Harald Fairhair, First King of Norway, and the Settlements in the
Orkneys
There were yet other directions toward which the Norse viking-hosts
had already turned their eyes. Not far out from the coasts of Norway
lay the Orkney and Shetland Islands, and beyond them again the Faröe
Isles rose bleak and treeless from the waters of the northern sea.
The shallow boats of the Norsemen, though they dreaded the open
waters of the Atlantic, were yet able, in favourable weather, to push
their way from one set of islands to another, and from the earliest
times of which we know anything about them they had already made some
settlements on these rocky shores. To the Norseman, accustomed to a
hardy life and brought up to wring a scanty livelihood almost out
of the barren cliff itself, even the Orkney and Shetland Isles had
attractions. Those who have seen the tiny steadings of the Norwegian
farmer to-day, perched up on what appears from below to be a perfectly
inaccessible cliff, with only a few feet of soil on which to raise his
scanty crop, solitary all the year round save for the occasional visit
of a coasting steamer, will the less wonder that the islands on the
Scottish coast proved attractive to his viking forefathers. Often, in
crossing that stormy sea, the adventurous crew found a watery grave,
or encountered such tempests that the viking boat was almost knocked to
pieces; but on the whole these hardy seamen passed and repassed over
the North Sea with a frequency that surprises us, especially when we
remember that their single-sailed boats were open, covered in only at
the stem or stern,[12] and rowed with oars. We hear of these settlers
on our coasts before Norwegian history can be said to have begun;
and from early times, also, they carried on a trade with Ireland; we
hear of a merchant in the Icelandic “Book of the Settlements” named
Hrafn, who was known as the “Limerick trader,” because he carried on a
flourishing business with that town, which later grew into importance
under the sons of Ivar, who settled there and built the chief part of
the city.
But during the latter years of Alfred’s reign and for many years after
his death a great impetus was given to the settlements in the North
of Scotland by the coming to the throne of Norway of the first king
who reigned over the whole country, Harald Fairhair. He established a
new form of rule which was very unpopular among his great lords and
landowners, and the consequence of this was that a large number of his
most powerful earls or “jarls” left the country with their families and
possessions and betook themselves to Iceland, the Orkneys and Hebrides,
and to Ireland. They did not go as marauders, as those who went before
them had done, but they went to settle, and establish new homes for
themselves where they would be free from what they considered to be
Harald Fairhair’s oppressive laws. Before his time each of these jarls
had been his own master, ruling his own district as an independent
lord, but paying a loose allegiance to the prince who chanced at
the time to prove the most powerful. From time to time some more
ambitious prince arose, who tried to subdue to his authority the men
of consequence in his own part of the country, but hitherto it had not
come into the mind of any one of them to try to make himself king over
the whole land.
The idea of great kingdoms was not then a common one. In England up to
this time no king had reigned over the whole country; there had been
separate rulers for East Anglia, Wessex, Northumbria, etc., sometimes
as many as seven kings reigning at the same time in different parts
of the country, in what was called the “Heptarchy.” It was only when
the need of a powerful and capable ruler was felt, and there chanced
to be a man fitted to meet this need, as in Alfred’s time and that of
his son, Edward the Elder, that the kingdoms drew together under one
sovereign. But even then it was not supposed that things would remain
permanently like this; under a weaker prince they might at any moment
split up again into separate dynasties. In Ireland this system remained
in force far longer, for centuries indeed, the country being broken up
into independent and usually warring chiefdoms. Abroad, none of the
Northern nations had united themselves into great kingdoms up to the
time of Harald Fairhair, but about this date a desire began to show
itself to consolidate the separate lordships under single dynasties,
partly because it chanced that men of more than usual power and
ambition happened to be found in them, and partly for protection from
neighbouring States; in the case of Harald himself, his pride also led
him to desire to take a place in the world as important as that of the
neighbouring kings. In Sweden King Eirik and in Denmark King Gorm the
Old were establishing themselves on the thrones of united kingdoms. The
effort of Harald to accomplish the same task in Norway was so important
in its effects, not only on the future history of his own country, but
on that of portions of our own, that it is worth while to tell it more
in detail.
Harald was son of Halfdan the Black, with whose reign authentic
Norwegian history begins. Halfdan ruled over a good part of the
country, which he had gained by conquest, and he was married to
Ragnhild, a wise and intelligent woman, and a great dreamer of dreams.
It is said that in one of her dreams she foretold the future greatness
of her son Harald Fairhair. She thought she was in her herb-garden,
her shift fastened with a thorn; she drew out the thorn with her hand
and held it steadily while it began to grow downward, until it finally
rooted itself firmly in the earth. The other end of it shot upward and
became a great tree, blood-red about the root, but at the top branching
white as snow. It spread until all Norway was covered by its branches.
The dream came true when Harald, who was born soon afterwards, subdued
all Norway to himself.
Harald grew up strong and remarkably handsome, very expert in all
feats, and of good understanding. It did not enter his head to extend
his dominions until some time after his father’s death, for he was only
ten years old at that time, and his youth was troubled by dissensions
among his nobles, who each wanted to possess himself of the conquests
made by Halfdan the Black; but Harald subdued them to himself as far
south as the river Raum. Then he set his affections on a girl of good
position named Gyda, and sent messengers to ask her to be his wife. But
she was a proud and ambitious girl, and declared that she would not
marry any man, even though he were styled a king, who had no greater
kingdom than a few districts. “It is wonderful to me that while in
Sweden King Eirik has made himself master of the whole country and in
Denmark Gorm the Old did the same, no prince in Norway has made the
entire kingdom subject to himself. And tell Harald,” she added, “that
when he has made himself sole King of Norway, then he may come and
claim my hand; for only then will I go to him as his lawful wife.” The
messengers, when they heard this haughty answer, were for inflicting
some punishment upon her, or carrying her off by force; but they
thought better of it and returned to Harald first, to learn what he
would say. But the King looked at the matter in another light. “The
girl,” he said, “has not spoken so much amiss as that she should be
punished for it, but on the contrary I think she has said well, for she
has put into my mind what it is wonderful that I never before thought
of. And now I solemnly vow, and I take God, who rules over all things,
to witness, that never will I clip or comb my hair until I have subdued
Norway, with scat,[13] dues, and dominions to myself; or if I succeed
not, I will die in the attempt.”
The messengers, hearing this, thanked the King, saying that “it was
royal work to fulfil royal words.”
After this, Harald set about raising an army and ravaging the country,
so that the people were forced to sue for peace or to submit to him;
and he marched from place to place, fighting with all who resisted
him, and adding one conquest after another to his crown; but many of
the chiefs of Norway preferred death to subjection, and it is stated
of one king named Herlaug that when he heard that Harald was coming he
ordered a great quantity of meat and drink to be brought and placed in
a burial-mound that he had erected for himself, and he went alive into
the mound and ordered it to be covered up and closed. A mound answering
to this description has been opened not far north of Trondhjem, near
where King Herlaug lived, and in it were found two skeletons, one in a
sitting posture, while in a second chamber were bones of animals. It
is believed that this was Herlaug’s mound where he and a slave were
entombed; it had been built for himself and his brother King Hrollaug,
to be their tombs when they were dead, but it became the sepulchre of
the living. As for Hrollaug, he determined to submit to Harald, and he
erected a throne on the summit of a height on which he was wont to sit
as king, and ordered soft beds to be placed below on the benches on
which the earls were accustomed to sit when there was a royal council.
Then he threw himself down from the king’s seat into the seat of the
earls, in token that he would resign his sovereignty to Harald and
accept an earldom under him; and he entered the service of Harald and
gave his kingdom up to him, and Harald bound a shield to his neck and
placed a sword in his belt and accepted his service; for it was his
plan, when any chief submitted to him, to leave him his dominions,
but to reduce him to the position of a jarl, holding his rights from
himself and owning fealty to him.
In many ways the lords were richer and better off than before, not
only because they had less cause to fight among themselves, being all
Harald’s men, but because they were made collectors of the land dues
and fines for the King, and out of all dues collected the earl received
a third part for himself; and these dues had been so much increased
by Harald that the earls had greater revenues than before; only each
earl was bound to raise and support sixty men-at-arms for the King’s
service, while the chief men under them had also to bring into the
field their quota of armed men. Thus Harald endeavoured to establish
a feudal system in Norway similar to that introduced into England
by William the Conqueror, and in time the whole country was subdued
outwardly to his service, and Harald won his bride. But although he
cut off or subdued his opponents and there was outward peace, a fierce
discontent smouldered in the minds of many of the nobles who hitherto
had been independent lords, and they would not brook the authority of
Harald, but fled oversea, or joined the viking cruisers, so that the
seas swarmed with their vessels and every land was infested with their
raids. It was at this time that Iceland and the Faröe Islands were
colonized by people driven out of Norway, and others went to Shetland
and the Orkneys and Hebrides and joined their countrymen there; others
settled in Ireland, and others, again, lived a roving life, marauding
on the coasts of their own country in the summer, and in other lands
in the winter season; so that Norway itself was not free from their
raids. King Harald fitted out a fleet and searched all the islands and
wild rocks along the coast to clear them of the vikings. This he did
during three summers, and wherever he came the vikings took to flight,
steering out into the open sea; but no sooner was the King gone home
again than they gathered as thickly as before, devastating up into the
heart of Norway to the north; until Harald grew tired of this sort of
work, and one summer he sailed out into the western ocean, following
them to Shetland and the Orkneys, and slaying every viking who could
not save himself by flight. Then he pushed his way southward along
the Hebrides, which were called the Sudreys[14] then, and slew many
vikings who had been great lords in their time at home in Norway; and
he pursued them down to the Isle of Man; but the news of his coming had
gone before him and he found all the inhabitants fled and the island
left entirely bare of people and property. So he turned north again,
himself plundering far and wide in Scotland, and leaving little behind
him but the hungry wolves gathering on the desolate sea-shore. He
returned to the Orkneys, and offered the earldom of those islands to
Ragnvald, one of his companions, the Lord of More, who had lost a son
in the war; but Ragnvald preferred to return with Harald to Norway,
so he handed the earldom of Orkney and the Isles over to his brother
Sigurd. King Harald agreed to this and confirmed Sigurd in the earldom
before he departed for Norway.
[Illustration: _Harald Fairhair_]
When King Harald had returned home again, and was feasting one day in
the house of Ragnvald, Earl of More, he went to a bath and had his hair
combed and dressed in fulfilment of his vow. For ten years his hair had
been uncut, so that the people called him Lufa or “Shockhead”; but when
he came in with his hair shining and combed after the bath, Ragnvald
called him Harfager, or “Fair Hair,” and all agreed that it was a
fitting name for him, and it clung to him thenceforward, so that he is
known as Harald Harfager to this day.