father of the strange event, and the jarl drew out the broken spear
from the snake, finding it to be so heavy that few men could have lifted
it.
Who had killed the serpent and earned the reward? The jarl sent a mandate
throughout his kingdom, calling all men together, and when they came he
told them the story of the snake's death, and bade him who possessed the
handle of the spear to present it, as he would keep his word with any
one, high or low.
Ragnar and his men stood on the edge of the throng as the broken head of
the spear was passed round, no one being able to present the handle
fitting it. At length it came to Ragnar, and he drew forth the handle
from his cloak, showing that the broken ends fitted exactly. A great
feast for the victor was now given by Jarl Herröd, and when Ragnar saw
the loveliness of Tora, he was glad to ask her for his queen, while she
was equally glad to have such a hero for her spouse. A splendid bridal
followed and the victor took his beautiful bride home.
This exploit gave Ragnar great fame and he received the surname of
Lodbrok, on account of the strange coat he had worn. Ragnar and Tora
lived happily together but not to old age, for after some years she took
sick and died, leaving two sons, Erik and Agnar, who grew up to be strong
and beautiful youths. Ragnar had loved her greatly and after her death
said he would marry no other woman. Nor could he comfort himself at home
but began to wander abroad on warlike voyages, that he might drive away
his sorrow.
Leaving Ragnar Lodbrok to his travels, let us take up the strange story
of another fair maiden, who was to have much to do with his future life.
She was named Aslög and was the daughter of King Sigurd Fafnisbane, of
Germany. Soon after she was born enemies of her father killed him and her
mother and all of his race they could find. Her life was saved by Heimer,
foster-father to her mother, who to get her away from the murderers had a
large harp made with a hollow frame, in which he hid the child and all
the treasure he could find.
Then he wandered far as a travelling harper, letting the child out when
they came to solitary woods, and when she wept and moaned silencing her
by striking the strings of the harp. After long journeying he came to a
cottage in Norway called Spangerhed, where lived a beggar and his wife.
Seeing a gold bracelet under Heimer's rags, and some rich embroidery
sticking from the harp, the beggar and his wife killed him during the
night and broke open the harp. They found in it the wealth they sought,
but the discovery of the pretty little girl troubled them.
"What shall we do with this child?" he asked.
"We will bring her up as our own, and name her Kraka, after my mother,"
said his wife.
"But no one will believe that ugly old people like us can have so fair a
daughter."
"Let me manage it," said the wife. "I will put tar on her head so that
her hair will not be too long, and keep her in ragged clothes and at the
hardest work."
This they did and little Aslög grew up as a beggar's child. And as she
kept strangely silent, never speaking, all people thought her dumb.
One day, when Aslög was well grown, Ragnar Lorbrok came that way,
cruising along the Norway coast. The crew was out of bread and men were
sent ashore to bake some at a house they saw in the distance. This house
was Spangerhed, where Kraka dwelt.
She had seen the ships come up and the men land, and was ashamed to be
seen by strangers as she was, so she washed herself and combed her hair,
though she had been bidden never to do so. So long and thick had her hair
grown that it reached to the ground and covered her completely.
When the cooks came to bake their bread they were so surprised at the
beauty of the maiden that they let the loaves burn while looking at her,
and on being blamed for this carelessness on their return to the ship
said they could not help it, for they had been bewitched by the face of
the loveliest maiden they had ever gazed upon.
"She cannot be as lovely as Tora was," said Ragnar.
"There was never a lovelier woman," they declared, and Ragnar was so
struck by their story that he sent messengers ashore to learn if they
were telling the truth. If it were so, he said, if Kraka were as
beautiful as Tora, they were bidden to bring her to him neither dressed
nor undressed, neither fasting nor satisfied, neither alone nor in
company. The messengers found the maiden as fair as the cooks had said
and repeated the king's demand.
"Your king must be out of his mind, to send such a message," said the
beggar's wife; but Kraka told them that she would come as their king
wished, but not until the next morning.
The next day she came to the shore where the ship lay. She was completely
covered with her splendid hair, worn like a net around her. She had eaten
an onion before coming, and had with her the old beggar's sheep dog; so
that she had fulfilled Ragnar's three demands.
Her wit highly pleased Ragnar and he asked her to come on board, but she
would not do so until she had been promised peace and safety. When she
was taken to the cabin Ragnar looked at her in delight. He thought that
she surpassed Tora in beauty, and offered a prayer to Odin, asking for
the love of the maiden. Then he took the gold-embroidered dress which
Tora had worn and offered it to Kraka, saying in verse, in the fashion of
those times:
"Will you have Tora's robe? It suits you well. Her
white hands have played upon it. Lovely and kind was
she to me until death."
Kraka answered, also in verse:
"I dare not take the gold-embroidered robe which
adorned Tora the fair. It suits not me. Kraka am I
called in coal-black baize. I have ever herded goats on
the stones by the sea-shore."
"And now I will go home," she added. "If the king's mind does not change
he can send for me when he will."
Then she went back to the beggar's cottage and Ragnar sailed in his ship
away.
Of course every one knows without telling what came from such an
invitation. It was not long before Ragnar was back with his ship and he
found Kraka quite ready to go with him. And when they reached his home a
splendid entertainment was given, during which the marriage between
Ragnar and Kraka took place, everything being rich and brilliant and all
the great lords of the kingdom being present. It will be seen that,
though the Princess Aslög pretended to be dumb during her years of
youthful life in the beggar's cottage, she found her voice and her wits
with full effect when the time came to use them.
She was now the queen of a great kingdom, and lived for many years
happily with her husband Ragnar. And among her children were two sons who
were very different from other men. The oldest was called Iwar. He grew
up to be tall and strong, though there were no bones in his body, but
only gristle, so that he could not stand, but had to be carried
everywhere on a litter. Yet he was very wise and prudent. The second
gained the name of Ironside, and was so tough of skin that he wore no
armor in war, but fought with his bare body without being wounded. To the
people this seemed the work of magic. There were two others who were like
other men.
Since the older brothers, the sons of Tora, had long been notable as
warriors, the younger brothers, when they grew up, became eager to win
fame and fortune also, and they went abroad on warlike expeditions,
fighting many battles, winning many victories, and gaining much riches.
But Iwar, the boneless one, was not satisfied with this common fighting,
but wanted to perform some great exploit, that would give them a
reputation everywhere for courage. There was the town of Hvitaby (now
Whitby, in Yorkshire, England), which many great warriors had attacked,
their father among them, but all had been driven back by the power of
magic or necromancy. If they could take this stronghold it would give
them infinite honor, said Iwar, and to this his brothers agreed.
To Hvitaby they sailed, and leaving their younger brother Ragnwald in
charge of the ships, because they thought him too young to take part in
so hard a battle, they marched against the town. The place was ably
defended, not only by men but by two magical heifers, their charm being
that no man could stand before them or even listen to their lowing. When
these beasts were loosed and ran out towards the troops, the men were so
scared by the terrible sound of their voices that Ironside had all he
could do to keep them from a panic flight, and many of them fell
prostrate. But Iwar, who could not stand, but was carried into battle
upon shields, took his bow and sent his arrows with such skill and
strength that both the magic heifers were slain.
Then courage came back to the troops and the townsmen were filled with
terror. And in the midst of the fighting Ragnwald came up with the men
left to guard the ships. He was determined to win some of the glory of
the exploit and attacked the townsmen with fury, rushing into their ranks
until he was cut down. But in the end the townsmen were defeated and the
valiant brothers returned with great honor and spoil, after destroying
the castle. Thus it was that the sons of Kraka gained reputation as
valiant warriors.
But meanwhile Kraka herself was like to lose her queenly station, for
Ragnar visited King Osten of Upsala who had a beautiful daughter named
Ingeborg. On seeing her, his men began to say that it would be more
fitting for their king to have this lovely princess for his wife, instead
of a beggar's daughter like Kraka. Ragnar heard this evil counsel, and
was so affected by it that he became betrothed to Ingeborg. When he went
home he bade his men to say nothing about this betrothal, yet in some way
Kraka came to know of it. That night she asked Ragnar for news and he
said he had none to tell.
"If you do not care to tell me news," said Kraka, "I will tell you some.
It is not well done for a king to affiance himself to one woman when he
already has another for his wife. And, since your men chose to speak of
me as a beggar's daughter, let me tell you that I am no such thing, but a
king's daughter and of much higher birth than your new love Ingeborg."
"What fable is this you tell me?" said Ragnar. "Who, then, were your
parents?"
"My father was King Sigurd Fafnisbane and my mother was the Amazon
Brynhilda, daughter of King Budle."
"Do you ask me to believe that the daughter of these great people was
named Kraka and brought up in a peasant's hut?"
The queen now told him that her real name was Aslög and related all the
events of her early life. And as a sign that she spoke the truth, she
said that her next child, soon to be born, would be a son and would have
a snake in his eye.
It came out as she said, the boy, when born, having the strange sign of
which she had spoken, so that he was given a name that meant Sigurd
Snake-in-Eye. So rejoiced was Ragnar at this that he ceased to think of
Ingeborg and all his old love for Kraka, or Aslög as she was now called,
came back.
The remainder of the lives of Ragnar and Aslög and of their warlike sons
is full of valiant deeds and magic arts, far too long to be told here,
but which gave them a high place in the legendary lore of the north, in
which Ragnar Lodbrok is one of the chief heroes. At length Ragnar was
taken prisoner by King Ethelred of England and thrown into a pit full of
serpents, where he died. Afterwards Iwar and his brothers invaded
England, conquered that country, and avenged their father by putting
Ethelred to death by torture. Iwar took England for his kingdom and the
realms of the north were divided among his brothers, and many more were
the wars they had, until death ended the career of these heroes of
northern legend.
_HAROLD FAIR-HAIRED FOUNDS THE KINGDOM OF NORWAY._
To the far-off island of Iceland we must go for the story of the early
days of Norway. In that frosty isle, not torn by war or rent by tumult,
the people, sitting before their winter fires, had much time to think and
write, and it is to Iceland we owe the story of the gods of the north and
of the Scandinavian kings of heathen times. One of these writers, Snorri
Sturlasson by name, has left us a famous book, "The Sagas of the Kings of
Norway," in which he tells of a long line of ancient kings, who were
descended from the gods. Here are some of their names, Aun the Old,
Ingjald Ill-Ruler, Olaf the Wood-Cutter, Halfdan Whiteleg, and Halfdan
the Swarthy. There were others whom we need not name, and of these
mentioned the names must suffice, for all we know of them is legend, not
truth.
In those times there was no kingdom of Norway, but a number of petty
provinces, ruled over by warriors who are spoken of as kings, but whose
rule was not very wide. Most powerful among them was Halfdan the Swarthy,
who was only a year old in 810 when his father was killed in battle.
He lived for many years, and he and his wife Ragnhild had strange dreams.
The queen dreamed that a thorn which she took out of her clothes grew in
her hands until one end of it took root in the ground and the other shot
up into the air. It kept on growing until it was a great tree, so high
that she could barely see its top. The lower part of it was blood-red,
higher up it was bright green, and the spreading branches were white as
snow. So widely they spread that they seemed to shade the whole country
of Norway.
King Halfdan did not like it that his wife had such strange dreams and he
had none. He asked a sage why this was so, and was told that if he wanted
to have dreams as strange he must sleep in a pig-sty. A queer recipe for
dreams, one would think, but the king tried it, and dreamed that his hair
grew long and beautiful and hung in bright locks over his shoulders, some
of them down to his waist, and one, the brightest and most beautiful of
all, still farther down.
When he told the sage of this dream, the wise man said it meant that from
him was to come a mighty race of kings, one of whom should be the
greatest and most glorious of them all. This great hero, Snorri tells us,
was supposed to be Olaf the Saint, who reigned two hundred years later,
and under whom Christianity first flourished in Norway.
Soon after these dreams a son was born to the queen, who was named
Harold. A bright, handsome lad he grew to be, wise of mind and strong of
body and winning the favor of all who knew him. Many tales which we
cannot believe are told of his boyhood. Here is one of them. Once when
the king was seated at the Yuletide feast all the meats and the ale
disappeared from the table, leaving an empty board for the monarch and
his guests. There was present a Finn who was said to be a sorceror, and
him the king put to the torture, to find out who had done this thing.
Young Harold, displeased with his father's act, rescued the Finn from his
tormentors and went with him to the mountains.
On they went, miles and leagues away, until they came to a place where a
Finnish chief was holding a great feast. Harold stayed there until
spring, when he told his host that he must return to his father's halls.
Then the chief said:
"King Halfdan was very angry when I took his meat and ale from him last
winter, and now I will reward you with good tidings for what you did.
Your father is dead and his kingdom waits for you to inherit. And some
day you will rule over all Norway."
Harold found it to be as the Finn had said, and thus in 860, when he was
only ten years old, he came to the throne. He was young to be at the head
of a turbulent people and some ambitious men there were who sought to
take advantage of his youth, but his uncle guardian fought for him and
put them all down. Harold was now the greatest among the petty kings of
Norway and a wish to be ruler of the whole land grew up in his soul.
Here comes in a story which may not be all true, but is pretty enough to
tell. It is to the effect that love drove Harold to strive for the
kingdom. Old Snorri tells the story, which runs this way.
King Erik of Hördaland had a fair daughter named Gyda, the fame of whose
beauty reached Harold's ears and he sent messengers to win her for
himself. But the maid was proud and haughty and sent back word:
"Tell your master that I will not yield myself to any man who has only a
few districts for his kingdom. Is there no king in the land who can
conquer all Norway, as King Erik has conquered Sweden and King Gorm
Denmark?"
This was all the answer she had for the heralds, though they pleaded for
a better answer, saying that King Harold was surely great enough for any
maid in the land.
"This is my answer to King Harold," she said. "I will promise to become
his wife if for my sake he shall conquer all Norway and rule it as freely
as King Erik and King Gorm rule their kingdoms. Only when he has done
this can he be called the king of a people."
When the heralds returned they told the king of their ill success and
advised him to take the girl by force.
"Not so," Harold replied. "The girl has spoken well and deserves thanks
instead of injury. She has put a new thought into my mind which had not
come to me before. This I now solemnly vow and call God to witness, that
I will not cut or comb my hair until the day when I shall have made
myself king of all Norway. If I fail in this, I shall die in the
attempt."
[Illustration: HOUSE OF PARLIAMENT, NORWAY.]
Such is the legend of Gyda and the vow. What history tells us is that the
young king set out to bring all Norway under his rule and prospered in
the great enterprise. One after another, the small kings yielded to his
power, and were made earls or governors under him. They collected taxes
and administered justice in his name. All the land of the peasants was
declared to be the property of the king, and those who had been free
proprietors were now made the king's tenants and were obliged to pay
taxes if they wished to hold their lands. These changes angered many and
there were frequent rebellions against the king, but he put them all
down, and year after year came nearer the goal of his ambition. And his
hair continued to grow uncut and uncombed, and got to be such a tangled
mass that men called him Harold Lufa, or Frowsy-Head.
There was one great and proud family, the Rafnistas, who were not easily
to be won. To one of them, Kveld-Ulf, or Night-Wolf, Harold sent envoys,
asking him to enter his service, but the chief sent back word that he was
too old to change. Then he offered Bald Grim, old Night-Wolf's son, high
honors if he would become his vassal. Bald Grim replied that he would
take no honors that would give him rank over his father.
Harold grew angry at this, and was ready to use force where good words
would not prevail, but in the end the old chief agreed that his second
son Thorolf might be the king's man if he saw fit. This he agreed to do,
and as he was handsome, intelligent and courtly the king set much store
by him.
Not only with the Norway chiefs, but with the king of Sweden, Harold had
trouble. While he was busy in the south King Erik invaded the north, and
Harold had to march in haste to regain his dominions. But the greatest
danger in his career came in 872, when a number of chiefs combined
against him and gathered a great fleet, which attacked Harold's fleet in
Halfrs-Fjord. Then came the greatest and hottest fight known to that day
in Norway. Loudly the war-horns sounded and the ships were driven
fiercely to the fray, Harold's ship being in the front wherever the fight
waxed hottest. Thorolf, the son of Night-Wolf, stood in its prow,
fighting with viking fury, and beside him stood two of his brothers,
matching him blow with blow.
Yet the opposing chiefs and their men were stout fighters and the contest
long seemed doubtful, many brave and able men falling on both sides.
Arrows hissed in swift flight through the air, spears hurtled after them,
stones were hurled by strong hands, and those who came hand to hand
fought like giants. At length Harold's berserkers--men who fought without
armor, replacing it with fury of onslaught--rushed forward and boarded
the hostile ships, cutting down all who opposed them. Blood ran like
water and the chieftains and their men fell or fled before this wild
assault. The day was won for Harold, and with it the kingdom, for after
that fatal fray none dared to stand up before him.
His vow accomplished, all Norway now his, Harold at last consented to the
cutting of his hair, this being done by Ragnvald, the earl of Möre. The
tangled strands being cut and the hair deftly combed, those who saw it
marvelled at its beauty, and from that day the king was known as Harold
the Fair-Haired. As for Gyda, the maid, the great task she set having
been accomplished, she gave her hand to Harold, a splendid marriage
completing the love romance of their lives.
This romance, however, is somewhat spoiled by the fact that Harold
already had a wife, Aasa, the daughter of Earl Haakon, and that he
afterwards married other wives. He had his faults and weaknesses, one of
these being that he was not faithful to women and he was jealous of men
who were growing in greatness. One of the men whom he began to fear or
hate was Thorolf, who had aided him so mightily in battle and long stood
highest in his favor.
Thorolf married a rich wife and grew very wealthy, living like a prince,
and becoming profuse in his hospitality. He was gracious and liberal and
won hosts of friends, while he aided the king greatly in collecting taxes
from the Finns, who were not very willing to part with their money.
Despite this service Harold grew to distrust Thorolf, or to hate him for
other reasons, and the time came when this feeling led to a tragedy.
Thorolf had been made bailiff of Haalogaland, and when Harold came to
this province his bailiff entertained him with a splendid feast, to which
eight hundred guests were invited, three hundred of them being the king's
attendants.
Yet, through all the hilarity of the feast, Harold sat dark and brooding,
much to his host's surprise. He unbent a little at the end and seemed
well pleased when Thorolf presented him with a large dragon ship, fully
equipped. Yet not long afterwards he took from him his office of bailiff,
and soon showed himself his deadly foe, slandering him as a pretext for
attacking him on his estate.
The assailants set fire to Thorolf's house and met him with a shower of
spears when he broke out from the burning mansion. Seeing the king among
them Thorolf rushed furiously towards him, cut down his banner-bearer
with a sword blow, and was almost within touch of the king when he fell
from his many wounds, crying: "By three steps only I failed."
It is said that Harold himself gave the death blow, yet he looked sadly
on the warrior as he lay dead at his feet, saying, as he saw a man
bandaging a slight wound: "That wound Thorolf did not give. Differently
did weapons bite in his hand. It is a pity that such men must die."
This would indicate that King Harold had other reasons than appears from
the narrative for the slaughter of his former friend. It must be borne
in mind that he was engaged in founding a state, and had many disorderly
and turbulent elements with which to deal, and that before he had ended
his work he was forced to banish from the kingdom many of those who stood
in his way. We do not know what secret peril to his plans led him to
remove Thorolf from his path.
However that be, the killing of the chief sent his father to his bed sick
with grief, and he grew content only when he heard that the king's hand
had slain him and that he had fallen on his face at his slayer's feet.
For when a dying man fell thus it was a sign that he would be avenged.
But the old man was far too weak to attack Harold openly, and was not
willing to dwell in the same kingdom with him; so he, with his son Bald
Grim and all his family and wealth, took ship and set sail for Iceland.
But long he lingered on Norway's coast, hoping for revenge on some of
Harold's blood, and chance threw in his way a ship containing two cousins
of the king. This he attacked, killed the king's cousins, and captured
the ship. Then Bald Grim, full of exultation, sang a song of triumph on
the ship's prow, beginning with:
"Now is the Hersir's vengeance
On the king fulfilled;
Wolf and eagle tread on
Yngling's children."
There were other chieftains who sought refuge abroad from Harold's rule,
men who were bitterly opposed to the new government he founded, with its
system of taxation and its strict laws. They could not see why the old
system of robbing and plundering within Norway's confines should be
interfered with or their other ancient privileges curtailed, and several
thousand sailed away to found new homes in the Orkneys, the Hebrides, and
Iceland.
One of the chief of these, Rolf, or Rollo, son of the king's friend,
Ragnvald of Möre, defied Harold's laws and was declared an outlaw. His
high birth made the king more determined to punish him, as an example to
others, and no influence could win forgiveness for Rolf the Walker, as
men called him, saying that he was so tall and heavy that no horse could
carry him.
We must follow the outlaw in his journey, for it was one destined to lead
to great events. Setting sail with a fleet and a large number of
followers, he made his way to the coast of France, and fixed himself
there, plundering the people for several years. Charles the Simple, king
of France, finding that he could not drive the bold Norseman off, at
length gave him a large province on condition that he would become a
Christian, and hold his land as a vassal of the king. The province was
given the name of Normandy, and from Rollo descended that sturdy race of
kings one of whom conquered England in the following century. Thus the
exile of Rollo led to events of world-wide importance.
When the proud Norseman was asked to kiss King Charles's foot in token of
fealty to him, he answered: "I will never bend my knee before any man,
nor will I kiss any man's foot."
He could hardly be persuaded to let one of his men kiss the king's foot
as a proxy for him. The man chosen strode sturdily forward, seized the
foot of the king, who was on horseback, and lifted it to his lips so
roughly that the poor king turned a somersault from his horse. The
Norsemen laughed in derision while the king's followers stood by grim and
silent.
But despite his unruliness at home, Rollo, when he got a kingdom of his
own, ruled it with all the sternness of King Harold, hanging all robbers
that fell into his hands, and making his kingdom so secure that the
peasants could leave their tools in the fields at night without fear of
loss. Five generations after him came to the throne William the
Conqueror, who won himself the kingdom of England.
To go back to Harold, the builder of the kingdom of Norway, we shall only
say in conclusion that he built his rule on sure foundations and kept a
court of high splendor, and died without a rebel in his realm in 933,
seventy-three years after he succeeded his father as ruler of a
province.
_GORM THE OLD, DENMARK'S FIRST KING._
In ancient times Denmark was not a kingdom, but a multitude of small
provinces ruled over by warlike chiefs who called themselves kings. It
was not until the ninth century that these little king-ships were
combined into one kingdom, this being done by a famous chieftain, known
by the Danes as Gorm den Gamle, or Gorm the Old. A great warrior he was,
a viking of the vikings, and southern Europe felt his heavy hand. A
famous story of barbarian life is that of Gorm, which well deserves to be
told.
He was the son of a fierce pagan of Norway, Hardegon, who was of royal
blood, being a grandson of the half-fabulous Ragnar Lodbrok. A prince
with only his sword for kingdom, Hardegon looked around for a piece of
land to be won by fighting, and fixed upon Lejre, in the fruitful Danish
island of Sjölland, which was just then in a very inviting state for the
soldier of fortune. Some time before it had fallen into the hands of a
Swedish fortune-seeker named Olaf, who left it to his two sons. These in
turn had just been driven out by Siegric, the rightful king, when
Hardegon descended upon it and seized it for himself. Dying, he left it
to his son Gorm.
It was a small kingdom that Gorm had fallen heir to. A lord's estate we
would call it to-day. But while small in size, it stood high in rank, for
it was here that the great sacrifices to Odin, the chief Scandinavian
deity, were held, and it was looked upon as one of the most sacred of
spots. Hither at Yuletide came the devotees of Odin from all quarters to
worship at his shrine, and offer gifts of gold and silver, precious
stones and costly robes, to the twelve high priests of whom the king of
Lejre was the chief. And every worshipper, whether rich or poor, was
expected to bring a horse, a dog, or a cock, these animals being sacred
to Odin and sacrificed in large numbers annually at his shrine. In the
special nine-year services, people came in great numbers, and it is
probable that on these occasions human sacrifices were made, captives
taken in war or piratical excursions being saved for this purpose.
As one may see, the king of Lejre had excellent opportunity to acquire
wealth, and young Gorm, being brave, clever, and ambitious, used his
riches to increase his landed possessions. At least, the Danish
historians tell us that he began by buying one bit of land, getting
another by barter, seizing on one district, having another given him, and
so on. But all this is guess-work, and all we actually know is that Gorm,
the son of a poor though nobly-born sea-rover, before his death gained
control of all Denmark, then much larger than the Denmark of to-day, and
changed the small state with which he began into a powerful kingdom,
bringing all the small kings under his sway.
The ambitious chief did not content himself with this. Long before his
kingdom was rounded and complete he had become known as one of the most
daring and successful of the viking adventurers who in those days made
all Europe their prey.
Early in his reign he made a plundering cruise along the shores of the
Baltic and joined in a piratical invasion of Russia, penetrating far
inward and pillaging as he went. We hear of him again in 882 as one of
the chiefs of a daring band which made a conquering raid into Germany,
intrenched itself on the river Maas, sallied forth on plundering
excursions whose track was marked by ruined fields and burnt homesteads,
villages and towns, and even assailed and took Aix-la-Chapelle, one of
the chief cities of the empire of Charlemagne and the seat of his tomb.
The reckless freebooters stalled their horses in the beautiful chapel in
which the great emperor lay buried and stripped from his tomb its gilded
and silvered railings and everything of value which the monks had not
hidden.
The whole surrounding country was similarly ravaged and desolated by the
ruthless heathens, monasteries were burned, monks were killed or
captured, and the emperor, Charles the Fat, was boldly defied. When
Charles brought against the plunderers an army large enough to devour
them, he was afraid to strike a blow against them, and preferred to buy
them off with a ransom of two thousand pounds of gold and silver, all he
got in return being their promise to be baptized.
Finding that they had a timid foe to deal with, the rapacious Norsemen
asked for more, and when they finally took to their ships two hundred
transports were needed to carry away their plunder. The cowardly Charles,
indeed, was so wrought upon by fear of the pagan Danes that he even
passed the incredible law that any one who killed a Norseman should have
his eyes put out and in some cases should lose his life.
All this was sure to invite new invasions. A wave of joy passed through
the north when the news spread of the poltroonery of the emperor and the
vast spoil awaiting the daring hand. Back they came, demanding and
receiving new ransom, and in 885 there began a great siege of Paris by
forty thousand Danes.
King Gorm was one of the chiefs who took part in this, and when Henry of
Neustria, whom the emperor had sent with an army against them, was routed
and driven back, it was Gorm who pursued the fugitives into the town of
Soissons, where many captives and a great booty were taken.
The dastard emperor again bought them off with money and freedom to
ravage Burgundy, Paris being finally rescued by Count Eudes. In 891 they
were so thoroughly beaten by King Arnulf, of Germany, that their great
leaders fell on the field and only a remnant of the Norsemen escaped
alive, the waters of the river Dyle running red with the blood of slain
thousands.
Gorm was one of the chiefs who took part in this disastrous battle of
Louvaine and was one of the fortunate few who lived to return to their
native land. Apparently it was not the last of his expeditions, his wife,
Queen Thyra, taking care of the kingdom in his many long absences.
Thyra needed ability and resolution to fitly perform this duty, for those
were restless and turbulent times, and the Germans made many incursions
into Sleswick and Jutland and turned the borderlands on the Eyder into a
desert. This grew so hard to bear that the wise queen devised a plan to
prevent it. Gathering a great body of workmen from all parts of Denmark,
she set them to building a wall of defense from forty-five to
seventy-five feet high and eight miles long, crossing from water to water
on the east and west. This great wall, since known as the Dannevirke,
took three years to build. There were strong watch-towers at intervals
and only one gate, and this was well protected by a wide and deep ditch,
crossed by a bridge that could readily be removed.
For ages afterwards the Danes were grateful to Queen Thyra for this
splendid wall of defense and sang her praises in their national hymns,
while they told wonderful tales of her cleverness in ruling the land
while her husband was far away. Fragments of Thyra's rampart still remain
and its remains formed the groundwork of all the later border bulwarks of
Denmark.
Queen Thyra, while a worshipper of the northern gods, showed much favor
to the Christians and caused some of her children to be signed with the
cross. But King Gorm was a fierce pagan and treated his Christian
subjects so cruelly that he gained the name of the "Church's worm," being
regarded as one who was constantly gnawing at the supports of the Church.
Henry I. the Fowler, the great German emperor of that age, angry at this
treatment of the Christians, sent word to Gorm that it must cease, and
when he found that no heed was paid to his words he marched a large army
to the Eyder, giving Gorm to understand that he must mend his ways or his
kingdom would be overrun.
Gorm evidently feared the loss of his dominion, for from that time on he
allowed the Archbishop of Bremen to preach in his dominions and to
rebuild the churches which had been destroyed, while he permitted his son
Harald, who favored the Christians, to be signed with the cross. But he
kept to the faith of his forefathers, as did his son Knud, known as
"Dan-Ast," or the "Danes'-joy."
The ancient sagas tell us that there was little love between Knud and
Harald; and that Gorm, fearing ill results from this, swore an oath that
he would put to death any one who attempted to kill his first-born son,
or who should even tell him that Knud had died.
While Harald remained at home and aided his mother, Knud was of his
father's fierce spirit and for years attended him on his viking
expeditions. On one of these he was drowned, or rather was killed while
bathing, by an arrow shot from one of his own ships. Gorm was absent at
the time, and Thyra scarcely knew how the news could be told him without
incurring the sworn penalty of death.
Finally she put herself and her attendants into deep mourning and hung
the chief hall of the palace with the ashy-grey hangings used at the
grave-feasts of Northmen of noble birth. Then, seating herself, she
awaited Gorm's return. On entering the hall he was struck by these signs
of mourning and by the silence and dejection of the queen, and broke out
in an exclamation of dismay:
"My son, Knud, is dead!"
"Thou hast said it, and not I, King Gorm," was the queen's reply. The
news of the death had thus been conveyed to him without any one incurring
the sworn penalty. Soon after that--in 936--King Gorm died, and the
throne of Denmark was left to his son Harald, a cruel and crafty man whom
many of the people believed to have caused the murder of his brother.
_ERIK BLOOD-AXE AND EGIL THE ICELANDER._
In the year 900 Harold the Fair-Haired, the famous monarch who made a
kingdom of Norway, passed a law which was to work mischief for centuries
to come. Erik, his favorite son, was named overlord of the kingdom, but
with the proviso that his other sons should bear the kingly title and
rule over provinces, while the sons of his daughters were to be made
earls. Had the wise Harold dreamed of the trouble this unwise law was to
make he would have cut off his right hand before signing it. It was to
give rise to endless rebellions and civil wars which filled the kingdom
with ruin and slaughter for many reigns and at last led to its overthrow
and long disappearance from among the separate nations of the earth.
A bold and daring prince was Erik, with the old viking blood in his
veins. When only twelve years of age his father gave him five ships, each
with a sturdy crew of Norsemen, and sent him out to ravage the southern
lands, in the manner of the sea-kings of those days. Many were the
perilous exploits of the young viking admiral and when he came back to
his father's halls and told him of his daring deeds, the old king
listened with delight. So fierce and fatal were many of his fights that
he won the name of Blood-Axe, but for this his father loved him all the
more and chose him to be his successor on the throne.
[Illustration: HOME OF PEASANTS. NORWAY.]
Before his father died Erik had shown what was in him, by attacking and
killing two of his brothers. But despite all that, when the old king was
eighty years of age he led Erik to the throne and named him as his
successor. Three years later Harold died and Norway fell under the young
sea-king's hand--a brave, handsome, stately ruler; but haughty, cruel,
and pitiless in his wrath, and with the old viking wildness in his blood.
He had married a woman whom men called a witch--cruel, treacherous,
loving money and power, and with such influence over him that she killed
all the good in his soul and spurred him on to evil deeds.
Strange stories are told of the wicked Queen Gunhild. It was said that
she had been sent to Finland to learn the arts of sorcery, in which the
Finns of those days were well versed. Here Erik met her in one of his
wanderings, and was taken captive by her bold beauty. She dwelt with two
sorcerers, both bent on marrying her, while she would have neither of
them. Prince Erik was a suitor more to her liking and she hid him in her
tent, begging him to rescue her from her troublesome lovers.
This was no easy task, for sorcerers have arts of their own, but Erik
proved equal to it, cut his way through all the difficulties in his path
and carried Gunhild away to his ships, where he made her his wife. In
her he had wed a dragon of mischief, as his people were to learn.
She was of small size but of wonderful beauty, and with sly, insinuating
ways that fitted her well to gain the mastery over strong men. But all
her arts were used for evil, and she won the hatred of the people by
speaking words of ill counsel in her husband's ears. The treachery and
violence he showed were said to be the work of Gunhild the witch, and the
nobles and people soon grew to hate Erik Blood-Axe and his cruel wife,
and often broke out in rebellion against them.
His brothers, who had been made kings of provinces, were not ready to
submit to his harsh rule, and barely was old King Harold dead before
Halfdan the Swarthy--who bore the name of his grandfather--claimed to be
monarch in Tröndelag, and Olaf, another brother, in Viken. Death came
suddenly to Halfdan--men whispered that he had been poisoned by the
queen--but his brother Sigfrid took his place and soon the flame of
rebellion rose north and south. Erik proved equal to the difficulty.
Sigfrid and Olaf were in Tunsberg, where they had met to lay plans to
join their forces, when Erik, whose spies told him of their movements,
took the town by surprise and killed them both.
Thus, so far, Erik Blood-Axe was triumphant. He had killed four of his
brothers--men said five--and every one thought that Gunhild would not be
content until all King Harold's brood except her own husband were in the
grave.
Trouble next came from a region far away, the frost-king's land of
Iceland in the northern seas, which had been settled from Norway in the
early reign of Harold the Fair-Haired, some sixty years before. Here
lived a handsome and noble man named Thorolf, who had met Erik in his
viking days. He was the son of the stern old Icelander Bald Grim, and
nephew of the noble Thorolf who had been basely slain by King Harold.
Bald Grim hated Harold and all his race, but Thorolf grew to admire Erik
for his daring and made him a present of a large and beautiful ship. Thus
Erik became his friend, and when Thorolf came to Norway the young prince
begged his father to let him dwell there in peace. When he at length went
home to Iceland he took with him an axe with a richly carved handle,
which Erik had sent as a present to his father.
Old Bald Grim was not the man to be bought over by a present. The hate he
felt for Harold he transferred to his son, and when Thorolf set sail
again for Norway his father bade him take back the axe to the king and
sang an insulting song which he bade him repeat to Erik. Thorolf did not
like his errand. He thought it best to let the blood-feud die, so he
threw the axe into the sea and when he met the king gave him his father's
thanks for the fine gift. If Thorolf had had his way the trouble would
have been at an end, but with him came Egil, his younger brother, a man
of different character.
Stern old Bald Grim seemed born again in his son Egil. A man of great
size, swarthy face, harsh of aspect, and of fierce temper, in him was the
old, tameless spirit of the Norse sea-kings, turbulent, passionate,
owning no man master, he bent his strong soul to no man's rule. Rash and
adventurous, he had a long and stormy career, while nature had endowed
him with a rich gift of song, which added to his fame. Such was the type
of men who in those days made all Europe tremble before the Norsemen's
wrath, and won dominion for the viking warriors in many lands.
Thorold when in Norway before had gained powerful friends in the great
nobles, Thore Herse and Björn the Yeoman. On this visit the brothers
became Thore's guests, and Egil and Arinbjörn, Thore's son, became warm
friends. The young Icelander's hot temper soon brewed trouble. Sickness
kept him from going with Thorolf to the house of Björn the Yeoman, whose
daughter, Aasgard, he was to marry; but he soon got well and went on a
visit to Baard, a steward of the king. As fortune decreed he met there
King Erik and Queen Gunhild.
Egil was not the man to play the courtier and his hot blood was under
little control. When Baard neglected him in favor of his royal visitor,
he broke into such a rage that the queen, to quiet him, tried one of her
underhand arts. She bade Baard to mix sleeping herbs with his beer.
Suspecting treachery from the taste of the beer Egil flung his flagon to
the floor, struck Baard dead in his fury, and, fleeing for his life, swam
to an island in the neighboring stream. When men were sent to search the
island and capture him he killed some of them, seized their boat, and
made his escape.
King Erik was furious, but Thore Herse got him to accept a money payment
for Baard's death--as was then the custom of the land--and he agreed to
let Egil dwell in Norway unharmed.
This was not to the queen's liking. She was fond of Baard and was deeply
incensed at Egil for his murderous act, and she stormed at the king for
his mildness of temper till he broke out:
"You are forever egging me on to acts of violence; but now you must hold
your peace, for I have given my kingly word and cannot break it."
Gunhild, thus repulsed, sought other means of revenge. A great feast of
sacrifice to the old heathen gods was to be held at the temple of Gaule,
and at her instigation her brother, Eyvind Skreyja, agreed to kill one of
Bald Grim's sons. Finding no opportunity for this, he killed one of
Thorolf's men, for which act Erik outlawed him.
The remainder of the story of Egil's career is largely that of a viking,
that is, a piratical rover, bent on spoil and plunder and the harrying of
sea-coast lands. With Thorolf he took to the sea and cruised about in
quest of wealth and glory, finally landing in England and fighting in a
great battle under the banner of King Athelstan. He made his mark here,
but Thorolf was slain, so Egil went back to Norway, married his brother's
widow, and sailed for his old home in Iceland, which he had not seen for
twelve years.
Iceland was too quiet a land to hold the stirring sea-king long and news
from Norway soon made him take ship again. Björn the Yeoman, his wife's
father, had died, and Queen Gunhild had given his estate to Berg-Anund,
one of her favorites. Storming with rage, he reached Norway and hotly
pleaded his claim to the estate before the assembly or _thing_ at Gula,
Erik and Gunhild being present. He failed in his purpose, the _thing_
breaking up in disorder; and Egil, probably finding Norway too hot to
hold him, went back to Iceland.
If King Erik now fancied he was rid of the turbulent Icelander he was
mistaken. Rankling with a sense of injury and borne onward by his
impetuous temper, Egil was soon in Norway again, sought the Björn estate,
surprised and killed Berg-Anund, and went so far in his daring as to kill
Ragnvald, the king's son, who was visiting Berg. Carried to extremes by
his unruly temper he raised what was called a shame-pole, or pole of
dishonor, on a cliff top, to the king and queen. On it he thrust the head
of a dead horse, crying out:
"I turn this dishonor against all the land-spirits of this land, that
they may all stray bewildered and none of them find his home until they
have driven King Erik and Queen Gunhild out of this land."
This message of defiance he cut in runes--the letters of the
Northland--into the pole, that all might read it, and then sailed back to
Iceland.
Egil had not long to wait for his curse to take effect, for Erik's reign
was soon threatened from a new source. He had not killed all his
brothers. In the old days of King Harold, when near seventy years old, he
had married a new wife, who bore him a son whom he named
Haakon,--destined in later life to reign with the popular title of Haakon
the Good. This boy, perhaps for his safety, had been sent to England and
given over to King Athelstan, who brought him up almost as his own son.
Erik had been four years on the throne when Haakon came back to Norway, a
handsome, noble youth, kind of heart and gentle in disposition, and on
all sides hailed with joy, for Erik and his evil-minded wife had not won
the love of the people. Great nobles and many of the people gathered
around Haakon, men saying that he was like King Harold come back again,
gentler and nobler than of old and with all his old stately beauty and
charm.
The next year he was crowned king. Erik tried to raise an army, but none
of the people were willing to fight for him, and he was forced to flee
with his wife and children. Only a few of his old friends went with him,
but among them was Arinbjörn, Egil's former friend.
Sudden had been King Erik's fall. Lately lord of a kingdom, he had now
not a foot of land he could call his own, and he sailed about as a
sea-robber, landing and plundering in Scotland and England. At length,
to rid himself of this stinging hornet of the seas, King Athelstan made
him lord of a province in Northumberland, with the promise that he would
fight for it against other vikings like himself. He was also required to
be baptized and become a Christian.
Meanwhile Egil dwelt in Iceland, but in bitter discontent. He roamed
about the strand, looking for sails at sea and seeming to care little for
his wife and children. Men said that Gunhild had bewitched him, but more
likely it was his own unquiet spirit. At any rate the time came when he
could bear a quiet life no longer and he took ship and sailed away to the
south.
Misfortune now went with him. A storm drove his ship ashore on the
English coast at the mouth of the Humber, the ship being lost but he and
his thirty men reaching shore. Inquiring in whose land he was, people
told him that Erik Blood-Axe ruled that region.
Egil's case was a desperate one. He was in the domain of his deadly foe,
with little hope of escape. With his usual impetuous spirit, he made no
attempt to flee, but rode boldly into York, where he found his old friend
Arinbjörn. With him he went straight to Erik, like the reckless fellow he
was.
"What do you expect from me?" asked Erik. "You deserve nothing but death
at my hands."
"Death let it be, then," said the bold viking, in his reckless manner.
Gunhild on seeing him was eager for his blood. She had hated him so long
that she hotly demanded that he should be killed on the spot. Erik, less
bloodthirsty, gave him his life for one night more, and Arinbjörn begged
him to spend the night in composing a song in Erik's honor, hoping that
in this way he might win his life.
Egil promised to do so and his friend brought him food and drink, bidding
him do his best. Anxious to know how he was progressing Arinbjörn visited
him in the night.
"How goes the song?" he asked.
"Not a line of it is ready," answered Egil. "A swallow has been sitting
in the window all the night, screaming and disturbing me, and do what I
would I could not drive it away."
At that Arinbjörn darted into the hall, where he saw in the dim light a
woman running hastily away. Going back he found that the swallow had
flown. He was sure now that Queen Gunhild had changed herself into a
swallow by sorcery, and for the remainder of the night he kept watch
outside that the bird should not return. When morning broke he found that
Egil had finished his song.
Determined to save his friend's life if he could, he armed himself and
his men and went with Egil to the palace of the king, where he asked Erik
for Egil's life as a reward for his devotion to him when others had
deserted him.
Erik made no reply, and then Arinbjörn cried out:
"This I will say. Egil shall not die while I or one of my men remain
alive."
"Egil has well deserved death," replied Erik, "but I cannot buy his death
at that price."
As he stopped speaking Egil began to sing, chanting his ode in tones that
rang loudly through the hall. Famed as a poet, his death song was one of
the best he had ever composed, and it praised Erik's valor in all the
full, wild strains of the northern verse.
Erik heard the song through with unmoved face. When it was done he said:
"Your song is a noble one, and your friend's demand for your life is
nobler still. Nor can I be the dastard to kill a man who puts himself of
his own will into my hands. You shall depart unharmed. But do not think
that I or my sons forgive you, and from the moment you leave this hall
never come again under my eyes or the eyes of my sons."
Egil thus won his life by his song, which became known as the "Ransom of
the Head." Another of his songs, called "The Loss of the Son," is held to
be the most beautiful in all the literature of Iceland. He afterwards
lived long and had many more adventures, and in the end died in his bed
in Iceland when he was over ninety years of age. Erik died in battle many
years earlier, and Gunhild then went to Denmark with her sons. She was to
make more trouble for Norway before she died.
_THE SEA-KINGS AND THEIR DARING FEATS._
From the word _vik_, or bay, comes the word viking, long used to
designate the sea-rovers of the Northland, the bold Norse wanderers who
for centuries made their way to the rich lands of the south on plundering
raids. Beginning by darting out suddenly from hiding places in bays or
river mouths to attack passing craft, they in the end became daring
scourers of the seas and won for themselves kingdoms and dominions in the
settled realms of the south.
Nothing was known of them in the early days. The people of southern
Europe in the first Christian centuries hardly knew of the existence of
the race of fair-skinned and light-haired barbarians who dwelt in the
great peninsula of the north. It was not until near the year 800 B.C.
that these bold brigands learned that riches awaited those who dared
seize it on the shores of France, England, and more southern lands. Then
they came in fleets and spread terror wherever they appeared. For several
centuries the realms of civilization trembled before their very name.
"From the fury of the Northmen, Good Lord deliver us!" prayed the
priests, and the people joined fervently in the prayer.
Long before this period the sea was the favorite hunting ground of the
daring sons of the north, but the small chiefs of that period preyed upon
each other, harrying their neighbors and letting distant lands alone. But
as the power of the chiefs, and their ability to protect themselves
increased, this mode of gaining wealth and fame lost its ease and
attraction and the rovers began to rove farther afield.
Sea-kings they called themselves. On land the ruler of a province might
be called either earl or king, but the earl who went abroad with his
followers on warlike excursions was content with no less name than king,
and the chiefs who set out on plundering cruises became from the first
known as sea-kings. Pirates and freebooters we would call them to-day,
but they were held in high distinction in their native land, and some of
the most cruel of them, on their return home, became men of influence,
with all the morality and sense of honor known in those early days. Their
lives of ravage and outrage won them esteem at home and the daring and
successful sea-king ranked in fame with the noblest of the home-staying
chiefs. We have seen how King Erik began his career as a viking and ended
it in the same pursuit; how Rollo, a king's son, adopted the same
profession; and from this it may be seen that the term was one of honor
instead of disgrace.
From all the lands of the north they came, these dreaded sons of the sea,
from Norway, Sweden, and Denmark alike, fierce heathens they who cared
nought for church or priest, but liked best to rob chapels and
monasteries, for there the greatest stores of gold and silver could be
found. When the churches were plundered they often left them in flames,
as they also did the strong cities they captured and sacked. The small,
light boats with which they dared the sea in its wrath were able to go
far up the rivers, and wherever these fierce and bloodthirsty rovers
appeared wild panic spread far around. So fond were they of sword-thrust
and battle that one viking crew would often challenge another for the
pure delight of fighting. A torment and scourge they were wherever they
appeared.
The first we hear in history of the sea-kings is in the year 787, when a
small party of them landed on the English coast. In 794 came another
flock of these vultures of the sea, who robbed a church and a monastery,
plundering and killing, and being killed in their turn when a storm
wrecked their ships and threw them on shore. As a good monk writes of
them: "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."
The Norsemen had found a gold mine in the south and from this time on
they worked it with fierce hands. Few dared face them, and even in the
days of the great Charlemagne they ravaged the coast lands of France.
Once, when the great emperor was in one of his cities on the
Mediterranean coast, a fleet of the swift viking ships, known by their
square sails, entered the harbor. Soon word was brought that they had
landed and were plundering. Who they were the people knew not, some
saying that they were Jews, others Africans, and others that they were
British merchants.
"No merchants they," said the emperor. "Those ships do not bring us
goods, but fierce foes, bloody fighters from the north."
The warriors around him at once seized their weapons and hurried to the
shore, but the vikings had learned that the great emperor was in the city
and, not daring to face him, had sought their ships and spread their
sails again. Tears came to the eyes of Charlemagne as he watched them in
their outward flight. He said to those around him:
"It is not for fear that these brigands can do me any harm that I weep,
but for their daring to show themselves on this coast while I am alive.
Their coming makes me foresee and fear the harm they may do to my
descendants."
This story may be one of those legends which the monks were fond of
telling, but it serves to show how the dread Norsemen were feared. France
was one of their chief fields of ravage and slaughter. First coming in
single ships, to rob and flee, they soon began to come in fleets and grew
daring enough to attack and sack cities. Hastings, one of the most
renowned of them all, did not hesitate to attack the greatest cities of
the south.
In 841 this bold freebooter sailed up the Loire with a large fleet, took
and burned the city of Amboise, and laid siege to Tours. But here the
inhabitants, aided, it is said, by the bones of their patron saint, drove
him off. Four years later he made an attack on Paris, and as fortune
followed his flag he grew so daring that he sought to capture the city of
Rome and force the Pope to crown him emperor.
For an account of this remarkable adventure of the bold Hastings see the
article, "The Raids of the Sea-Rovers," in the German volume of
"Historical Tales." In that account are also given the chief exploits of
the vikings in France and Germany. We shall therefore confine ourselves
in the remainder of this article to their operations in other lands, and
especially in Ireland.
This country was a common field for the depredations of the Norse rovers.
For some reason not very clear to us the early vikings did not trouble
England greatly, but for many years they spread terror through the sister
isle, and in the year 838 Thorgisl, one of their boldest leaders, came
with a fleet of one hundred and twenty ships, with which he attacked and
captured the city of Dublin, and afterwards, as an old author tells us,
he conquered all Ireland, securing his conquest with stone forts
surrounded with deep moats.
But the Irish at length got rid of their conqueror by a stratagem. It was
through love that the sea-king was lost. Bewitched with the charms of
the fair daughter of Maelsechnail, one of the petty kings of the land,
he bade this chieftain to send her to him, with fifteen young maidens in
her train. He agreed to meet her on an island in Loch Erne with as many
Norsemen of high degree.
Maelsechnail obeyed, but his maidens were beardless young men, dressed
like women but armed with sharp daggers. Thorgisl and his men, taken by
surprise, were attacked and slain. The Irish chief had once before asked
Thorgisl how he should rid himself of some troublesome birds that had
invaded the island. "Destroy their nests," said the Norseman. It was wise
advice, and Maelsechnail put it in effect against the nests of the
conquerors, destroying their stone strongholds, and killing or driving
them away, with the aid of his fellow chieftains.
Thus for a time Ireland was freed. It was conquered again by Olaf the
White, who in 852 defeated some Danes who had taken Dublin, and then,
like Thorgisl, began to build castles and tax the people. Two other
viking leaders won kingdoms in Ireland, but Olaf was the most powerful of
them all, and the kingdom founded by him lasted for three hundred and
fifty years. From Dublin Olaf sailed to Scotland and England, the booty
he won filling two hundred ships.
The sea-rovers did not confine their voyages to settled lands. Bold ocean
wanderers, fearless of man on shore and tempest on the waves, they
visited all the islands of the north and dared the perils of the unknown
sea. They rounded the North Cape and made their way into the White Sea as
early as 750. The Faroe, the Orkney and the Shetland Islands were often
visited by them after 825, and in 874 they discovered Iceland, which had
been reached and settled by Irishmen or Scots about 800. The Norsemen
found here only some Irish hermits and monks, and these, disturbed in
their peaceful retreat by the turbulent newcomers, made their way back to
Ireland and left the Norsemen lords of the land. From Iceland the rovers
reached Greenland, which was settled in 986, and about the year 1000 they
discovered North America, at a place they named Vinland.
Such is, briefly told, the story of the early Norse wanderers. They had a
later tale, of which we have told part in their conquest of Ireland.
Though at first they came with a few ships, and were content to attack a
town or a monastery, they soon grew more daring and their forces larger.
A number of them would now fortify themselves on some coast elevation and
make it a centre for plundering raids into the surrounding country. At a
later date many of them ceased to pose as pirates and took the rôle of
invaders and conquerors, storming and taking cities and founding
governments in the invaded land.
Such was the work of Thorgisl and Olaf in Ireland and of Rollo in
Normandy. England was a frequent field of invasion after 833, which
continued until 851, when King Ethelwulf defeated them with great
slaughter. Fifteen years later they came again, these new invaders being
almost all Danes. During all his reign Alfred the Great fought with them,
but in spite of his efforts they gained a footing in the island, becoming
its masters in the north and east. A century later, in 1016, Canute, the
king of Denmark, completed the conquest and became king of all England.
This is not the whole story of the sea-kings, whose daring voyages and
raids made up much of the history of those centuries. One of the most
important events in viking history took place in 862, when three brother
chiefs, probably from Sweden, who had won fame in the Baltic Sea, were
invited by the Russian tribes south of Lake Ladoga to come and rule over
them. They did so, making Novgorod their capital. From this grew the
empire of Russia, which was ruled over by the descendants of Rurik, the
principal of these chiefs, until 1598.
Other vikings made their way southward through Russia and, sailing down
the Dnieper, put Constantinople in peril. Only a storm which scattered
their fleet saved the great city from capture. Three times later they
appeared before Constantinople, twice (in 904 and 945) being bought off
by the emperors with large sums of money. Later on the emperors had a
picked body-guard of Varangians, as they called the Northmen, and kept
these till the fall of the city in 1453. It was deemed a great honor in
the north to serve in this choice cohort at Myklegaard (Great City), and
those who returned from there doubtless carried many of the elements of
civilization to the Scandinavian shores.
To some of these Varangians was due the conquest of Sicily by the
Northmen. They were in the army sent from Constantinople to conquer that
island, and seeing how goodly a land it was they aided in its final
conquest, which was made by Robert Guiscard, a noble of Normandy, whose
son Roger took the title of "King of Sicily and Italy." Thus it was that
the viking voyages led within a few centuries to the founding of kingdoms
under Norse rulers in England, Ireland, Sicily, Russia, and Normandy in
France.
_HAAKON THE GOOD AND THE SONS OF GUNHILD._
We have told how King Haakon succeeded his brother, Erik Blood-Axe, on
the throne, and how, from his kindly and gentle nature, people called him
Haakon the Good. There were other sons and several grandsons of Harold
the Fair-Haired in the kingdom, but the new king treated them with
friendliness and let them rule as minor kings under him.
He dealt with the peasants also in the same kindly spirit, giving them
back their lands and relieving them of the tax which Harold had laid. But
he taxed them all in another way, dividing the country into marine
districts, each of which was required to supply the king, on his demand,
with a fully equipped warship. Yet as this was for the defence of the
country, the people did not look on it as oppressive. And as Norway had a
long mountainous coast, and important events were often long in becoming
known, he gave orders that the approach of an enemy should be made known
by signal fires lighted all along the coast.
Haakon made other wise laws, in which he took the advice of the ablest
men of the kingdom. But now we have to speak of the most striking event
in the new king's career. Norway at that time was a haunt of idolatry.
Men worshipped Odin and a host of other gods, and there was not a
Christian in the whole land except the king himself, who had been brought
up in the new faith by his foster-father, King Athelstan of England.
An earnest Christian, he looked with sorrow on the rude worship and
heathen belief of his people, but not until he had been many years on the
throne did he venture to interfere with it. Then, about 950, when he had
won the love of them all, he took steps to carry out his long-cherished
desire.
Sending to England for a bishop and a number of priests, the king issued
a decree in which the people were forbidden to make sacrifices to the old
gods and ordered to accept the Christian faith.
This came like a thunderbolt to the worshippers of the old gods. To bid a
whole nation to give up at a word the religion which they had cherished
from childhood and which their fathers had held for generations before
them was too much to demand. The king brought together a concourse of the
people and spoke to them of his wish and purpose, but they had no answer
to make except that the matter must be settled by their legal assembly.
When the _thing_, or assembly, was called into session, a great body of
the people were present, for never had so important a question been laid
before them. Earnest and imploring was the speech made by the king, in
which he warmly asked them to accept the God of the Christians and give
up their heathen idols of wood and stone.
These words were followed by an angry murmur from the multitude, and
many dark looks were bent upon the rash monarch. Then a peasant leader,
Aasbjörn of Medalhus, stepped out from the throng and spoke:
"When you, King Haakon, first called us here before you and we took you
for our king, it was with deep gladness, as if heaven had opened to us.
But was it liberty we gained, or do you wish to make thralls of us once
more, that you ask us to give up the faith of our fathers and forefathers
for the new and unknown one you offer? Sturdy men they were, and their
faith did well for them and has done well for us. We have learned to love
you well and have always kept and will always keep the laws made by you
and accepted by us. But in this thing which you now demand we cannot
follow. If you are so resolved upon it that your mind cannot be changed,
then we shall be forced to part from you and choose a new chief who will
support us in worshipping our fathers' gods. Choose, O king, what you
will do, before this assembly has dispersed."
So loud were the shouts of approval with which this speech was greeted
that not a word could be heard. Then, when quiet reigned again, Earl
Sigurd, who had spoken aside with Haakon, rose and said that the king had
no wish to lose their friendship and would yield to their wishes. This
was not enough to overcome the distrust of the peasants. They next
demanded that he should take part in the sacrifices to be given and in
the feast to follow. This he felt obliged to do, though he quieted his
conscience by making the sign of the cross.
When the next Yuletide sacrifice came Haakon was required to eat
horse-flesh at the feast and this time was forbidden to make the sign of
the cross when he drank the usual toasts to the ancient gods of Norway.
This was a humiliation that cut the proud monarch deeply and it was with
an angry soul he left, saying to his attendants that when he came back it
would be with an army to punish those who had thus insulted his faith.
Back he did not come, for new troubles were gathering around him.
To learn the source of these troubles we must return to the story of Erik
Blood-Axe and Gunhild, his wicked wife. After Erik's death that
mischief-loving woman sought Denmark with her sons, who grew up to become
brave warriors and daring viking rovers, infesting the coast of Norway
and giving its king and earls all the trouble they could. At length,
backed by Harold Bluetooth, the king of Denmark, their piratical raids
changed to open war, and they invaded Norway, hoping to win their
father's old kingdom for themselves.
A crisis came in 955. In that year the sons of Erik appeared so suddenly
with a large fleet that they took King Haakon by surprise. He had with
him only a small force, the signal fires had not been lighted, and the
enemy were close at hand before he could prepare to meet them.
"What shall we do?" he asked his men. "Shall we stay and fight, or draw
back and gather men?"
The answer came from an old peasant, Egil Woolsack:
"Often have I fought, King Haakon, with King Harold, your father. Whether
the foe was stronger or weaker the victory was always his. Never did he
ask his friends if he should run; nor need you, for we are ready to fight
and think that we have a brave chieftain for our leader."
"You speak well and wisely, Egil," said the king. "It is not my wish to
run, and with your aid I am ready to face the foe."
"Good words those!" cried Egil joyously. "It has been so long since I saw
the flash of sword that I feared I would die in my bed of old age, though
it has been my hope to fall in battle at my chieftain's back. Now will my
wish be gained."
To land came the sons of Erik, having six men to Haakon's one. Seeing how
great were the odds, old Egil tried strategy, leading ten
standard-bearers to a hidden spot in the rear of the hostile army and
leaving them there in ambush. When the armies had met and the fighting
was under way, he led these men up a sloping hill until the tops of their
standards could be seen above its summit. He had placed them far apart,
so that when the Danes saw the waving banners it looked like a long line
of new troops coming upon them. With sudden alarm and a cry of terror
they fled towards their ships.
Gamle, their leader, was quick to discover the stratagem, and called on
them to stop, that it was all a trick; but nothing could check their
panic flight, and he was swept along with them to the beach. Here a stand
was made, but Haakon rushed upon them in a furious attack in which old
Egil had his wish, for he fell in the storm of sword blows, winning the
death he craved. Victory rested on the king's banners and his foes fled
to their ships, Gamle, their leader, being drowned in the flight.
For six years after this the land lay at peace. King Haakon continued a
Christian and many of his friends joined him in the new faith. But he was
too wise and gentle to attempt again to force his belief upon his people
and the worship of the heathen gods went on. All the people, nobles and
peasants alike, loved their king dearly and he would have ended his reign
in a peaceful old age but for his foes without the kingdom. This is the
way in which the end came.
In the summer of the year 961, when Haakon had been twenty-six years on
the throne, he with many guests was at feast in the royal mansion of
Fitje, in Hördaland. While at table a sentinel brought in the alarming
news that a large fleet of ships was sailing up the fiord.
By the king's side sat Eyvnid, his nephew, who was a famous scald, or
bard. They rose and looked out on the fiord.
"What ships are they, of friends or of foes?" asked the king.
The scald replied in a verse, in which he sang that the sons of Erik were
coming again.
"Once more they take us unawares," said Haakon to his men. "They are many
and we are few. Never yet have we faced such odds. The danger lies before
you. Are you ready to meet it? I am loath to flee before any force, but I
leave it to the wise among you to decide."
Eyvnid sang another verse, to the effect that it would be ill counsel to
advise a man like King Haakon to flee from the sons of Gunhild the
sorceress.
"That is a man's song," cried the king, "and what you say is what I
wish."
All around him the warriors shouted their war-cry, and while they ran for
their weapons he put on his armor, seized his sword and shield, and
placed on his head a golden helmet that shone brightly in the sun. Never
had he looked more like a born king, with his noble and inspired
countenance and the bright hair streaming down from under his helmet.
The battle that followed was fierce and bloody. Harold, Gunhild's third
son, commanded the invaders, who far outnumbered Haakon's small force.
And now there was no Egil to defeat the foe by stratagem, but the battle
was hand to hand and face to face, with stroke of sword and thrust of
spear, the war-shout of the fighters and the death-wail of the fallen.
King Haakon that day showed himself a true and heroic warrior. As the
battle grew fiercer his spirit rose higher, and when Eyvnid the scald
greeted him with a warlike verse, he answered with another. But the
midsummer heat growing hard to bear, he flung off his armor and fought
with only his strong right arm for shield. The arrows had now been all
shot, the spears all hurled, and the ranks met hand to hand and sword to
sword, in desperate affray.
In the front rank stood the king, his golden helmet making him a shining
mark for the warriors of the foe.
"Your helmet makes you a target for the Danish spears," cried Eyvnid, and
he drew a hood over it to hide its gleam. Skreyja, Harold's uncle, who
was storming onward towards the king, now lost sight of him and cried
out:
"Where is the Norse king? Has he drawn back in fear? Is he of the golden
helmet a craven?"
"Keep on as you are coming, if you wish to meet the Norsemen's king,"
shouted Haakon, throwing down his shield and grasping his sword with both
hands, as he sprang out before them all. Skreyja bounded towards him and
struck a furious blow, but it was turned aside by a Norse warrior and at
the same instant Haakon's sword cleft the foeman's head down to the
shoulders.
This kingly stroke gave new spirit to the Norsemen and they rushed with
double fury upon the foe, whom the fall of their best warrior filled with
fear. Back to the beach they were pressed, many being slain, many
drowned, a few only, Harold among them, reaching the ships by swimming.
The Norsemen had won against fearful odds, but their king was in deadly
peril. In the pursuit he had been struck in the right arm by an arrow
with an oddly-shaped head, and do what they would, the flow of blood
could not be stopped. It was afterwards said that Gunhild the sorceress
had bewitched the arrow and sent it with orders to use it only against
King Haakon.
In those days it was easy to have men believe tales like that, but,
witchcraft or not, the blood still ran and the king grew weaker. As night
came death seemed at hand and one of his friends offered to take his body
to England, after his death, that he might be laid in Christian soil.
"Not so," said Haakon. "Heathen are my people and I have lived among them
like a heathen. See then that I am laid in the grave like a heathen."
Thus he died, and he was buried as he wished, while all men mourned his
death, even his foes; for before breathing his last he bade his men to
send a ship after the sons of Gunhild; asking them to come back and rule
the kingdom. He had no sons, he said, and his daughter could not take the
throne.
Thus death claimed the noblest of the Norsemen, at once heathen and
Christian, but in his life and deeds as in his death a great and good
man.
_EARL HAAKON AND THE JOMSVIKINGS._
Chief among the nobles of Haakon the Good, of Norway, was Earl Sigurd of
Hlade; and first among those who followed him was Earl Haakon, Sigurd's
son. After the death of Haakon the Good, the sons of Gunhild became the
masters of Norway, where they ruled like tyrants, murdering Sigurd, whom
they most feared. This made the young Earl Haakon their bitter foe.
A young man then, of twenty-five, handsome, able in mind and body, kindly
in disposition, and a daring warrior, he was just the man to contend with
the tyrant murderers. When he was born Haakon the Good had poured water
on his head and named him after himself and he was destined to live to
the level of the honor thus given him.
It is not our purpose to tell how, with the aid of the king of Denmark,
he drove the sons of Gunhild from the realm, and how, as the sagas tell,
the wicked old queen was enticed to Denmark by the king, under promise of
marriage, and by his orders was drowned in a swamp. Her powers of sorcery
did not avail her then, if this story is true.
Haakon ruled Norway as a vassal of Harald Bluetooth, king of Denmark, to
whom he agreed to pay tribute. He also consented to be baptized as a
Christian and to introduce the Christian faith into Norway. But a
heathen at heart and a Norseman in spirit, he did not intend to keep this
promise. After a meeting with the Danish king in which his baptism took
place, he sailed for his native land with his ship well laden with
priests. But the heathen in him now broke out. With bold disdain of King
Harald, he put the priests on shore, and sought to counteract the effect
of his baptism by a great feast to the old gods, praying for their favor
and their aid in the war that was sure to follow. He looked for an omen,
and it came in the shape of two ravens, which followed his ships with
loud clucking cries. These were the birds sacred to Odin and he hailed
their coming with delight. The great deity of the Norsemen seemed to
promise him favor and success.
Turning against the king to whom he had promised to act as a vassal, he
savagely ravaged the Danish coast lands. Then he landed on the shores of
Sweden, burnt his ships, and left a track of fire and blood as he marched
through that land. Even Viken, a province of Norway, was devastated by
him, on the plea of its being under a Danish ruler. Then, having done his
utmost to show defiance to Denmark and its king, he marched northward to
Drontheim, where he ruled like a king, though still styling himself Earl
Haakon.
Harald Bluetooth was not the man to be defied with impunity, and though
he was too old to take the field himself, he sought means to punish his
defiant vassal. Men were to be had ready and able to fight, if the prize
offered them was worth the risk, and men of this kind Harald knew where
to seek.
[Illustration: From stereograph, copyright by Underwood and Underwood,
N.Y. BUSY FARMERS IN A HILLSIDE FIELD, ABOVE ARE. SWEDEN.]
In the town of Jomsborg, on the island of Wollin, near the mouth of the
Oder, dwelt a daring band of piratical warriors known as the Jomsvikings,
who were famed for their indomitable courage. War was their trade, rapine
their means of livelihood, and they were sworn to obey the orders of
their chief, to aid each other to the utmost, to bear pain unflinchingly,
dare the extremity of danger, and face death like heroes. They kept all
women out of their community, lest their devotion to war might be
weakened, and stood ready to sell their swords to the highest bidder.
To this band of plunderers Harald appealed and found them ready for the
task. Their chief, Earl Sigvalde, brought together a great host of
warriors at a funeral feast to his father, and there, while ale and mead
flowed abundantly, he vowed, flagon in hand, that he would drive Earl
Haakon from the Norse realm or perish in the attempt. His viking
followers joined him in the vow. The strong liquor was in their veins and
there was no enterprise they were not ready to undertake. When their
sober senses returned with the next morning, they measured better the
weight of the enterprise; but they had sworn to it and were not the men
to retreat from a vow they had taken.
Erik, an unruly son of Earl Haakon, had fled from his father's court in
disgrace and was now in Viken, and here the rumor of the vikings' oath
reached his ears. At once, forgetting his quarrel with his father, he
hastened north with all the men he could gather to Earl Haakon's aid,
preceding the Jomsvikings, who were sailing slowly up the shores of
Norway, plundering as they went in their usual fashion. They had a fleet
of sixty ships and a force of over seven thousand well-trained warriors.
Haakon, warned by his son, met them with three times their number of
ships, though these were smaller and lighter craft. On board were about
ten thousand men. Such were the forces that met in what the sagas call
the greatest battle that had ever been fought in Norway.
Soon the embattled ships met and the conflict grew fast and furious,
hurtling weapons filling the air and men falling on all sides. Great was
the carnage and blood flowed in streams on the fighting ships. Earl
Haakon stood in the prow of his ship in the heat of the fight, arrows and
spears whirling around him in such numbers that his shirt of mail became
so torn and rent that he threw it off as useless. The high ships of the
vikings gave them an advantage which told heavily against their
antagonists, spears and arrows being poured down from their sides.
In the height of the battle Earl Haakon disappeared. As the legends tell
he went ashore with his youngest son Erling, whom he sacrificed to the
heathen gods to win their aid in the battle. Hardly had he done this deed
of blood when a dense black cloud arose and a violent hail-storm broke
over the ships, the hail-stones weighing each two ounces and beating so
fiercely in the faces of the Jomsvikings as nearly to blind them. Some
say that the Valkyries, the daughters of Odin, were seen in the prow of
the earl's ship, filling the air with their death-dealing arrows.
Despite the storm and the supernatural terrors that they conjured up, the
Jomsvikings continued to fight, though their decks were slippery with
blood and melting hail. Only one coward appeared among them, their chief
Earl Sigvalde, who suddenly turned his ship and fled. When Vagn Aakesson,
the most daring of the Jomsvikings, saw this recreant act he was frantic
with rage.
"You ill-born hound," he cried, "why do you fly and leave your men in the
lurch? Shame on you, and may shame cling to you to your death!"
A spear hurtled from his hand and pierced the man at the helm, where
Sigvalde had stood a moment before. But the ship of the dastard earl kept
on and a general panic succeeded, all the ships in the fleeing earl's
line following his standard. Only Vagn Aakesson and Bue the Big were left
to keep up the fight.
Yet they kept it up in a way to win them fame. When Earl Haakon's ship
drew up beside that of Bue, two of the viking champions, Haavard the
Hewer and Aslak Rock-skull, leaped on deck and made terrible havoc. In
the end an Icelander picked up an anvil that was used to sharpen their
spears and hurled it at Aslak, splitting his skull, while Haavard had
both legs cut off. Yet the indomitable viking fought on, standing on his
knees.
The onset of the Jomsvikings was so terrific in this last fierce fight
that the earl's men gave back, and might have been all slain had not his
son Erik boarded Bue's ship at this crisis and made an irresistible
charge. A terrible cut across the face severed Bue's nose.
"Now," he cried, "the Danish maidens will kiss me no more."
Seeing that all was at an end, he seized two chests of gold to prevent
their capture by the victors, and sprang with them into the sea,
shouting:
"Overboard all Bue's men!"
On Vagn's ship a similar fierce fight was taking place, ending only when
all but thirty of the vikings were slain.
Then a savage scene was enacted, one worthy only of those barbarous
times. The captives were taken ashore and seated on a long log, their
feet bound, their hands free. At the funeral feast in Sigvalde's hall
Vagn had boasted that he would kill Thorkill Laiva, one of Erik's chief
warriors, and this threatened man was now chosen as executioner.
At the captives he rushed, with uplifted axe, and savagely struck off
their heads, one after another. Vagn was to be left to the last, that he
might suffer from fear, but instead of this he sat joking and laughing
with his men. One of them sang and laughed so loudly that Erik asked him
if he would like to live.
"That depends on who it is that asks me."
"He who offers has the power to grant. I am Earl Erik."
"Then I gladly accept."
Another made a pun which so pleased the earl that he, too, was set free.
One of the captives had long, beautiful hair, and as Thorkill came near
him on his bloody errand he twisted his hair into a coil and asked the
executioner not to soil it with his blood. To humor him Thorkill asked
one of the bystanders to hold the coil while he struck. The man did so,
but as the axe came down the captive jerked his head aside so that the
axe fell on the wrists of the coil-holder, both his hands being cut off.
"Some of the Jomsvikings are still alive," laughed the captive.
"Who are you?" asked Erik.
"I am said to be a son of Bue."
"Do you wish to live?"
"What other choice have I?"
At Erik's command he, too, was released.
Angry at being thus robbed of his prey, Thorkill now sprang towards Vagn,
determined that at least his special enemy should fall. As he came near,
however, one of the men on the log threw himself forward in such a way
that Thorkill stumbled over him and dropped his axe. In an instant Vagn
was on his feet, seized the axe, and dealt Thorkill a deadly blow. His
boast was kept; Thorkill had fallen by his hand.
Erik saw the bold feat with such admiration that he ordered Vagn to be
freed, and the prisoners who remained alive were also set free at his
order.
While this was going on Earl Haakon sat apart conversing with his
chieftains. As they did so they heard a bow-string twang, and before a
hand could be raised a keen-pointed arrow pierced the body of Gissur the
White, one of the chiefs, and he fell over dead. The arrow had come from
the ship of Bue the Big, and thither men ran in haste. What they saw was
Haavard the Hewer, still standing on his knees, though his blood flowed
freely.
"Tell me," he cried, "did any one fall at the tree yonder?"
"Yes; Gissur the White."
"Then luck failed me, for that arrow was aimed for Earl Haakon."
And he fell over on the deck, with death at his heart-strings. The viking
had sent a herald on before, to announce his coming at Odin's court.
It was Haakon who had ordered the murder of the captives, and Erik his
son who gave life to so many of them. The time was near at hand when the
earl was to meet the bloody fate which he had dealt out to others. Though
Erik had done so much to help him in the battle, he was furious with his
son for sparing the life of Vagn Aakesson. As a result they parted in
anger, Erik going south again. Here Vagn joined him and from that day
forward the two were warm friends and comrades.
But Haakon fell into ways of vice as he grew older, and at length he did
a deed that led him to a shameful death. He had his men bring by force
to his palace the wife of a rich peasant, and sent them for another, who
was famed for her beauty. Orm, her husband, refused to let her go and
sent news of the outrage to all the peasants in the valley. From farm to
farm flew the tidings, and the peasants, furious at the shameful deeds of
the earl, seized their arms and gathered in a great band, which marched
upon him at Medalhus.
Earl Haakon was taken by surprise. He had not dreamed of a revolt and
only a few men were with him. These he dismissed and fled for safety,
only one man, his old servant Kark, going with him. Reaching the Gaul
River in his flight, he rode his horse into a deep hole and left his
cloak on the ice, so that his pursuers, finding the dead horse and the
cloak, might think he was drowned.
From there he sought the nearby home of Thora of Rimul, a faithful woman
friend, told her of the hot pursuit and begged her to hide him from his
furious enemies. The only hiding place she could provide was a deep ditch
under her pig-sty, and in this filthy hole the great earl was hidden,
with food, candles, and bedding. Then boards were laid over the ditch and
covered with earth and upon this the pigs were driven.
To Rimul the peasants soon came, filled with fury, and with them came a
man of note who had just landed and was seeking to win the throne. This
was Olaf, a great-grandson of Harold the Fair-Haired, whose claim to the
crown of Norway was far better than that of Haakon. Thinking that Thora
had hidden the fleeing earl the pursuers searched the whole place. The
fugitive not being found, Olaf stood on a large stone near the pig-sty
and called the peasants around him, loudly announcing that any man who
should find and slay Earl Haakon would be given a large reward.
His words were plainly heard in the damp and unpleasant underground den
where Haakon sat shivering. He looked at Kark, the thrall, whose face
showed that he, too, had heard the promise of reward.
"What ails you?" asked the earl. "Your face changes from pale to dark and
gloomy. Do you propose to betray me?"
"No," said Kark.
"We were born on the same night, and if one of us dies the other will
soon follow," said the earl warningly.
For a long time they sat, listening to the sounds above. At length all
grew still and they felt that the night had come. Kark fell asleep, but
the earl sat awake, watching him in deep distrust. The slumbering thrall
tossed about as if in pain and the earl wakened him, asking of what he
had dreamt.
"I dreamed that you and I were on shipboard and that I was at the helm."
"That means that you rule over both our lives. Therefore, Kark, you must
be true and faithful to me, as duty bids you. Better days will soon come
to us both and then you shall be richly rewarded."
Again the thrall fell asleep and again he seemed to dream. The earl woke
him again.
"Of what did you dream?" he asked.
"I dreamed that I was at Hlade and that Olaf Tryggvesson put a golden
ring around my neck."
"That means," said the earl, "that if you seek Olaf he will put a red
ring [a ring of blood] around your neck. Beware of him, Kark, and trust
in me. Be faithful to me and you will find in me a faithful friend."
The night dragged slowly on. The earl dared not let himself sleep, but
sat staring at Kark, who stared back at him. When morning was near at
hand weariness lay so heavily on the earl that he could no longer keep
awake. But his sleep was sorely disturbed by the terrors of that dreadful
night. He tossed about and screamed out in distress and at length rose on
his knees with the horrors of nightmare in his face.
Then Kark, who had all night been meditating treachery, killed him with a
thrust of his knife. Cutting off his head, he broke out of the dark den
and sought Olaf, with the grisly trophy in his hand.
Olaf heard his story with lowering face. It was not to traitors like this
that he had offered reward. In the end, burning with indignation at the
base deed, he ordered the thrall's head to be struck off. Thus Kark's
dream, as interpreted by Haakon, came true. The ring put by Olaf around
his neck was not one of gold, but one of blood.
_HOW OLAF, THE SLAVE-BOY, WON THE THRONE._
Many sons had Harold the Fair-Haired, and of some of them the story has
been told. One of them, Olaf by name, left a son named Tryggve, who in
turn had a son to whom he gave his father's name of Olaf. Wonderful was
the story of this Olaf in his youth and renowned was it in his age, for
he it was who drove the heathen gods from Norway and put Christ in their
place. But it is the strange and striking adventures of his earlier days
with which this tale has to deal.
Prince Tryggve had his enemies and by them was foully murdered. Then they
sought his dwelling, proposing to destroy his whole race. But Aastrid,
his wife, was warned in time, and fled from her home with Thorold, her
foster-father. She hid on a little island in the Rand fiord, and here was
born the son who was afterwards to become one of Norway's most famous
kings.
The perils of Aastrid were not yet at an end. Gunhild, the sorceress
queen, was her chief enemy, and when her spies brought her word that
Aastrid had borne a son, the wicked old woman sought to destroy the
child.
The summer through Aastrid remained on the little isle, hiding in the
weedy bushes by day and venturing abroad only at night. Everywhere
Gunhild's spies sought her, and when autumn came with its long nights,
she left the isle and journeyed with her attendants through the land,
still hiding by day and travelling only under the shades of night. In
this way she reached the estate of her father, Erik Ofrestad.
The poor mother was not left in peace here, the evil-minded sorceress
still pursuing her. A body of murderers was sent to seek for her and her
son on her father's estate, but Ofrestad heard of their mission in time
to send the fugitives away. Dressed as beggars, Aastrid and her child and
Thorolf, her foster-father, travelled on foot from the farm, stopping at
evening to beg food and shelter from a peasant named Björn. The surly
fellow drove them away, but they were given shelter farther on by a
peasant named Thorstein.
Meanwhile the murderers were hot on their track. Not finding Aastrid at
her father's house, they traced her to Björn's farm, where they were told
that a handsome but poorly dressed woman, carrying a young child, had
asked for help that evening. It chanced that a servant of Thorstein
overheard this and when he reached home he told it to his master.
Suspecting the rank and peril of his guests, Thorstein roused them from
sleep with a great show of anger and drove them out into the night. This
was done to deceive the servants, but Thorstein followed the weary
fugitives and told them the reason of his act. He had driven them out to
save them, he said, and he gave them a trusty guide who could show them
the best hiding places in the forest. They found shelter for that night
amid the tall rushes by the side of a small lake.
When the troop of murderers reached Thorstein's house he set them astray
on the wrong scent and he fed the fugitives in the forest until the
murderous gang had given up the search. In the end he aided them to make
their way to Sweden, where they took refuge with a friend of Prince
Tryggve named Haakon the Old.
Still the wicked queen did not let them rest in peace. Learning where
they were, she sent two embassies to King Erik of Sweden, demanding the
surrender of the mother and child. Each time Erik gave them permission to
capture the fugitives if they could, saying that he would not interfere.
But Haakon the Old was not the man to surrender his guests. In vain
Gunhild's ambassador came to him with promises and threats. The dispute
at length grew so hot that a half-witted servant seized a dung-fork and
rushed at the ambassador, who took to his heels, fearing to have his fine
clothes soiled. The angry thrall pursued him till he was driven off the
estate, Haakon looking on with grim mirth.
Such were the early days of little Olaf, whose life began in a series of
adventures which were the prologue to a most stirring and active life.
Few men have had a more adventurous career than he, his whole life being
one of romance, activity and peril. He became a leading hero of the saga
writers, who have left us many striking stories of his young life and
adventures.
Aastrid and her son remained with Haakon the Old until Earl Haakon came
into power in Norway. As he was not of royal blood, she feared that he
might seek to destroy all the descendants of old King Harold, and, in
doubt if her present protector was strong enough to defend her, she
decided to seek refuge in Russia, where her brother Sigurd had risen to a
place of power.
With this voyage young Olaf's later series of adventures began. The
merchant ship in which they set sail was taken by a viking pirate craft,
some of the passengers being killed and others sold as slaves. Thorolf
and his young son Thorgills, with the boy Olaf, were sold to a viking
named Klerkon, who killed Thorolf because he was too old to bring any
price as a slave, but kept the boys, whom he soon traded away in Esthonia
for a big ram. As for Aastrid, she was offered for sale at the
slave-market, and here, despite her ragged and miserable plight, she was
recognized by a rich merchant named Lodin. He offered to pay her ransom
if she would become his wife. The poor woman, not knowing what had become
of her son, was glad to accept his offer and returned with him to his
home in Norway.
To return to the story of the boy slaves, the man who had bought them for
a ram, soon sold them for a coat and cape to a man named Reas. The new
master put Thorgills to hard labor, but took a fancy to Olaf and treated
him much more kindly, the young prince remaining with him for six years
and growing up to be a handsome and sturdy youth.
Sigurd Eriksson, Aastrid's brother, and the uncle of Olaf, was a man of
prominence in Esthonia, and one day rode on business of King Vladimir
through the town in which Reas lived. Here he saw some boys playing, one
of whom attracted him by his manly and handsome face. Calling him to his
horse's side, he asked his name.
"Olaf," said the boy.
Olaf! The name was significant to Sigurd, and a few words more taught him
that the lad was his lost nephew. Seeking Reas, he offered him a good
price for his two young slaves and took them home with him, bidding Olaf
not to tell any one else who he was.
The boy was now well-grown, active, and strong for his years. Walking one
day about the town he saw before him the viking Klerkon who had killed
old Thorolf, his foster-father. He had at the moment an axe in his hand
and, with no thought but that of revenge on the murderer, he struck him a
blow that split his skull and stretched him dead on the ground.
The boy was in peril of his life for this impulsive deed. Death was its
legal penalty, and a crowd quickly gathered who demanded that the boy
murderer should be killed. His uncle heard of the act and ran in haste to
his rescue, taking him to Olga, the queen, and telling her who he was,
what he had done, and why he had done it.
The queen looked at the beautiful and bright-faced lad and took a great
fancy to him at sight. She took him under her protection, and gave him a
training in the use of arms and warlike sports, such as beseemed the
scion of a royal race. When twelve years of age King Vladimir, who
esteemed the boy highly, gave him some armed ships and sent him out to
try his hand in real war, and for some years he roved abroad as a viking.
He also served the king well by conquering for him a rebel province.
Olaf might have won high rank in Russia but for the enemies who envied
him and who made the king fear that he would yet find a rival for the
throne in the ambitious boy. Fearing trouble for her protege, Queen Olga
advised him to leave the kingdom and he sailed for the land of the Wends,
on the Baltic shores, where King Burislav received him as a distinguished
young warrior. He did not tell who he really was, but went under the name
of Ole the Russian, and as such married the daughter of the king, who
fell in love with him for his valor and beauty. Many were the valiant
deeds he did for King Burislav, with whom he stayed until the death of
his wife, he being then twenty-one years of age.
The young warrior now grew eager for new adventures, and in response to a
dream determined to go to Greece and become a Christian. His dream
served the cause of Christianity better than this, if the story is true
that he sent a missionary bishop to Russia who converted both King
Vladimir and Queen Olga to the Christian faith.
[Illustration: From stereograph, copyright by Underwood and Underwood,
N.Y. A NORDFJORD BRIDE AND GROOM WITH GUESTS AND PARENTS. BRIGSDAL.
NORWAY.]
From Greece Olaf wandered to many countries, including France, Denmark,
Scotland, and Northumberland, and his adventures were very numerous. He
was twenty-five years of age when he reached England and here he met with
an adventure of a new type. The Princess Gyda, sister of an Irish king,
was a widow, but was still young and beautiful and had so many suitors
that it was hard for her to choose between them. Among the most
importunate was a warrior named Alfvine, a great slayer of men.
So many were they and so much did they annoy the fair widow that at last
she fixed a day when she would choose a husband from among them, and
numbers of them came before her, all in their most splendid attire. It
was a championship that attracted many lookers on and among them came
Olaf with some of his companions. He was plainly dressed, and wore a fur
hood and cape. Gyda stood forth and looked over her throng of lovers with
listless eyes until at length she saw among the spectators the tall
stranger with the hood of fur. She walked up to him, lifted the hood, and
gazed long into his eyes. What she saw there riveted her fancy.
"I do not know you," she said; "but if you will have me for a wife, then
you are my choice."
Olaf must have seen as much in her eyes as she had in his, for he warmly
replied:
"I know no woman who equals you, and gladly will I accept you."
At once their betrothal was published, but Alfvine, burning with wrath,
challenged the fortunate stranger to mortal combat. Fierce and long was
the fight, but Norse blood and valor conquered and Gyda was enraptured
with the courage and skill of her spouse. They were duly wedded and Olaf
spent several years in England and Ireland, winning fame there as a
doughty champion and growing ever more earnest in the Christian faith.
In the chronicles of the time we are told much of the doings of the
doughty Olaf, who won fame as the chieftain of a viking fleet, which in
994 made many descents upon the English coast. In the end he landed in
Southampton and fixed his winter quarters there, living upon the country.
He was finally bought off by King Ethelred with £10,000, which he divided
among his men. He received confirmation in the Christian faith the same
year, King Ethelred being present, and took a solemn vow, which he never
broke, that he would never again molest England and her people.
Olaf's name was no longer concealed and the fame of his deeds reached
Norway, where they gave no small trouble of mind to Earl Haakon, who
dreaded this young adventurer of royal descent, knowing well how much the
people loved King Harold and his race. Haakon went so far as to try to
compass his death, sending his friend Thore Klakka to Dublin, where Olaf
then was, to kill him if he could, otherwise to entice him to Norway when
he would himself destroy him.
The latter Thore did, finding Olaf ready for any new adventure, and under
Thore's treacherous advice he sailed with five ships and landed in
Hördaland, where Haakon's power was the greatest, and thence sailed
northward to Tröndelag where the earl was and where he hoped to take him
by surprise.
Thore had represented that Olaf would find friends in plenty there, and
much to his own surprise found that he had told more truth than he knew;
for, as told in the last tale, the peasants were then in arms and in
pursuit of the recreant earl. They gladly accepted Olaf as their leader,
on learning who he was, and helped him in the quick and sudden downfall
and death of Haakon, as already described.
All the chiefs and peasants of the district were now summoned to meet in
assembly and with one voice they chose Olaf Tryggvesson, great-grandson
of the renowned Harold, as their king. All Norway confirmed their action
and thus easily did the adventurer prince, who had once been a slave-boy,
sold for half a fat ram, rise to the throne of Norway.
_OLAF DETHRONES ODIN AND DIES A HERO._
Earl Haakon was the last heathen king of Norway. Olaf, the new king, was
a zealous Christian and was determined to introduce the new faith. And
this was done not in the mild and gentle way in which Haakon the Good had
attempted it, but with all the fierce fury of the viking spirit. Christ
the White the Northmen called the new deity, but it was rather Christ the
Red in Olaf's hands, for, while Christian in faith, he was a son of the
old gods, Odin and Thor, in spirit.
It is not the Christianizing of Norway that we have set out to tell, but
as this is a matter of great importance some space must be given to it.
Olaf, high spirited and impetuous, did by storm what he might not have
been able to do by milder measures. He had little trouble in the south of
Norway, where the Christian faith had been making its way for years, but
in the north the old heathen spirit was strong, sacrifices to the gods
were common, and the rude and cruel barbarism which the old doctrines
favored everywhere prevailed. Here it was that Olaf had a strong fortress
of heathenism to take by storm.
In Tröndelag was the temple of Hlade, ancient and grand, the stronghold
of the Norse gods. Fierce and impulsive in his zeal, Olaf broke into this
old temple, destroyed the altar, burned the idols, and carried away the
treasure. At once the people were in arms, but the resolute king began to
build a Christian church where the temple had stood and also a
fortress-like residence for himself.
In the end the peasants grew so fierce and warlike and were so backed up
by a lusty chieftain named Ironbeard, that Olaf found himself obliged to
promise to take part with them in the feast and sacrifices of the coming
Yuletide.
But before this time arrived he appeared again at Hlade and he now
brought with him a strong fleet and numerous armed warriors. Many guests
had been invited to meet him, and these were entertained until they were
all royally drunk. Then the king said to them:
"I have promised to sacrifice with you, and am here to keep my word. I
propose to make a royal sacrifice, not of thralls and criminals, but of
lords and chieftains, for thus we can best do honor to Odin."
He then selected six of his most powerful opponents and said that he
intended to sacrifice them to Odin and Frey, that the people might have
good crops. The dismayed chiefs were instantly seized and were offered
the alternative of being sacrificed or baptized. Taken by surprise, they
were not long in deciding upon the latter, the king making them give
hostages for their good faith.
Soon after came the Yuletide and Olaf was present with a strong force at
Möre, where the sacrifices were to be made. The peasants also came in
force, all armed, with the burly Ironbeard as their leader. They were
rude and noisy and it was some time before the king could make himself
heard. Then he called on them all to accept baptism and acknowledge
Christ the White in place of their bloodthirsty gods. Ironbeard haughtily
replied that they were supporters of the old laws and that the king must
make the sacrifices as all the kings before him had done.
Olaf heard him through and said that he was there to keep his promise.
Then, with many men, he entered the temple, leaving his arms outside as
the law required. All he carried was a stout, gold-headed stick. Stopping
before the statue of the god Thor, around which were rings of gold and
iron, he raised the stick and gave the idol a blow so fierce and strong
that it tumbled in pieces from its pedestal. At the same moment his
followers struck down the other idols. The peasants, thunderstruck at the
sacrilege, looked for support to Ironbeard, but the doughty warrior lay
dead. He had shared the fate of the idols he worshipped, being struck
down at the same moment with them. What to do the peasants knew not, and
when Olaf told them they must either be baptized or fight they chose the
former as the safest. The province of Haalogaland, still farther north,
was dealt with in the same arbitrary fashion, those of the chiefs who
refused baptism being put to death with torture. And in this fierce and
bloody way the dominion of Christ the White was established in the land
of the vikings. It was but a substitute for the heathen gods that was
given them in such a fashion, and years had to pass before they would
become true Christians.
Much more might be said about King Olaf, his kindliness and winning
manners in peace, his love of show and splendor, his prowess in battle
and his wonderful skill with weapons. He could use both hands with equal
effect in fighting, could handle three spears at once, keeping one always
in the air, and when his men were rowing could run from prow to stern of
the ship on their oars. But what we have chiefly to tell is the last
adventure of the viking king and how death came to him in the heat of the
fray.
What became of his wife Gyda, the Irish princess, we are not told, but he
had now a new wife, Thyra, sister of King Sweyn Forkbeard of Denmark, and
it was to this queen he owed his death. She had large estates in Wendland
and Denmark, from which she now received no revenues, and she fretted
Olaf so by appeals, prayers, and tears to win back for her this property
that he had no peace in his palace. The annoyance went on until the
hot-tempered king could bear it no longer and he began to prepare for war
abroad that he might gain peace at home.
Word was sent out to the chiefs of the land, bidding them to join the
king with the ships required by the laws of the kingdom. Among his own
ships was one called the Short Serpent, and he had just finished another
of great size and beauty which he named the Long Serpent. Never had so
noble a ship been seen in the north. It was 112 feet long and had 104
oars, while it could carry six hundred warriors, none being over sixty or
under twenty years of age except the great bowman Thambarkskelver, who
was but eighteen, yet was so skilful with the bow that he could shoot a
blunt arrow through a hanging raw ox-hide.
With sixty ships and as many transports Olaf sailed south to Wendland,
where he was well received by his old friend King Burislav, whose
daughter Geira had been his first wife. The Wend king royally entertained
him and made a just settlement of Queen Thyra's estates, and Olaf
prepared to sail homeward again. But dark clouds of war were gathering on
his path.
Sweyn Forkbeard of Denmark was hostile both to Burislav and Olaf and the
king of Sweden was leagued with the Danish king. To detain Olaf while
they gathered their fleets, these kings employed Sigvalde, the cowardly
chief of the Jomsvikings, who had fled from the battle with Earl Haakon,
to visit and lure him into blind confidence.
The treacherous viking succeeded. His smooth, soft ways won Olaf's heart
and the open-minded king put complete trust in him. Sigvalde finally,
after bringing about much delay by his false arts, engaged to pilot Olaf
with his own fleet through the dangerous waters of the coast, and even
induced him to divide his ships by sending part of them in advance.
The traitor meanwhile kept in communication with King Sweyn and promised
to lure Olaf away from his main force and lead him into the snare they
were laying for him. Chief among the enemies of the Norse king was Earl
Erik, the son of Earl Haakon, whom he was eager to avenge, and King Olaf
the Swede, who was present with a fleet.
With sixty or seventy ships of war these foes of Norway's king lay hidden
behind the little island of Svolder, in Olaf's track. For a number of
days they awaited him with impatience. At last Olaf's transports appeared
within view of the leaders of the hostile fleet, who were posted at an
elevated point on the land.
The day was fair, the wind gentle and favorable, and the foremost ships
sailed onward, seeing nothing of the foes. When King Sweyn saw among them
a large and handsome ship he was sure it must be the Long Serpent, and
said:
"Olaf of Norway is afraid to-day, for he carries no dragon-head on his
ship."
"That is not the king's ship," said Earl Erik, "but that of Erling of
Sole. I know it by its striped sails. Let it pass, for it will be better
for us to have Erling out of the fray."
On, one by one, came the Norse ships, sweeping proudly by, and at length
Sigvalde's eleven ships came in sight. These, signalled from the shore,
suddenly turned inward round the island, to the surprise of Thorkill
Dyrdill, captain of the Crane, which followed in their wake. Seeing this
fine ship, Sweyn grew eager for the fight and ordered his men on board in
spite of Erik's warning that the time had not yet arrived.
"Are you afraid of them?" sneered the Dane. "Have you lost all desire to
avenge your father?"
"Wait and you will see," retorted Erik. "Before the sun sets you will
find who is most eager for battle, I, or you and your men."
When Thorkill saw the treacherous act of Sigvalde and caught sight of the
ambushed fleet, he let fall the sails of the Crane and awaited the coming
of the king. Soon the Short Serpent came up, its gilded dragon-head
shining brightly in the sunlight. Not long after the Long Serpent
appeared, its golden prow glittering brilliantly as the sunbeams fell
upon it. Those who saw it marvelled at its size and beauty and many
beheld with dread the glittering array of swords and shields as it came
sweeping onward.
But the great body of King Olaf's ships had gone on without thought of a
foeman and were now out of sight. Only eleven of them remained, and some
of his captains advised him not to fight against such odds.
"Down with the sails," he cried cheerily. "Bind the ships together. Never
yet have I fled from battle and I will not do so now. God is my shield
and I will flee from no foe. He is no king who lets fear put him to
flight before his enemies."
Yet his peril was deadly, as was evident when the fleet of more than
sixty ships rowed out from its ambush against Olaf's eleven.
"Who is the leader here before us?" he asked.
"That is King Sweyn with his Danes," said one of the men.
"Let them come on. Danes have never yet beaten Norsemen, and they will
not to-day. But whose standards are those on the right?"
"They are those of Olaf of Sweden."
"The heathen Swedes had better have stayed at home to lick their
sacrificial bowls. We need not fear these horse-eaters. Yonder to the
left; whose ships are those?"
"They belong to Earl Erik, the son of Earl Haakon."
"Then we may look for hard blows from them. Erik and his men are Norsemen
like ourselves, and he has reason not to love me and mine."
While he spoke Queen Thyra, who was with him, came on deck. When she saw
the desperate odds she burst into tears.
"Do not weep," said Olaf. "You have got what was due in Wendland; and
to-day I will do my best to win your rights from your brother Sweyn."
King Sweyn came first into the fray, but after a stubborn fight was
driven off with great carnage. Then the Swedes swarmed to the rescue, and
a second hard battle ensued, in which the Norsemen were outnumbered ten
to one. Yet Olaf, with shining helmet and shield and a tunic of scarlet
silk over his armor, directed the defence, and gave his men such courage
by his fierce valor that the victory would have been his but for Earl
Erik.
When Erik's great galley, the Iron Ram, came into the fight and Norse met
Norse, the onset was terrific. Greatly outnumbered, worn out with their
exertions, and many of them bleeding from wounds, the men in ship after
ship were overpowered and these cut adrift, their defenders being slain.
At length only the Long Serpent remained, and against it was driven the
Iron Ram.
There was little wind and the damage was not great, and soon the storm of
spears and arrows was resumed. Einer Thambarkskelver, the famous bowman,
saw Earl Erik in the prow of his ship screened by the shields of his men,
and soon Einer's arrows were hurtling around him.
"Shoot that tall bowman," said Erik to one of his own archers.
An arrow sped and hit Einer's bow in the middle, breaking it in twain.
"What is broke?" asked Olaf, hearing the sound.
"Norway broke then from your hands, my king," said Einer.
"Not so bad as that; take my bow and try what it is worth."
Einer caught the bow, bent it double, and threw it back.
"It is too weak," he said.
Desperate was now the strait and no escape was possible. Olaf sent his
spears hurtling on Erik's crowded deck, but he saw that his men were
scarce able to hold their own.
"Your swords bite poorly," he said. "Have your arms lost their strength?"
"No," was the reply, "but our blades are dull and notched."
The king ran forward, opened a chest, and flung out armfulls of bright,
sharp swords.
"Here is what will bite deeply," he said.
But victory was now hopeless; the earl's men swept back the tired
warriors; blood flowed from under the king's armor; all hands were bent
against him, for he loomed above his men. Kolbjörn, a man who resembled
the king, sprang to his side and helped him shrewdly in the fray.
Still the stern combat went on, still the weapons flew, still men fell
groaning, and as the king looked along his deck he saw that only eight
men kept their feet besides himself and his companion. All was lost.
Raising the shield above his head, he leaped over the ship's side.
Kolbjörn followed and was picked up by the earl's men, who took him to be
the king. As for Olaf, the hungry sea swallowed his form.
Legend tells us, indeed, that he was rescued by a ship sent to his aid by
Aastrid, Earl Sigvalde's wife, and that he made a pilgrimage to Rome and
long afterwards lived as a hermit in the Holy Land. But that is one of
the stories based on good wishes rather than sound facts.
It was in the year 1000, when King Olaf was thirty-six years old, that
this famous sea-fight took place. Queen Thyra felt that she had caused
his death and could not be consoled. Erik treated her kindly and promised
her the honors due to her high estate, but her heart was broken by her
loss, and nine days afterwards she died.
_OLAF THE SAINT AND HIS WORK FOR CHRIST._
The story of Olaf the Saint, the Norse king who comes next into our view,
illustrates the barbarous character of the heathen people with whom we
are dealing. Few warriors in those days died in their beds, death coming
to them in some more violent form. Olaf's grandfather, a son of Harold
the Fair-Haired, was killed by his brother, Erik Blood-Axe, and his
father was burned alive by a royal widow whom he sought to marry. Many
wooers came to seek her hand and she got rid of them by setting on fire
the hall in which they slept.
"I'll teach these little kings the risk of proposing to me," said this
viking widow.
A proud little fellow was Olaf, hot of temper and bearing no opposition.
He knew that he was of kingly birth, and despised his step-father Sigurd
Syr, also a descendant of King Harold, but caring more for his crops than
for the dreams of ambition. Once, when Olaf was ten years old, Sigurd
sent him to the stable to saddle and bring out his horse. When he came
out he led a big goat, on which he had placed the saddle.
"Why do you do that?" he was asked.
"Oh, the goat is good enough for him, for he is as much like a king as a
goat is like a war-horse."
The boy was only twelve when he began to take part in the cruises of the
vikings, and in these quickly showed himself brave and daring. When he
grew to a ripe age and found that the rule of Norway was divided between
two young men, successors of the Olaf whose story we have last told, he
determined to strike for the throne.
The story of how he won the throne is interesting, but must be dealt with
here very briefly, as we have rather to do with the story of how he lost
it. Olaf was fortunate at the start, for he captured a ship on which Earl
Erik, one of these boy kings, was sailing along the coast.
A beautiful youth he was, tall and shapely, with silky golden hair which
fell in long curls over his shoulders. Proud he was too, and answered his
captor's questions with manly resolution.
"Your luck has left you and you are in my power," said Olaf; "what shall
I do with you?"
"That depends on you," answered the fearless young earl.
"What will you do if I let you go unharmed?"
"What do you wish me to do?"
"Only this, that you leave your country and renounce your claim of
kingship, and that you swear never to make war on me."
To this young Erik agreed and sailed away to England to join his uncle,
Canute the Dane, who was then king of both Denmark and England.
With the other young king, Earl Sweyn, Olaf did not find his task so
easy, since Sweyn fought for his rights in a naval battle in which he had
forty-five ships and three thousand men, while Olaf had less than half
that number of men and ships. Olaf won the battle by a shrewd stratagem.
He told his men to act at first only on the defensive, holding back their
weapons until the enemy had thrown away theirs.
On came Earl Sweyn's fleet, fiercely attacking that of Olaf, a cloud of
spears and arrows filling the air. As none came back from Olaf's men,
their opponents fancied they were afraid, and rushed on them eagerly. But
by this time their spears and arrows had grown scarce, and when a storm
of these came from the opposite side they were taken by surprise and many
of them killed. Wild with fear, they now sought to escape, and in the end
their whole fleet broke and fled, leaving victory to the new king.
Sweyn fled to Sweden, whose king promised him help to regain his kingdom.
But he died before his plans were ripe and Olaf was left without a rival
except the king of Sweden, who had won a part of Norway in a former
battle and now held it. This source of trouble was settled by the Swedes
themselves, who had no fancy for fighting to help their king's ambition,
and forced him to agree to yield his claim and give his daughter Ingegerd
to Olaf for wife. So by a marriage Olaf won the remainder of his kingdom
and became ruler over all Norway; but not by marrying Ingegerd, for he
chose instead her sister Aastrid.
There is a pretty story told just here in the sagas, or historical tales
of the Icelanders. Thus it reads: Sigurd Syr, who had married Olaf's
mother Aasta, died in 1018, and Olaf came to her house to help in
settling her affairs. She had three boys, Guttorm, Halfdan, and Harold,
whom she brought into the hall to introduce to their half-brother, the
king. Olaf put the two older ones on his knees and made so fierce a face
at them that they ran away sadly scared. Then he took up little Harold
and stared at him in the same way. The brave youngster was not so easily
frightened as his brothers and stared back at the king. Then Olaf pulled
his hair, but the daring youngster pulled his beard in exchange.
"He will do," said Olaf, setting him down with a laugh.
The next day the king and his mother watched the boys at their play. The
older two amused themselves by building barns, in which they put toy cows
and sheep; but Harold launched mock boats on a pond and watched them
drift away.
"What do you call them?" asked Olaf.
"Ships of war," said the boy.
"Good lad," answered the king; "the day will come when you will command
real ships."
Calling the boys to him, he asked Guttorm, the oldest, what he most
wished for.
"Land," said the boy.
"How much?"
"Enough to sow as much grain every summer as would cover the headland
yonder."
Ten large farms covered the headland in question.
"And what do you most desire?" the king asked Halfdan.
"Enough cows to cover the shores of the headland when they went to the
water to drink."
"So; one wants land and the other cattle; and what do you want, Harold?"
"Men," said the boy.
"How many?"
"Enough to eat up in a single dinner all brother Halfdan's cows."
"Come, mother," said Olaf, laughing; "you have here a chap in training to
make himself a king."
So it proved, for in later days Harold rose to be king of Norway.
But now we have to tell from what the king gained his title of Olaf the
Saint. It came from his warm endeavors to make Norway a Christian land.
The former King Olaf had forced his people to be baptized, but the most
of them were heathens at heart still and after his death many began to
worship the old gods again. It was the second Olaf that made the
Christian secure in the land, and this still more by his death than by
his life.
When he was still an infant the former King Olaf had baptized him and
given him his own name, and the time came when his little namesake took
up and finished his work. What most troubled the kings of Norway in that
age was the power held by the tribal chiefs, who were difficult to
control and ready to rebel; and this power came from the fact that they
were not only chiefs, but were the priests of the old religion. As
priest-kings their people followed them blindly, and no king could be
sure of his crown while this system prevailed.
Olaf, who had been brought up in the new faith, set himself earnestly to
spread the true principles of Christ's teachings through the land and for
years he worked at it earnestly. But he had hard metal to deal with. It
is said that one chief, when about to be baptized, turned to the priest
and asked him where were his brave forefathers who had died without being
baptized.
"They are in hell," said the priest.
"Then hell is the place for me," answered the chief. "I would rather be
there with Odin and my hard fighting and noble fathers than in heaven
with cowardly Christians and shaven monks."
This was the spirit of the chiefs. A heaven in which there would be no
fighting and mead-drinking had no charms for them, and to live forever
with the souls of men who had never drawn sword and struck blow was too
dreary a prospect for their turbulent tastes.
But Olaf was ardent in the new faith and persistent in his endeavors,
travelling from end to end of the land in his efforts to break up the old
idolatry. Here is one of the stories told of this missionary work of the
king.
He was then in Nidaros, whose peasantry, called Trönders, were said to be
celebrating in secret the old pagan festivals and offering sacrifices to
Odin and Frey for bountiful crops. When King Olaf came among them they
took arms against him, but afterwards agreed to hold a public assembly
and deal in that way with the religious question that was troubling the
kingdom.
On the day they met it was raining hard. When the king asked them to
believe in the God of the Christians and be baptized, Dale Guldbrand,
their leader, replied:
"We know nothing of the being you speak of; a god whom neither you nor
any one else can see. Now we have a god whom you can see every day,
except a rainy day like this. If your god is so powerful, then let him
arrange that to-morrow we shall have clouds but no rain."
When they met again the next day the weather was what they had asked for,
clouds but no rain. Bishop Sigurd now celebrated mass and preached to the
people about the miracles which Christ had wrought when on earth. On the
third day it was still cloudy. The people had brought with them a great
wooden image of the god Thor, and their chief spoke as follows:
"Where is your god now, King Olaf? You do not look so bold as you did
yesterday, for our god, who rules over all things, is here now and
scaring you with his fierce eyes. You scarce dare look at him, but you
would be wiser to believe in the god that holds in his hand your
destiny."
"Your god does not frighten me," answered the king. "He is blind and
deaf and cannot move from the spot where you have set him without he is
carried. He will soon meet his fate. Look yonder to the east. There in
the flood of light comes our God."
[Illustration: NORWEGIAN PEASANTS.]
To the east all eyes were turned, and at that moment the sunlight burst
from the clouds and spread over the scene. As it did so a sturdy warrior,
at a signal from the king, sprang forwards and struck the idol so fierce
a blow with his club that it was shattered to pieces. Out from its hollow
interior sprang great rats, snakes, and lizards, which had grown fat on
the food with which the idol had been fed daily.
On seeing these loathsome things squirm from the interior of their god
the peasants fled from the spot in a panic of fear, rushing to the river
where their boats lay. But King Olaf, forecasting this, had sent men to
bore holes in the boats so that they would not float. Unable to escape,
the frightened peasants came back, quite downcast in spirit.
"You see what your god is worth," said the king. "Has he eaten the bread
and meat you fed him, or has it gone to fatten rats and snakes? As for
the gold and silver you gave him, there it lies scattered. Take up your
golden ornaments and hang them no more on worthless logs. Now I give you
your choice: you shall accept the faith I bring you, or you shall fight
for your own. He will win to whom his god gives the victory."
The peasants were not prepared to fight, and therefore were obliged to
accept baptism. Priests were sent to teach them the tenets of the new
faith they had accepted, and Dale Guldbrand signified his honesty by
building a church to the Christian deity. Other provinces were also won
over to Christ, but there was one great and bold chieftain, Erling by
name, and a sturdy heathen in his faith, who remained hostile to the king
and a war between them became inevitable.
While the king and the earl were making busy preparations to fight for
their faiths, a warrior king and conqueror stepped in to take advantage
for himself of the quarrel. This was King Canute, monarch of Denmark and
England, who was eager to add Norway and Sweden to his dominions and make
himself one of the most powerful of kings. He secretly sent presents to
the discontented Norse chiefs and took other means to win them to his
cause. It was not long before Olaf learned of these underhand doings, and
he at once made an alliance with King Anund of Sweden, whose sister he
had married, and whom he told that Canute would attack him if he should
win Norway. In his turn, Canute sent ambassadors to King Anund, with
splendid presents, hoping to win him over.
Two candlesticks of gold were placed before him by the ambassadors.
"Pretty toys those," said Anund, "but not worth enough to break me from
my good friend Olaf."
Then they brought forth a golden platter, of artistic finish and adorned
with jewels. King Anund gazed at it with covetous eyes.
"A handsome bit of work," he said; "but I will not sell King Olaf for a
dish."
Finally two magnificent rings were offered. King Anund laughed when he
saw them.
"Keen and shrewd is King Canute," he remarked. "He knows I love golden
toys, but he does not know that I love honor better. I have known King
Olaf since he was a boy; he is my friend and my sister is his queen. I
will not forsake him to please your king."
On hearing this, King Canute laid aside his plots and made a pilgrimage
to Rome. During his absence his brother-in-law, Earl Ulf, rebelled
against him and allied himself with Kings Olaf and Anund, who sent fleets
to his aid. As it proved, King Canute was not the man to be caught
napping. Back from his pilgrimage he travelled in haste and came near to
capturing both the kings. They fled with all speed, pursued by him with a
more powerful fleet, and went up a little river in southern Sweden, which
they closed by a dam against their strong foe. Canute came soon after and
found the harbor deserted and the river closed against him.
That night orders were given by the kings to break the dam and the
heaped-up water ran down in an immense flood on the Danish ships, doing
them great damage and drowning many of the people on board. But no attack
was made on the disabled fleet, for Earl Ulf now turned traitor to his
allies and joined Canute with his ships, making him too strong to
attack.
This ended the war for the time, Canute returning to England. But he had
won over many of the Norse chiefs by his bribes and the next year came
again, sailing north to Nidaros, where the assembled chiefs, whom he had
gained to his side, proclaimed him king of Norway. He appointed Earl
Haakon, grandson of the famous Earl Haakon of a former tale, regent in
his stead, and sailed away again.
In this manner Olaf lost his kingdom, for with all the powerful chiefs
sold to the great King Canute and supported by him, little hope remained.
He kept up the struggle for a short time, but was soon forced to flee to
Sweden, whence he made his way to Russia and to the court of King
Jaroslov, who was his brother-in-law, for he had married Princess
Ingegerd of Sweden, once affianced to Olaf.
Thus easily had Norway been conquered by Canute, but it was not long to
remain under Danish rule at this time. Olaf, it is true, never won the
throne again, though he made a strong effort to regain it. In Russia he
grew more and more given to religious thoughts, until he became looked
upon as a holy man. This made him open to believe in visions, and when in
a dream he saw the former King Olaf, who bade him to go back to Norway
and conquer it or die, he did not hesitate.
Word had been brought him that Earl Haakon was dead and Norway with no
immediate ruler, and against the advice of Jaroslov he set out for his
late kingdom, leaving his son Magnus at the Russian court.
In Sweden the king gave him permission to gather recruits, but now his
religious fanaticism stood in the way of his success. He would have none
but baptized men in his army, and thus rejected many brave warriors while
taking some known to be outlaws and thieves. On reaching Norway he showed
the same unwisdom. He had but four thousand men under his command, while
the army he was soon to meet numbered ten thousand. Yet Olaf rejected
five hundred of his men because they were heathens and, thus weakened,
marched to the unequal fray.
"Forward, Christ's men, king's men!" was the battle-cry of Olaf's army as
it rushed upon the foe. "Forward, peasant men!" cried the opposite army,
charging under its chiefs.
The king's men had the best of it at the opening, but the peasants held
their ground stubbornly, and as the battle went on Olaf's ranks thinned
and wavered. Finding the day going against him, he dashed forward with a
small band of devoted men. One by one they fell. The standard changed
hands again and again as its bearer was struck down. Olaf, severely
wounded, stood leaning against a rock, when he was cut down by spear and
sword. And strangely, at that moment, the sun began to grow blood-red and
a dusky hue fell over the field. Darker and darker it grew till the sun
was blotted out and terror filled the souls of the peasants, who saw in
this strange darkness a token of the wrath of Olaf's God. But the eclipse
came too late to save the king, who lay dead where he had fallen.
Olaf was gone but tradition built a halo around his name. It was reported
that miracles were wrought by his blood and by the touch of his lifeless
hand. Tales of marvel and magic grew up about him, and he became a
wonder-worker for the superstitious people. In time he grew to be the
national hero and the national saint, and lives in history as Olaf the
Saint, while his tragic death and his enthusiasm for the cause of Christ
gave him a strong hold on the people's hearts and aided greatly in making
Norway truly a Christian land.
_CANUTE THE GREAT, KING OF SIX NATIONS._
A famous old king of Denmark, known as Harald Blaatand or Bluetooth, had
many sons, of whom only one, Svend or Sweyn, outlived him. While Harald
was a Christian, Sweyn was a pagan, having been brought up in the old
faith by a noble warrior Palnatoke, to whom his father had sent the boy
to teach him the use of arms.
When the king found that the boy was being made a pagan he tried to
withdraw him from Palnatoke, but Sweyn would not leave his friend,
whereupon the crafty king sought to destroy the warrior. We speak of
this, for there is a very interesting story connected with it. Every one
has read of how the Austrian governor Gessler condemned the Swiss peasant
William Tell to shoot with an arrow an apple from his son's head, but few
know that a like story is told of a Danish king and warrior four hundred
years earlier. This is the story, as told for us by an old historian.
One day, while Palnatoke was boasting in the king's presence of his skill
as an archer, Harald told him that, in spite of his boasts, there was one
shot he would not dare to try. He replied that there was no shot he was
afraid to attempt, and the king then challenged him to shoot an apple
from the head of his son. Palnatoke obeyed, and the apple fell, pierced
by the arrow. This cruel act made Palnatoke the bitter foe of King
Harald, and gathering around him a band of fierce vikings he founded a
brotherhood of sea-rovers at Jomsborg, and for long years afterwards the
Jomsborgers, or Jomsborg vikings, were a frightful scourge to all
Christian lands on the Baltic Sea. In former tales we have told some of
their exploits.
It is said that Sweyn himself, in a later war, killed his father on the
battlefield, while Palnatoke stood by approving, though in after years
the two were bitter foes. All we need say further of these personages is
that Sweyn invaded England with a powerful force in the time of Ethelred
the Unready and drove this weak king from the island, making himself
master of great part of the kingdom. He died at Gainsborough, England, in
1014, leaving his son Knud, then a boy of fourteen, to complete the
conquest. It is this son, known in England as Canute the Great, and the
mightiest of all the Danish kings, with whose career we have to deal.
England did not fall lightly into Canute's hands; he had to win it by
force of arms. Encouraged by the death of Sweyn and the youth of Canute,
the English recalled Ethelred and for a time the Danes lost the kingdom
which their king Sweyn had won. Canute did not find a throne awaiting him
in Denmark. His younger brother Harald had been chosen king by the Danes
and when Canute asked him for a share in the government, Harald told him
that if he wished to be a king he could go back and win England for
himself. He would give him a few ships and men, but the throne of Denmark
he proposed to keep.
Nothing loth, Canute accepted the offer and the next year returned to
England with a large and well appointed force, whose work of conquest was
rapidly performed. Ethelred died and great part of England was
surrendered without resistance to the Danes. But Edmond, Ethelred's son,
took the field with an army and in three months won three victories over
the invaders.
A fourth battle was attempted and lost and Edmond retreated to the
Severn, swiftly followed by Canute. The two armies here faced each other,
with the fate of England in the balance, when a proposal in close accord
with the spirit of the times was made. This was to settle the matter by
single combat between the kings. Both were willing. While Edmond had the
advantage in strength, Canute was his superior in shrewdness. For when
the champions met in deadly fray and Canute was disarmed by his opponent,
the wily Dane proposed a parley, and succeeded in persuading Edmond to
divide the kingdom between them. The agreement was accepted by the armies
and the two kings parted as friends--but the death of Edmond soon after
had in it a suspicious appearance of murder by poison.
On the death of Edmond, Canute called a meeting of the popular assembly
of the nation and was acknowledged king of all England. Not long
afterwards Harald of Denmark died and the Danes chose him, under his
home name of Knud, as their king also. But he stayed in Denmark only long
enough to settle the affairs of the Church in that realm. He ordered that
Christianity should be made the religion of the kingdom and the worship
of Odin should cease; and put English bishops over the Danish clergy. He
also brought in English workmen to teach the uncivilized Danes. Thus,
Dane as Canute was, he preferred the religion and conditions of his
conquered to those of his native kingdom, feeling that it was superior in
all the arts and customs of civilization.
A great king was Canute, well deserving the title long given him of
Canute the Great. Having won England by valor and policy, he held it by
justice and clemency. He patronized the poets and minstrels and wrote
verses in Anglo-Saxon himself, which were sung by the people and added
greatly to his popularity. Of the poems written by him one was long a
favorite in England, though only one verse of it now remains. This was
preserved by the monks of Ely, since they were its theme. Thus it runs,
in literal translation:
"Merrily sung the monks within Ely
When Canute King rowed by;
Row, knights, near the land,
And hear we these monks' song."
It is said that the verse was suggested to the king when rowing with his
chiefs one day in the river Nene, near Ely Minster, by the sweet and
solemn music of the monastery choir that floated out to them over the
tranquil water. The monks of Ely, to whom we owe much of our knowledge of
King Canute, tell us that he had a strong affection for the fen country
and for their church, and gave the following story in that connection. It
is at once picturesque and humorous.
One year, at the festival of the Purification, when King Canute proposed
to pay his usual visit to Ely, the weather was very severe and all the
streams and other waters were frozen. The courtiers advised the king to
keep the holy festival in some other godly house, which he might reach
without danger of drowning under broken ice, but such was his love for
the abbot and monks of Ely that he would not take this advice.
Canute proposed to cross the ice by way of Soham Mere, then an immense
body of water, saying that if any one would go before and show him the
way he would be the first to follow. The soldiers and courtiers hesitated
at this suggestion, and looked at one another with doubt and dread. But
standing among the crowd was one Brithmar, a churl or serf, who was
nicknamed Budde, or Pudding, from his stoutness. He was a native of the
island of Ely and doubtless familiar with its waters, and when the
courtiers held back he stepped forward and said he would go before and
show the way.
"Go on then, in the name of our Lady," said Canute, "and I will follow;
for if the ice on Soham Mere can bear a man so large and fat as thou
art, it will not break under the weight of a small thin man like me."
So the churl went forward, and Canute the Great followed him, and after
the king came the courtiers, one by one, with spaces between; and they
all got safely over the frozen mere, with no mishaps other than a few
slips and falls on the smooth ice; and Canute, as he had proposed, kept
the festival of the Purification with the monks of Ely.
As a reward to the fat churl Brithmar for his service, he was made a
freeman and his little property was also made free. "And so," the
chronicle concludes, "Brithmar's posterity continued in our days to be
freemen and to enjoy their possessions as free by virtue of the grant
made by the king to their forefather."
There is another and more famous story told of King Canute, one showing
that his great Danish majesty had an abundant share of sound sense. Often
as this story has been told it will bear retelling. The incident occurred
after his pilgrimage to Rome in the year 1030; made, it is said, to
obtain pardon for the crimes and bloodshed which paved his way to the
English throne.
After his return and when his power was at its height, the courtiers
wearied him by their fulsome flatteries. Disgusted with their extravagant
adulations he determined to teach them a lesson. They had spoken of him
as a ruler before whom all the powers of nature must bend in obedience,
and one day he caused his golden throne to be set on the verge of the
sea-shore sands as the tide was rolling in with its resistless might.
Seating himself on the throne, with his jewelled crown on his head, he
thus addressed the ocean:
"O thou Ocean! Know that the land on which I sit is mine and that thou
art a part of my dominion; therefore rise not, but obey my commands, and
do not presume to wet the edge of my royal robe."
He sat as if awaiting the sea to obey his commands, while the courtiers
stood by in stupefaction. Onward rolled the advancing breakers, each
moment coming nearer to his feet, until the spray flew into his face, and
finally the waters bathed his knees and wet the skirts of his robe. Then,
rising and turning to the dismayed flatterers, he sternly said:
"Confess now how vain and frivolous is the might of an earthly king
compared with that Great Power who rules the elements and says unto the
ocean, 'Thus far shalt thou go and no farther!'"
The monks who tell this story, conclude it by saying that Canute
thereupon took off his crown and deposited it within the cathedral of
Winchester, never wearing it again.
After his visit to Rome, Canute ruled with greater mildness and justice
than ever before, while his armies kept the turbulent Scotch and Welsh
and the unquiet peoples of the north in order. In the latter part of his
reign he could boast that the English, the Scotch, the Welsh, the Danes,
the Swedes, and the Norwegians were his subjects, and he was called in
consequence "The King of the Six Nations," and looked upon throughout
Europe as the greatest of sovereigns; none of the kings and emperors of
that continent being equal in power, wealth and width of dominion to King
Canute, a descendant of the vikings of Denmark.
Canute spent the most of his life in England, but now and then visited
his northern realm, and there are some interesting anecdotes of his life
there. Though a devout Christian and usually a self-controlled man, the
wild passions of his viking ancestry would at times break out, and at
such times he spared neither friend nor foe and would take counsel from
no man, churchman or layman. But when his anger died out his remorse was
apt to be great and he would submit to any penance laid upon him by the
Church. Thus when he had killed one of his house servants for some slight
offense, he made public confession of his crime and paid the same
blood-fine as would have been claimed from a man of lower rank.
The most notable instance of these outbursts of uncontrollable anger was
that in which he murdered his old friend and brother-in-law Ulf, who,
after rebelling against him, had saved him from complete defeat by the
Swedes, by coming to his rescue just as the royal fleet was nearly
swamped by the opening of the sluices which held back the waters of the
Swedish river Helge-aae. Ulf took Canute on board his own ship and
brought him in safety to a Danish island, while leaving his men to aid
those of Canute in their escape from the Swedes. Yet the king bore a
grudge against the earl, and this was its cause.
At one time Ulf ruled over Denmark as Canute's regent and made himself
greatly beloved by the people from his just rule. Queen Emma, Canute's
wife, wished to have her little son Harthaknud--or Hardicanute, as he was
afterwards called in England--made king of Denmark, but could not
persuade her husband King Canute to accede to her wishes. She therefore
sent letters privately to Ulf, saying that the king wished to see the
young prince on the throne, but did not wish to do anything the people
might not like. Ulf, deceived by her story, had the boy crowned king, and
thereby won Canute's ill-will.
The king, however, showed no signs of this, nor of resentment against Ulf
for his rebellion, but, after his escape from the Swedes, asked the earl
to go with him to his palace at Roeskilde, and on the evening of their
arrival offered to play chess with him. During the game Canute made a
false move so that Ulf was able to take one of his knights, and when the
king refused to let this move count and wanted his man back again the
earl jumped up and said he would not go on with the game. Canute, in a
burst of anger, cried out:
"The coward Norwegian Ulf Jarl is running away."
"You and your coward Danes would have run away still faster at the
Helge-aae if I and my Norwegians had not saved you from the Swedes, who
were making ready to beat you all like a pack of craven hounds!"
ejaculated the angry earl.
Those hasty words cost Ulf his life. Canute, furious at the insult,
brooded over it all night, and the next morning, still in a rage, called
to one of the guards at the door of his bed-chamber:
"Go and kill Ulf Jarl."
"My Lord King, I dare not," answered the man. "Ulf Jarl is at prayer
before the altar of the church of St. Lucius."
The king, after a moment's pause, turned to a young man-at-arms who had
been in his service since his boyhood and cried angrily:
"I command you, Olaf, to go to the church and thrust your sword through
the Jarl's body."
Olaf obeyed, and Ulf was slain while kneeling before the altar rails of
St. Lucius' church.
Then, as usual with King Canute, his passion cooled and he deeply
lamented his crime, showing signs of bitter remorse. In way of expiation
he paid to his sister Estrid, Ulf's widow, a large sum as blood-fine, and
gave her two villages which she left at her death to the church in which
her husband had been slain. He also brought up Ulf's eldest son as one of
his own children. The widowed Estrid afterwards married Robert, Duke of
Normandy, father of William the Conqueror, who in 1066 became master of
England.
King Canute died in 1035, at thirty-six years of age, and his son Harald
reigned after him in England for four years, and afterwards his son
Harthaknud, or Hardicanute, for three years, when England again came
under an Anglo-Saxon king--to fall under the power of William of
Normandy, a conqueror of Norwegian descent, twenty-four years later.
_MAGNUS THE GOOD AND HAROLD HARDRULER._
After the death of King Olaf the Saint, and after the Danes had for some
years ruled over Norway, Olaf's son Magnus, who had been left in Russia,
was brought to Norway and proclaimed king. The Danes had oppressed the
people, and had put over them a woman and her son, and it was this that
made the chiefs drive out the tyrants and put young Magnus, then a boy of
ten years of age, on the throne.
A curious thing then took place, one of those strange political
somersaults which at times come in the history of nations. For as the
Danes had lately ruled over Norway, now a Norseman came to rule over
Denmark. Thus it was that this odd change came about.
The great King Canute was dead and his son Hardicanute had succeeded him
on the throne. This new king claimed Norway as his and prepared to fight
for it. But the chief men in the two countries succeeded in making peace,
with the agreement that if either of the kings should die without heirs
the other should take his throne. A few years later Hardicanute died and
Magnus was proclaimed king of Denmark. Thus, in the year 1042, the two
kingdoms became united under a Norse king, a descendant of Harold the
Fair-Haired.
Magnus, as he grew up, showed an ugly and revengeful temper. Very likely
some of those around him told the boy that he should avenge his father
upon those who had rebelled against and killed him. One of these men was
slain by his orders, others fled from the country, and many were made
poor by the loss of their cattle. This made the people very angry, and
they were ready to fight for just treatment when peace was brought about
in another way, the hot-tempered Magnus being subdued by the power of
song.
One of the poets of the land--scalds they were called--made a song called
the Lay of Candor, which he sang before the king. In it he warned him of
the evil results of a revengeful spirit and told him of the duties he
owed the people who had brought him to Norway and made him king. Magnus,
who had now nearly reached the years of manhood, listened quietly to this
song and afterwards sat long in deep thought. It had a wonderful effect
on him, for it opened his eyes to the injustice of his course, and from
that day he was a new man. All his plans of vengeance fled, he became
kind and gentle and so mild and sweet in manner that he grew to be one of
the best loved of kings. This may be seen in the name the people gave
him, which was that of Magnus the Good.
Now we must tell the rest of his story very rapidly. As the heir of
Hardicanute he claimed to be king of England as well as of Norway and
Denmark, and he might have tried to win the crown of England, then worn
by Edward the Confessor, had he not been kept busy at home. In fact, he
had to fight hard to keep the crown of Denmark, for Sweyn, a nephew of
the great Canute, claimed it and a fierce war followed. Magnus was
victorious in this war, and in one great battle, in which ten thousand
soldiers were slain, it was his skill and courage that won the field.
This display of personal bravery gave him a great name in the north.
Now we must leave the story of Magnus for a time to take up that of
another hero of the north. Those who have read the tale of Olaf the Saint
will remember his amusing talk with his three little half-brothers, and
how while the two elder had an ambition only for land and cows, Harold,
the youngest, wanted men and ships, and Olaf prophesied that the boy
would one day be a king.
When Harold grew up the spirit of the boy was shown in the man. When only
fifteen years old he fought in the battle in which King Olaf was killed,
and received a severe wound. Then he became a wanderer, going first to
Russia and then to Constantinople, where he became the captain of the
Varangians, the body-guard of Norsemen kept by the Greek emperors. A
large, bold, strong, and reckless champion, Harold gained a great name in
the south. He fought against the Saracens and won much treasure; he
fought in Sicily and captured many cities; he had adventures in love and
war and many wonderful stories are told of his exploits. Then he came
back to Russia and married Elizabeth, the daughter of King Jaroslov,
love for whom had sent him abroad to win fame and riches.
[Illustration: NORWEGIAN FARM BUILDINGS.]
Not long after this King Magnus, as he was sailing one day along the
coast of Denmark, saw gliding along the most magnificent ship he had ever
beheld. He at once sent men aboard to learn to whom the beautiful galley
belonged, and they were met by a tall and handsome man, who said that he
had been sent by Harold Sigurdsson, the uncle of King Magnus, to learn
how the king would receive him. Magnus, who was then nineteen years old,
sent word that he would gladly welcome his uncle and hoped to find in him
a good friend. When they met the tall man proved to be Harold himself and
Magnus was highly pleased with him.
He was not so well pleased when Harold asked to be made king also, laying
claim to half the kingdom. And Harold himself was not well pleased when
one of the Norse chiefs said that if Magnus was to share the kingdom with
him, he should divide his great treasure with Magnus.
Harold replied hastily and haughtily that he had not dared death and won
wealth that he might make his nephew's men rich. The chief answered that
he and his friends had not won Norway from the Danes for the purpose of
giving half of it to a stranger, and all the other earls and warriors
agreed with him, so that Harold found that the apple which he wished to
divide was not so easily to be cut.
After that there was war and plundering and the cruel deeds that take
place when the sword is drawn, and a year or two later Harold called an
assembly of the people of one district of Norway and had himself
proclaimed king. Magnus, who did not want to fight his father's brother,
finally yielded to Harold's claim and agreed that they should both be
kings; not to divide the realm, but both to rule over the whole country
together. Thus it was that Harold won the prize which he had craved as a
young child.
Every one would say that a compact of this kind could not work well. A
gentle, kindly, generous-hearted man like King Magnus was ill matched
with a haughty, wealth-loving, tyrannical man like Harold. No doubt many
bitter words passed between them, and the peasants were so incensed by
Harold's oppression and extortion of money from them that they would have
broken into open rebellion only for the love they bore King Magnus. The
latter was often so incensed that he was tempted to put an end to the
double kingship even if he had to remove his troublesome partner by
violence.
But this was not to be. One day, while out riding, his horse took fright
and threw him, his head striking a stump. He was at first stunned, but
seemed to recover. Soon afterwards he was taken sick with a violent fever
and gradually sank, so that it became apparent that he would die. On his
death-bed he decided that Sweyn, who had fought so hard to win from him
the crown of Denmark, had a better right to that kingdom than Harold, and
men were sent to inform him of his succession to the Danish throne. But
he had barely closed his eyes in death when Harold sent other men to
intercept these messengers. He proposed to keep Denmark for himself.
The death of King Magnus without an heir left Harold the undisputed
successor to the throne, as the only living descendant in the male line
of Harold the Fair-Haired. Yet the people were far from pleased, for he
had already shown a disposition to treat them harshly and they feared
that a tyrant had succeeded to the throne. By his stern rule he gained
several uncomplimentary titles, the English calling him Harold the
Haughty, the Germans Harold the Inflexible, and the Northmen Harold the
Hardruler. Yet he was able to hold his own over his people, for he was
strong and daring, skilled in the art of war, and a man of unusual
intellect. He was also a poet and won fame by his verses. He would sit up
half the night with the blind scald Stuf Katson, to hear him recite his
stirring songs.
But if absolute ruler over Norway, Harold found Denmark slipping away
from him. Sweyn had in him the blood of the race of Canute, and was no
weakling to be swept aside at a king's will. Magnus had left him the
kingdom and he was bent on having it, if his good sword could win and
hold it. In this he was supported by the Danes, and Harold found that the
most he could do was to make descents on the Danish coast and plunder and
murder the innocent people.
After this idle kind of warfare had gone on for a number of years and
Harold found that all he had gained by it was the hatred of the Danes, he
made an agreement with Sweyn to fight it out between them. They were to
meet at the mouth of the Götha Elv and whoever won in the battle was to
be the king of Denmark. It was a kind of duel for a crown.
But Sweyn tried to gain his end by stratagem. When Harold appeared with
his fleet at the appointed place Sweyn and his ships were not to be seen.
Harold waited a while, fuming and fretting, and then sailed south to
Jutland, where he ravaged the coast, took and burned the city of Heidaby,
carried away a number of women of high rank, and filled his ships with
plunder. Then he turned homeward, with so little fear of the Danes that
he let his ships widely scatter.
The winds were adverse, the weather was foggy, and one morning while they
lay at anchor by an island shore, the lookout saw a bright flash through
the fog. The king was hastily called, and on seeing it cried:
"What you see is the flash of the morning sun on the golden dragon-heads
of warships. The Danish fleet is upon us!"
The peril was imminent. It was hopeless to fight with the few ships at
command. Only flight remained and that was almost as hopeless. The oars
were got out in haste, but the ships, soaked and heavy from their long
cruise, were hard to move, and as the fog lifted under the sun rays, the
Danish fleet, several hundred strong, bore down swiftly upon them. The
emergency was one that needed all the wit and skill of the king to meet.
To distract the enemy Harold bade his men nail bright garments and other
showy spoil to logs and cast them overboard. As these floated through the
Danish ships many of them stopped to pick up the alluring prizes. He also
was obliged to throw overboard casks of beer and pork to lighten his
ships and these also were picked up. Yet in spite of all he could do the
Danes gained on him, and his own ship, which brought up the rear, was in
danger of capture.
As a last resort the shrewd king had rafts made of boards and barrels and
put on these the high-born women he held as captives. These rafts were
set afloat one after another, and the pursuers, on seeing these hapless
fair ones and hearing their wild appeals for rescue, were obliged to stop
and take them up. This final stratagem succeeded and Harold escaped,
leaving Sweyn, who had felt sure of capturing his enemy, furious at his
failure.
At another time, ten years and more later, Harold again fell into peril
and again escaped through his fertility in resources. Having beaten his
rival in a naval battle, he entered the long and narrow Lim fiord to
plunder the land, fancying that Sweyn was in no condition to disturb him.
He reckoned too hastily. Sweyn, learning where his foe was, gathered what
ships he could and took post at Hals, the fiord being there so narrow
that a few ships could fight with advantage against a much greater
number.
Though caught in a trap Harold was not dismayed, but gave orders to sail
to the inner end of the fiord. He knew that it ended near the North Sea,
only a narrow isthmus dividing them. Then, with great trouble and labor,
he managed to have his ships dragged across the isthmus and launched on
the sea waters, and away he sailed in triumph, leaving Sweyn awaiting him
in vain.
Finally, with the desire to bring this useless strife to an end, if
possible, a new compact was made to meet with their fleets in the Götha
Elv and fight once more for the kingdom of Denmark. It was now 1062,
thirteen years after the former battle. As before, on reaching the place
designated, no Danish ship was visible. But it is difficult to credit
what we are told, that Harold, after a vain wait, made the same error as
before, dividing his fleet and sending the greater part of it home. With
the remainder, one hundred and eighty ships strong, he sailed along the
coast, and suddenly found himself in the presence of the Danes, with two
ships to his one.
This time Harold did not flee, but joined battle bravely with his enemy,
the contest lasting through a whole night and ending in a complete
victory over the Danes. It was a great victory, yet it brought Harold no
advantage, for Sweyn did not keep to his compact--if he had made one--to
surrender his throne, and the Danes hated Harold so thoroughly for his
cruel raids on their land that they had no idea of submitting to him. Two
years more passed on, and then Harold, finding that the conquest of
Denmark was hopeless, consented against his will to make peace. In this
way Sweyn, after many years of battling for his throne, forced his
powerful antagonist to give up the contest and promise never to disturb
him again.
Two years after this peace was made, in the year 1066, King Harold took
part in another adventure which brought his tyranny and his life to an
end. It is worth telling for another reason, for it was connected with a
great historical event, the conquest of England by William the Conqueror.
For these two reasons it is very fitting that it should be told.
King Harold of England, who was soon to fall on the fatal field of
Hastings, had a brother, Earl Tostig, who, fired by ambition, set out to
conquer that kingdom for himself. He went first to Denmark and tried to
get King Sweyn to join him in the enterprise, but the prudent Sweyn told
him that he had no desire to follow in the footsteps of his uncle Canute,
but was quite content to dwell at home and rule his own kingdom.
Then Tostig sought Norway, where he found King Harold far more ready to
listen to him. So in September of that year, Harold sailed from Norway
with the most powerful fleet and army that had ever left its shores.
Counting what was added in the Orkneys and the force under Earl Tostig,
it numbered about three hundred and fifty ships and thirty thousand men.
Landing in Northumberland, a victory was won and the city of York taken.
Then, leaving about one-third of the army to guard the ships, Harold and
Tostig encamped at Stamford Bridge, seven miles from York.
It was a warm day, there was no reason to fear danger, and the men
lounged about without their arms. In this unwary state they found
themselves suddenly face to face with a large army, led by the English
King Harold, who had marched north in furious haste. Tostig, finding that
they had been taken by surprise, advised a retreat to the ships, but
Harold was not the man to turn his back to his foe, and decided to stand
and fight, ordering the men to arm and prepare for battle. While they
were gathering in ranks for the fray, a party of English horsemen rode up
and asked if Earl Tostig was there.
"You see him before you," said Tostig.
"Your brother Harold sends you greeting and offers you peace and the rule
of Northumberland. If he cannot gain your friendship for less, he will
grant you one-third his kingdom."
"Last year he had only scorn and disdain to offer me," replied Tostig.
"But if I should accept his proposal, what has he to offer my ally, the
king of Norway?"
"He will grant him seven feet of English soil; or more if his length of
body needs it."
"If that is your best offer," said Tostig, "ride back and bid Harold to
begin the battle."
Harold of Norway had heard this brief colloquy, and as the English
horsemen rode away asked Tostig who was the speaker.
"That was my brother, Harold himself," answered Tostig.
"I learn that too late," said Harold grimly.
The battle that followed was hotly contested. It began with a charge of
the English cavalry, which was repulsed, and was followed up fiercely by
the Norsemen, who fancied the flight of the English to mean a general
rout. In this way they broke their ranks, which the king wished to
preserve until reinforcements could reach him from the ships. Forward
rushed the impatient Norsemen, King Harold throwing himself into their
midst and fighting with savage fury. His men seconded him, the English
ranks wavered and broke before the fierce onset, and victory seemed
within the grasp of the invaders, when an arrow pierced King Harold's
throat and he fell in a dying state from his horse.
His fall checked the onset, and the English king, hearing of his death,
offered his brother an armistice. Tostig refused this and led his men
back to the fray, which was resumed with all its old fury. But Tostig,
too, was slain, and the king's brother-in-law, who arrived with
reinforcements from the ships, met with the same fate. By this time the
battlefield was covered with the bodies of the dead, and the Norsemen,
dispirited by the loss of their leaders, gave way and retreated towards
the ships, hotly pursued by their victorious foes. Of their great host
only a small remnant succeeded in reaching the ships.
Thus ended the great fight at Stamford Bridge, and with it the reign and
life of Harold Hardruler, who fell a victim to his ambition and love of
strife. For years thereafter the bones of men lay scattered widely over
that field, for none stayed to bury the dead, the Norsemen fleeing in
their ships, while news of the landing of William of Normandy called
Harold hastily to the south--where he fell in the midst of the fighting
at Hastings as Harold of Norway had fallen on Stamford Field. Harold's
invasion of England was the last great exploit of the vikings of the
north, and though Ireland was invaded later by a Norseland fleet, no
foreign foe after the fatal days at Stamford and Hastings ever landed on
England's shores.
_SVERRE, THE COOK'S SON, AND THE BIRCHLEGS._
In the year 1177 those people in Norway who loved a joke must have
laughed to their hearts' content, when the tidings reached them that the
son of a cook, followed by seventy ragged and half armed men, had set out
to win the throne of the kingdom. Surely a more extraordinary and
laughable enterprise was never undertaken, and the most remarkable thing
about it was that it succeeded. A few years of desperate adventures and
hard fighting raised the cook's son to the throne, and those who had
laughed at his temerity were now glad to hail him as their king. How
Sverre the adventurer won the crown is a tale full of adventure and amply
worth the telling.
No common man was Sverre and no common woman was his mother Gunhild, a
cook in the kitchen of King Sigurd Mouth. Not handsome was she, but quick
of wit and bright of brain. If the king had had his way the boy would
have had a very short life, for he bade the mother to kill her child as
soon as it should be born. Instead of consenting to this cruel mandate,
she fled from the palace to a ship, which took her to the Faroe Islands,
and here her son was born. She was then serving as milkmaid to Bishop
Mathias.
The little Sverre began his life with an adventure. When he was a few
months old a man named Unas came from Norway to the islands, a smith or
comb-maker by profession. But Gunhild suspected him of being a spy sent
by King Sigurd to kill her son, and she hid the boy in a cavern, which is
still called Sverre's Cave. He acted like a spy, for he followed her to
the cave, found where she had hidden the child, and threatened to kill it
unless she would marry him. Gunhild had no love for this dangerous
stranger, but she dearly loved her little son, and with much reluctance
she consented to marry Unas to save the babe's life.
Such was the first event in the life of the later King Sverre. The
new-married pair went back to Norway, for King Sigurd had died, but when
the boy was five years old they returned to the Faroes, for Bishop
Mathias was now dead, and Roe, the brother of Unas, had been made bishop
in his stead.
The little fellow was made to believe that he was the son of Unas, and as
he grew up Bishop Roe took a great fancy to him, for he showed himself to
be very bright and intelligent. There was no boy in the island his equal,
so the good bishop had him educated for the priesthood and when he was
old enough had him ordained in the lowest priestly grade.
This was much against the wish of Gunhild, his mother, who had higher
hopes for his future, and when he proudly told her that he was now a
priest, and hoped some day to become a bishop, or even a cardinal, she
burst into tears.
"Why do you weep, mother?" he asked in surprise. "I do not know why you
should hear of my honor with sorrow."
"Oh, my son," she cried, "this is but a small honor compared to that to
which you were born. I have not told you of the great station that is
yours by right, but must now say that you are not the son of my husband
Unas, but of King Sigurd of Norway, and you have as good a claim as any
man living to the throne."
This surprising revelation destroyed Sverre's peace of mind. All his
ambition to rise in the priesthood was gone, the crown of a kingdom
seemed to float in the air before him, and his thoughts by day and his
dreams by night were fixed on that shining goal. The great hopes in his
mind kept sleep from his eyes and after days of mental unrest he felt
that life was worthless to him if his high ambition were not fulfilled.
"Since I am born heir to the crown," he said to his mother, "I have as
much right to it as any man, and I will strive at any cost to win it. I
stake my life on this cast, for without it life to me has lost all its
joy."
Magnus, the king then on the throne, was not of royal birth. He was the
son of Erling Skakke, a great and ambitious nobleman, who had killed
every descendant of the royal house he could find to make his own son
king. Of the boy who was destined to dispute his claim, the cook's son on
the Faroes, he knew nothing, and when the bright youth landed in Norway,
whether he had gone in spite of the protests of Bishop Roe, not a soul in
the kingdom dreamed that a new claimant for the throne was in the realm.
No one was likely to learn from Sverre until his plans were ripe. He was
too shrewd and cautious for that. He wanted to feel the sentiment of the
people, and was disappointed to find them all well satisfied with their
king. Full of humor and a good talker, everybody he met was pleased with
him, and when he talked with the men-at-arms of Erling Skakke they told
him all they knew about the state of affairs. They were quite won over by
this lively priest from the Faroes. He even made the acquaintance of
Erling Skakke himself and got a thorough idea of his character.
The cunning adventurer was feeling his way and found things not at all to
his liking. To attempt, alone and with an empty pocket, to drive a
favorite monarch from the throne, seemed the act of madness. But the
ambitious youth had dreamed his dream of royal state and had no fancy for
returning to a humble priesthood on the bleak Faroes.
In Sweden, across the border, dwelt Earl Birger, who had married a sister
of King Sigurd Mouth. To him Sverre went, told who he was, and begged for
aid. The earl looked on him as an imposter and would have nothing to do
with him. Then he sought Folkvid the Lawman, with whom lived his
half-sister Cecilia, and told him the same story. Folkvid received him
more graciously, but he had no power to make him king. But the rumor
that a son of the late King Sigurd was in the land got abroad, and soon
made its way to the ears of a band of rebels who hated the king.
Here we must go back a step. All the people of Norway were not content
with the new king. From time to time pretenders to the throne arose,
hornets whom Magnus and his father Erling had some trouble in destroying.
They had their following, and the malcontents gathered at last around
Eystein Meyla (Little Girl), who professed to be the grandson of a former
king. But all this last of the pretenders was able to do was to roam
about in the wilderness, keeping himself and his followers from starving
by robbing the people. They were in so desperate a state that they had to
use birch-bark for shoes, and the peasants in derision called them
Birkebeiner, or Birchlegs. Though little better than highwaymen, they
were sturdy and daring and had some success, but finally were badly
beaten by the king and their leader slain. They might have never been
heard of again had not the greatest of the pretenders just then came to
Norway.
The rumor that a son of King Sigurd Mouth was in the land reached the
ears of the handful of Birchlegs remaining and, learning where Sverre
was, they sought him and begged him to be their chief. He looked at them,
and seeing what dirty and ragged vagabonds they were, he told them that
he had no fancy for being their leader, that there was no link of
connection between them and him but poverty, and advised them, if they
wanted a chief, to seek one of Earl Birger's sons, who, like himself,
were of royal descent.
The beggarly troop took his advice, but the earl's son would have nothing
to do with them.
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