King Hakon the Good
When he was fifteen years old news came to Hakon in England that his
father Harald Fairhair had died. He had resigned his crown three years
before his death, for he had become feeble and heavy and unable to
travel through the country or carry out the duties of a king. So he had
parted the kingdom between his sons and lived in retirement on one of
his great farms. He was eighty-three years of age when he died, and he
was buried under a mound in Kormsund with a gravestone thirteen and a
half feet high over his grave. The stone and the mound are still to be
seen at Gar, in the parish of Kormsund.
No sooner was Harald dead than dissensions broke out between his sons,
and they went to war with each other, each one desiring to be sole
king, as their father had been. The chief of these sons was King Eric
Bloodaxe, whose after-history is much mixed up with that of England. He
fought his brothers, and two of them fell in battle; but the country
was disturbed because of these quarrels. Eric was a stout and fortunate
man of war, but bad-minded, gruff, unfriendly, and morose. Gunhild,
his wife, was a most beautiful woman, clever and lively; but she had a
false and cruel disposition. They had many children, who played their
part in English history.
Hakon heard of all that was going on in Norway, and he thought that the
time had come when he should return to his own country. King Athelstan
gave him all he needed for his journey, men, and a choice of good ships
fitted out most excellently. In harvest-time he came to Norway, and
heard that King Eric was at Viken, and that two of his brothers had
been slain by him. Hakon went to his old friend and fosterer, Sigurd,
Earl of Lade, who was counted the ablest man in Norway. Greatly did
Sigurd rejoice to see Hakon again, grown a handsome, stalwart man,
as his father had been before him; and they made a league thereupon
mutually to help each other. But Hakon had not much need of help, for
when they called together a “Thing,” or parliament of the people of
that district, and Hakon stood up and proposed himself as their king,
the people said to each other, “It is Harald Fairhair come again, but
grown young”; and it was not long before they acclaimed him king with
one consent. Hakon promised to restore their right to own the land on
which they lived (called “udal-right”), which his father had taken
from them when he made them his vassals; and this speech met with
such joyful applause that the whole assembly cried aloud that they
would take him as their king. So it came about that at fifteen Hakon
became king, and the news flew from mouth to mouth through the whole
land, like fire in dry grass; and from every district came messages
and tokens from the people that they would become his subjects. Hakon
received the messengers thankfully, and went through all the land,
holding a “Thing” in each district, and everywhere they acclaimed him;
for the more they hated King Eric the more they were ready to replace
him by taking King Hakon. They called him Hakon the Good.
At last, seeing that he could not withstand his brother, King Eric
got a fleet together and sailed out to the Orkneys, and then south
to England, plundering as he went. Athelstan sent messengers to him,
saying that as King Harald Fairhair, his father, had been his friend,
he would act kindly toward his son, and he offered to make him King
of Northumbria if he would defend it against other vikings and Danes
and keep it quiet; for Northumbria was by that time almost wholly
peopled by Northmen, and the names of many towns and villages were
Danish or Norse, and are so to this day. Eric gladly accepted this
offer, allowing himself to be baptized, with his wife and children
and his followers, and settled down at York; and this continued till
Athelstan’s death.