Haarfagr's kindred lasted some three centuries in Norway; Sverrir's
lasted into its third century there; how long after this, among the
neighboring kinships, I did not inquire. For, by regal affinities,
consanguinities, and unexpected chances and changes, the three
Scandinavian kingdoms fell all peaceably together under Queen Margaret,
of the Calmar Union (A.D. 1397); and Norway, incorporated now with
Denmark, needed no more kings.
The History of these Haarfagrs has awakened in me many thoughts: Of
Despotism and Democracy, arbitrary government by one and self-government
(which means no government, or anarchy) by all; of Dictatorship with
many faults, and Universal Suffrage with little possibility of
any virtue. For the contrast between Olaf Tryggveson, and a
Universal-Suffrage Parliament or an "Imperial" Copper Captain has, in
these nine centuries, grown to be very great. And the eternal Providence
that guides all this, and produces alike these entities with their
epochs, is not its course still through the great deep? Does not it
still speak to us, if we have ears? Here, clothed in stormy enough
passions and instincts, unconscious of any aim but their own
satisfaction, is the blessed beginning of Human Order, Regulation,
and real Government; there, clothed in a highly different, but again
suitable garniture of passions, instincts, and equally unconscious as
to real aim, is the accursed-looking ending (temporary ending) of Order,
Regulation, and Government;--very dismal to the sane onlooker for the
time being; not dismal to him otherwise, his hope, too, being steadfast!
But here, at any rate, in this poor Norse theatre, one looks with
interest on the first transformation, so mysterious and abstruse, of
human Chaos into something of articulate Cosmos; witnesses the wild
and strange birth-pangs of Human Society, and reflects that without
something similar (little as men expect such now), no Cosmos of human
society ever was got into existence, nor can ever again be.
The violences, fightings, crimes--ah yes, these seldom fail, and they
are very lamentable. But always, too, among those old populations, there
was one saving element; the now want of which, especially the unlamented
want, transcends all lamentation. Here is one of those strange,
piercing, winged-words of Ruskin, which has in it a terrible truth for
us in these epochs now come:--
"My friends, the follies of modern Liberalism, many and great though
they be, are practically summed in this denial or neglect of the quality
and intrinsic value of things. Its rectangular beatitudes, and spherical
benevolences,--theology of universal indulgence, and jurisprudence which
will hang no rogues, mean, one and all of them, in the root, incapacity
of discerning, or refusal to discern, worth and unworth in anything,
and least of all in man; whereas Nature and Heaven command you, at your
peril, to discern worth from unworth in everything, and most of all in
man. Your main problem is that ancient and trite one, 'Who is best man?'
and the Fates forgive much,--forgive the wildest, fiercest, cruelest
experiments,--if fairly made for the determination of that.
"Theft and blood-guiltiness are not pleasing in their sight; yet the
favoring powers of the spiritual and material world will confirm to you
your stolen goods, and their noblest voices applaud the lifting of Your
spear, and rehearse the sculpture of your shield, if only your robbing
and slaying have been in fair arbitrament of that question, 'Who is best
man?' But if you refuse such inquiry, and maintain every man for his
neighbor's match,--if you give vote to the simple and liberty to the
vile, the powers of those spiritual and material worlds in due time
present you inevitably with the same problem, soluble now only wrong
side upwards; and your robbing and slaying must be done then to find
out, 'Who is worst man?' Which, in so wide an order of merit, is,
indeed, not easy; but a complete Tammany Ring, and lowest circle in the
Inferno of Worst, you are sure to find, and to be governed by." [20]
All readers will admit that there was something naturally royal in these
Haarfagr Kings. A wildly great kind of kindred; counts in it two Heroes
of a high, or almost highest, type: the first two Olafs, Tryggveson and
the Saint. And the view of them, withal, as we chance to have it, I have
often thought, how essentially Homeric it was:--indeed what is "Homer"
himself but the _Rhapsody_ of five centuries of Greek Skalds and
wandering Ballad-singers, done (i.e. "stitched together") by somebody
more musical than Snorro was? Olaf Tryggveson and Olaf Saint please me
quite as well in their prosaic form; offering me the truth of them as
if seen in their real lineaments by some marvellous opening (through
the art of Snorro) across the black strata of the ages. Two high, almost
among the highest sons of Nature, seen as they veritably were; fairly
comparable or superior to god-like Achilleus, goddess-wounding Diomedes,
much more to the two Atreidai, Regulators of the Peoples.
I have also thought often what a Book might be made of Snorro, did there
but arise a man furnished with due literary insight, and indefatigable
diligence; who, faithfully acquainting himself with the topography,
the monumental relies and illustrative actualities of Norway, carefully
scanning the best testimonies as to place and time which that
country can still give him, carefully the best collateral records and
chronologies of other countries, and who, himself possessing the highest
faculty of a Poet, could, abridging, arranging, elucidating, reduce
Snorro to a polished Cosmic state, unweariedly purging away his much
chaotic matter! A modern "highest kind of Poet," capable of unlimited
slavish labor withal;--who, I fear, is not soon to be expected in this
world, or likely to find his task in the _Heimskringla_ if he did appear
here.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: J. G. Dahlmann, _Geschichte von Dannemark_, 3 vols. 8vo.
Hamburg, 1840-1843.]
[Footnote 2: "Settlement," dated 912, by Munch, Henault, &c. The Saxon
Chronicle says (anno 876): "In this year Rolf overran Normandy with his
army, and he reigned fifty winters."]
[Footnote 3: Dahlmann, ii. 87.]
[Footnote 4: Dahlmann, ii. 93.]
[Footnote 5: _Laing's Snorro_, i. 344.]
[Footnote 6: G. Buchanani _Opera Omnia_, i. 103, 104 (Curante Ruddimano,
Edinburgi, 1715).]
[Footnote 7: His Long Serpent, judged by some to be of the size of a
frigate of forty-five guns (Laing).]
[Footnote 8: This sermon was printed by Hearne; and is given also by
Langebek in his excellent Collection, _Rerum Danicarum Scriptores Medii
AEri._ Hafniae. 1772-1834.]
[Footnote 9: Kennet, i. 67; Rapin, i. 119, 121 (from the _Saxon
Chronicle_ both).]
[Footnote 10: Knut born A.D. 988 according to Munch's calculation (ii.
126).]
[Footnote 11: Snorro, Laing's Translation, ii. p. 31 et seq., will
minutely specify.]
[Footnote 12: Snorro, ii. pp. 24, 25.]
[Footnote 13: Snorro, ii. pp. 156-161.]
[Footnote 14: Snorro, ii. pp. 252, 253.]
[Footnote 15: _Saxon Chronicle_ says expressly, under A.D. 1030: "In
this year King Olaf was slain in Norway by his own people, and was
afterwards sainted."]
[Footnote 16: _Saxon Chronicle_ says: "1035. In this year died King
Cnut.... He departed at Shaftesbury, November 12, and they conveyed him
thence to Winchester, and there buried him."]
[Footnote 17: Munch gives the date 1038 (ii. 840), Adam of Bremen 1040.]
[Footnote 18: Camden, Rapin, &c. quote.]
[Footnote 19: _Buchanani Hist._ i. 130.]
[Footnote 20: _Fors Clavigera_, Letter XIV. Pp. 8-10.]