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Saga -Book

OF THE

Viking Society

for IRortbcrn IRcseaich

Founded in 1892 as the Orkney Shetland and Northern Society

VOL. IX. PART I.

LONDON

Printed for the

Vikinjf Societv for Northern Research

University of London

1920

VIKING SOCIETY

FOR NORTHERN RESEARCH

(Founded in 1892 as the Orkney, Shetland and Northern Society or Viking Club)

1920

presiDent - Sir henry H. Howorth, K.C.I.E., D.C.L., F.R.S

IDiCe* IP reel Dents— Members of Council.

*Sir Israel Gollancz, Litt.D. W. R.-L. Lowe

*James Gray, M.A. Professor Allen Mawer, M.A.

*A. W. Johnston, F.S.A. Scot. A. Shaw Mellor, M.A., M.B..

^Professor W. P. Ker, M.A., LL.D. Cantab.

Ibonorar^ IDiccslpresiDcnte,

The Most Hon.The Marquis OF Zetland Professor Sophus Muller

*Rear-Admiral Sir W. Watson Cheyne, The Marquis of Ruvigny

Bt., K.C.M.G., C.B., LL.D., 'Rev. A. Sandison

F.R.S. . M.P. Mrs. Jessie M. E. Saxby

J. W. Cursitor, F.S.A. Scot. Rev. Pastor A. V. Storm

Miss Cornelia Horsford *The Rt. Hon. T. McKinnon Wood,

Albany F. Major. O.B.E. LL.D., D.L.

* Past Presidents.

1bon. ^reasuvev - w. r.-l. lowe.

1bon. Secretary - Mrs. a. Wintle Johnston. 29, Ashburnham Mansions, Chelsea, London, S.W.IO.

Councillove.

Miss N. Smith Dampier F. P. Marchant

Hellier R. H. Gosselin Ernest Payne, M.A.

r -p r-i^TTXTT^T^Mr- Miss Bertha S. Phillpotts, M.A.,

C^F^Grundtvig Litt.D., O.B.E.

The Rev. A. O. T. Hellerstrom Douglas C. Stedman, B A.

S. F. B. Lane, M.A. W. Barnes Steveni, M.J.I.

J. M. Laughton, M.B., CM. William Traill, F.S.A. Scot.

illUSteeS - Rear-Admiral Sir W. Watson Cheyne, Bt., K.C.M.G., C.B., LL.D., F.R.S., M.P. The Rt. Hon. T. McKinnon Wood, LL.D., D.L.

1bon. BuMtov anD Solicitor - t. Davies jones. JBauKcvs - Lloyds Bank, Limited, Westminster Branch.

PUBLICATIONS.

Saga-Book (Proceedings) and Year Book — issued annually.

Old-Lore Series of Miscellany and Records relating to the Old Norse Earldom of Orkney, Shetland, Caithness and Sutherland — issued quarterly.

Translation Series — Vol. I., Cormac Saga, 6s. 6d. (pub. 7s. 6d.). Vol. n., Elder Edda, 10s. 6d. (pub. 15s.).

Extra Series — Vol. I., Birds of Omen in Shetland (out of print).

Vol. IL, Ruins of Saga-time in Iceland, 12s. 6d. bound (out of print). Vol. in.. Essays on Beowulf, 10s. 6d. (pub. 12s. 6d.).

Miscellaneous — Library Catalogue of the Society, 6d. ; Review Origines Icelandicae, by Eiri'kr Magnusson, M.A., 2s. ; Bibliography of Caithness and Sutherland, Is. 6d. ; Rev. Alex. Pope, Reay (biography), 6d. Grotta-Songr, text, translation and notes, by Eirikr Magnusson, Is. 6d. Darradaljod, text, translation and notes, Eirikr Magnusson, Is. 6d. Sinclairs of Brabsterdorran (genealogy). Is. ; Sword-Dance, Papa-Stour, and four Shetland Airs, 7d.

Prospectus may be obtained on application to the Hon. Secretary.

The Council of the Viking Society do not hold themselves responsible for statements or opinions appearing in Reports, Papers, Reviews, or Notes in the Saga-Book iT/z^ Year Book, the Authors alone being answerable for the same.

VOL. IX.

PART I

^A'J^^f^iyz^. /f ' x/V^/r-Z-^rp-zy^Z^ ,

"HARALD FAIRHAIR"

and his Ancestors. ||

PART I. Bv Sir HENRY H. HOWORTH,

K.C.I.E., D.C.L.. F.K.S.. F.S.A.. Vice-President.

Being two Papers read before the Viking Society. London, on May 4th and November 2n(l. 1918.

p/^//

" HARALD FAIRHAIR '' and his Ancestors.

PEOLOGUE.

I PROPOSE ill the following pages to desci-ibe the reign of the greatest of the Norwegian kings, who probably shares with the famous Emperor Otho the First, the reputation of being the most heroic figure in the European history of the 10th Century — namely, Harald Halfdaneson, known from the profusion and beauty of his locks, as Fairhair, the founder of the kingdom of Norway.

The exceptional features of Harald's career make it necessary, if we are to understand its real meaning, to try and grasp the earlier con- dition of Norway as it may be gathered from the scanty materials alone available. This I prbpose to do shortly, before turning to the Life of the Great King. Especially do I deem it convenient to do so because it is an almost untrodden field in English literature, and I intend, therefore, to condense some of the information on the subject which was admirably sifted by Munch, one of the few great historians the world has known, which I shall quote from Clausen's German translation of the first two volumes, and shall supplement it by the later researches of Vigfusson and Powell, G. Storm, A. Bugge and others.

During recent years it has b(^conie more and more / ^^ probable that the same Scandinavian stock which inhabits the great peninsula has been there from very early times and has probably been very little altered in its more general features. I do not propose

7^

2 Saga-Book of the Viking Society.

at this stage to discuss at length the archaeology of the race — this would involve a long description — nor yet the religion, the laws, or the customs of the people, but only its political history and the distribution and movements of the communities into which it was divided in early mediaeval times. Munch and others have established the conclusion that the Norwegian race in early tinjes comprised three great communities, one of them occupying Norway east of the " keel " or backbone of the country, and two of them occupying the whole seaboard from Norland to the great inlet of Yiken and the Christianiafiord. These were known as the Thronds, in the north-west ; the Hords in the south-west, and the Raums in the Uplands, /.6., the northern part of Norway, east of the Dovrefelds.

Munch made it plain that the stock which peoples the whole maritime district of North- West Norway, including the widely ramified Throndheimfiord and extending from the province of North Mere in the South to that of Norland inclusive, is united by certain unmistakable common features, physical, artistic and linguistic, and notably also by the local nomenclature. In all these respects it differs generally from the people to the South, who are separated from them by Baumdal.

The race occupying the long maritime dis- trict just named were called Thronds (Throendr). What the etymology of the name was, does not seem very certain. Munch suggests that it means the prosperous (op. cit., 114, note 2). Thrond occurs as a personal name in several places in the the Heimskringla, and occurs also as a place-name, notably where it gives its name of Throndheim (i.e,^ the home of the Thronds) to the gi'eat inland fiord of Central Norway.

" Ha aid Fairhair'"' and his Ancestors. 3

The name occurs at a very early period, and is found in the form Tiirowende, in "Widsith" or the Travellers' Tale, one line of which reads : " I was in Throwende," while the indigenous Norwegian chronicle known as the Fundinn Noregr, makes them the earliest inhabitants of Norway.

The province of Halogaland was originally the focus and heart of this community, and a headland called Trondenaes occurs on the north-east side of the Hinn-isle in Halogaland (see Magnusson, Heimskringla IV., 285).

The name Halogaland was long ago explained by Adam of Bremen as meaning the Holy or Sacred Land." He says: ^^ Hoc ignorantes paqani terram illain vocant sanctcuii et beat am, qace tale miracuhtm prcestat itiortalibus.'' This etymology has been adopted by Munch, whom it is generally safe to follow. He says : " Hdlugr is an archaic form of heilagr holy, whence haaloga land the holy land. In Anglo-Saxon it was called Halga- land, which is the same thing, and the modern pronunciation Helge land probably comes from an old form Helga laud." (Alunch op. cit., 1, 98, note 3).

Adam of Bremen speaks of Halagland (as he calls it) as an island near Normannia not less in size than Iceland or Greenland, oy. cit., 245. His mistake was corrected by a scholiast, who says of , it that " it is the furthest part of Nordmannia and nearest to the Scridfingi " — i.e., to the Lapps.

As Munch says, Heligoland, also called Fosete, situated in the bight of the Elbe, is the same name and has no other etymology than that of Holyland. In the case of the Norwegian Holyland, the name is best explained by its having been the oldest seat of the race who dwelt there (ib., 9f)). It further seems to me that he is right in attributing the

4 Saga-Book of the Vikivg Society.

reference in Eyvind Scaldaspieler's famous poem, the Haleyiatal, in which he appUes the name " Mandheim," meaning tlie first homeland of men, not to Suithiod or Sweden, as some have done, but to Halogaland, the country of the hero whose praises he was singing (op. cit., 96, Note 2). The name Tliorschff, now Thorshaug, in the parish of Stadsbygden-in-Fosen to the north of Throndheim, no doubt recalls a famous shrine of Thor in this district, which may have given its name to Halogaland.

The God Thor, or Thor, was well known to the Germanic peoples as well as the Scandinavians. The Anglo-Saxons knew him as Thunor, z.g., the Thunder God and he presided over heaven and the phenomena of the air and thus corresponded to Zeus or Jupiter. It is a daring and perhaps a foolish suggestion to hint that the names Thor and Thrond were connected, and that the Thronds were the special cultivators of the worship of Thor, who was the great god of Western Scandinavia, as Odin seems to have been of the East, where he had probably largely superseded Thor. It is at least noticeable how frequently his name occurs among those of the early Icelandic settlers. Miss Philpotts, in her admirable account of Germanic heathenism, says that at least one out of every five emigrants to Iceland in heathen times bore a name of which Thor formed a part, and in Iceland we hear of settlers consecrating their land to Thor and naming it after him. (Cambridge Mediaeval History, Vol. II., 481). It is interesting to remember that our Thursday still commemorates the famous God, while the winter month of the Norsemen was called Thor's month.

It will be convenient to here set out an account of one of the temples dedicated to Thor. The best

'' Harald Fairhair'"' and his Ancestors. 5

description of such a building is contained in the Eyrbyggja Saga, and the account is worth re- peating at length. AVe there read of an exile from Most, an island off South Hordaland, called Kolf. He had charge of the Temple of Thor in that island, and was a great friend of the God, whence he was styled Thorolf. He was outlawed by King Harald Fairhair, as we shall see. Thereupon he made a great sacrifice to Thor and asked of him whether he should make peace with the King or begone. The reply of the god was that he should go to Iceland. He therefore pulled down the temple and took with him most of its timbers and some mould from under the altar where Thor had sat (probably also the altar itself), and when he reached Iceland he threw over into the sea the pillars of his high seat which had been in the temple, and on one of which Thor w^as carved, and he declared over them that he would settle in Iceland wherever Thor should contrive that the pillars should land. They in fact landed in a tirth he called Broadfirth, which they afterwards called Temple Wick. The promontory where Thorolf had landed was called Thor's Ness, and he afterwards went further to the river called Thor's river, and settled his people there, and there he set up for himself a great house at Temple Wick which he called Temple Stead, and there he built a temple. It had a door in the side wall and near to one end of it. Inside the door stood the pillars of the high seat, and nails were driven into them which were called the God's nails, and within it was a great frith-place (i.^., the sanctuary, a kind of apse), and near by was another house of the fashion, says our author, of a choir in a church, and in the midst of it stood an altar on which lay a ring without a joint, that weighed twenty ounces on which all oaths were sworn, and which

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the chief must wear on his arm at all male "motes" or assemblies. On the altar also stood the blood bowl and therein the blood-rod like a sprinkler, with which the blood from the bowl, which was called " Hlaut," was sprinkled. It was blood which had fiow^ed from beasts that had been sacrificed to the Gods, and round the altar stood the Gods arranged in the holy place. To that temple all men paid toll, and were bound to follow the temple priest in all journeys, as (says the author) do the Thingmen their leaders, but the Chief must uphold the temple at his own cost, so that it should not go to ruin, and hold sacrifices there.

On the ness or headland was a fell, and Thorolf held it in such awe that no unwashed man was allowed to cast his eyes on it and neither man nor beast could be killed on it. Thorolf called it Holy Fell, and he arranged to be buried there when he died, together with all his kindred from the ness, and he ordered that all oaths were to be sworn on the tongue of the ness where Thor had landed, and there he set up a fylki-thing (Eyrbyggja Saga, chapters iii. and iv.). In the Kjalnesinga Saga we have some additional details. It says Thorgrim was a great settler. He had a large temple built in his home-field at Kjalness 100 feet long, and sixty feet wide, to which all his Thing men paid toll. From its end there projected a building shaped like a cap (^.e., an apse). It was arranged with hangings, and had windows all round. Thor stood in the middle, and on either hand the other gods. In the front was an altar, highly wrought and covered on the top with iron, on which burnt a fire which must never go out, and which they called a hallowed fire.

In the notice last mentioned the waiter goes on to tell us that the ring placed on the altar was made

'''' Harald F air hair "" and his Ancestors. 7

of silver, and on it all oaths relating to ordeal cases had to be taken. The blood-bowl was a large one and made of copper, and the blood was sprinkled on arms and heads. The money of the temple was to be spent in entertaining visitors at sacrifices.

Magnusson reports the discovery in recent years of the remains of a private blood-house. These showed that at one end of it was a semi-circular chamber separated from the main building by a party wall.

In sacrificing men, they were to be hurled into the fire which was by the door and was called the pit of sacrifice. From Hank's edition of the Landnama, we learn that before using the ring or swearing upon, it was reddened with the blood of a sacrificed heifer. The temple guardians were chosen at the Thing according to their wisdom and goodness, and had the further duty of ruling the pleadings of cases and naming the judges. They were called " Godher " (op. cit. xxxi — xxxiv).

Returning to Halogaland; an early notice of the district is that contained in King Alfred's version of Orosius, where he quotes the narrative of a visitor who went to see him from Norway who was named Othere, and who claimed to be a native of Halogaland. He told the King (who, by the way, he styles Hlaford or Lord) that his home lay further north than that of any other Northman. Bask ingeniously suggested that he filled an official post in the far north of Norway and collected the taxes there. It is difficult to explain how Othere came to pay a visit to England from so remote a place, and it has been suggested that he was in fact one of Harald's victims and that he actually settled in England and may even have been a jarl Othere or Othir, who is named as

8: Saga- Book of the Viking Society.

taking part m a fight there in the year 911. (See Dahlmann Forschungen, i., Note 410). But this is very doubtful, and there is another candidate for the distinction. The name Othere was not uncommon in Norway. Othere's notice of the far north is one of the most interesting relics of 9th Century literature which we possess, but cannot be pursued here.

In the romantic legend about the origin of the Norwegian rulers contained in the Fundinn Noregr and also as an introduction to the Orkney Saga and which is founded largely on geographical a^ssonances and names, the district inhabited by the Thronds is treated as the earliest home of the Norsemen. We read of the two brothers Norr and Gorr who divided the country between them, Norr taking the inland parts and Gorr the islands and outscars. The latter was to have all the islands between which and the mainland he could pass in a ship with a fixed rudder. His sons were Heiti and Beiti. who were also sea kings and fought against Norr's sons, in which first one side won and then the other. Thus we are told that Beiti ran into Throndheim and lay in the place called Beitsfiord and Beitstede, thence he made them drag his ship from the innermost bight of Beitstede and so north over the isthmus. That is to where the Naumdale comes down from the east. He himself sat on the poop and held the tiller in his hand, and claimed for his own all that lay on the larboard side, including much cultivated land. Munch, in discussing this Saga, rationaHses it by claiming it as a proof that the peninsula bounded by the Naumdal Eid or transit, was peopled by the same section of the Thronds as the seaboard, and not by an invasion from Throndheim fiord itself. Among the names com- pounded with Beit above named, he mentions in

" Ndnild Fairhair'' (ind /us A/k estors. 9

this district Beitstadt and Beitstadt fiord, Beitsjor, also called Beit's Sjor — i.e.^ Beit's landing-place, and the lake of Beit. (Op. cit. i., 99 and Note).

There is a good deal of evidence to show, as we shall see, that the Thronds were once ruled by a special dynast}^ of kings who probably controlled the whole race. One of this Koyal stock, on the extinction of the race of Harald, became the King of the whole of Norway — namely, Hakon the "Indi. His deeds and those of his ancestors were recorded in a famous poem (an imitation of Thiodulf's Ynglingatal), and written by Hakon's Court poet, Eyvind Skaldaspieler, who lived in the end of the 10th Century. The poem is referred to in the preface to the Ynglinga Saga, and there it is expressly said that Eyvind derived his hero from Saemingr, the son of Yngwi Frey. These rulers were referred to in the list as Kings and iarls of Halogaland, which originally, doubtless, comprised the whole country of the Thronds.

Eyvind'G poem has most unfortunately only been preserved in fragments, which barely include one-fifth of the whole. Four of them are preserved in the King's lives ; a fifth in the MS. known as Fagrskinna, and the rest in the Edda and Skalda. These fragments are given by Vigfusson and York-Powell (See Corpus Poet. Bor., i., 251 — 253), and in a restored text (lb. ii., 657—658).

Fortunately, portions of the poem have survived as prose paraphrases and quotations elsewhere. Aniong them we have preserved a list of Hakon's professed ancestors derived through many generations from Saemingr, the son of Odin and the giantess Skadhi, whose reputed descend- ants were known as Saemings, and formed the

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Sag a- Book of the Viking Society.

third great Royal stock of the North, the others being the Ynglings and the Scioldings.

In the following list it will be seen that the earlier rulers of Haloaaland are called kinoes, and the later ones iarls : —

	KINGS.		IARLS.
1.	Odin, who married the	14.	Hersir (? Hersi).
	giantess Skadhi.	15.	Brandr-iarl.
2.	Saemingr.	16.	Brvniolfr
3.	Godh-hialti.	17.	Bardhr.
4.	Svverd-hialti.	18.	Hergils.
5.	Hodhbroddr.	19.	Havarr.
6.	Hiniinlevgr.	20.	Haraldr Trygill.
7.	Vedhr-hallr.	21.	Throndr.
8.	Havarr Handrami.	22.	Haraldr.
9.	Godgestr.	23.	Herlaugr.
10.	Heimgestr Huldar-	24.	Griotgardhr.
	brodhir.	25.	Hakon Urna-iarl.
11.	Gylaugr.	26.	Sigurd Hlada-iarl
12.	Godhlaugr.	27.	Hakon Hlada-iarl
13.	Mundill Gamli.

Note.— WJg Vigfusson and Powell, C.P.B. ii., 522 and 3^ taken from Eyvind's poem and The Flatey Book. It will be noticed that one of these iarls is called Throndr. I think Vigfusson is unreasonably sceptical about at least the later of these names. The order of the names 11 and 12 is reversed in the Ynglingatal (see below).

The first of those in the above list who is mentioned in the Ynglinga Saga was a king called Gudlaug who belonged to the heroic age. He is the first ruler of any part of Norway to be named in the Heimskringla. We there read that Jorund and Eric were the sons of Yngwi, son of Alric, King of Sweden. They were great warriors, and one summer were harrying Denmark, when G-udlaug {i.e. Godlaugr), " King of Haloga," happened to be there. With him they had a battle, and his ship was " cleared," i.e.^ its crew were destroyed, and he was captured. They brought him to land at

" Harald Fairhair'" and his Ancestors. ii

Straumeyjarnes and there hanged him, and there his folk lieaped up a mound over him. Two verses of Eyvind are quoted in the Yn^linga Saga for this account. In them we are further told that the " ness," or headland, was known far and wide from being marked by a stone on the king's mound. (Ynglinga Saga, ch. 26. For the poem see Yigfusson and Powell, Corp. Poet. Bor., i., p. 252). The locality of Straumeyjarnes is not now known. The two Swedish brothers got great fame from this deed.

Presently, we are told, Jorund became King at Upsala, and he often went a-warring, and one summer went to Denmark and harried in Jutland, and went up the Lim-fiord w^here he plundered, and then landed his ships in Odd- sound, when there came thither G-ylaug, King of Halogaland, the son of the above named Gudlaug, and a battle took place between the two kings. The people of the country having heard of it came together from all sides, both great and small, and King Jorund's men w^ere overwhelmed by the multitude and his ships were " cleared." He himself leapt overboard and began to swim, but they laid hands on him and brought him to land, and King G-ylaug reared a gallows, and led Jorund thither and hanged him on it. This w^as reported by Thiodolf in the Ynglingatal (Op. cit., ch. 28), and probably was derived by Eyvind from that poem. I do not understand Yigfusson's note on this verse. (See op. cit., i., 523).

The next time we read of Halogaland was when Adils was reigning in Sweden. We are told that he was fond of horses, and sent a present of one called "Raven" to Godguest, the King of Halogaland. King Godguest mounted it, and the horse threw him and he was killed (Ynglinga Saga,

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op. cit. 33). This was at Omd in Halogaland. Omd was the eastern part of the island of Hin, novv' called Hindo in Halogaland. (See the fourth volume of Magnusson's Heimskringla, page 270), Up to this point Halogaland is the only part of Norway, and its kings are the only rulers of that land named in the Heimskringla, and it all points to its having then been the focus and centre of Norwegian life (at least on its west coast) in very early time. Nothing in fact is reported of the eastern and southern parts of Norway until the Ynolinos invaded it after the death of Kino; Inoiald of Sweden.

o

Turning to later times, we have a curious legend professing to show why the kings of Halo- galand became iarls. In the poem of Eyvind, as we learn from the fragment on early Norwegian history known as Agrip, where it is quoted as the authority, it is said that Hersi (the fourtenth in the above list) was king in Naumdale (a fylki or shire of the Thrond-land). His wife's name was Wigtha, after whom the river Wigtha in Neamdal {sic) was said to have been named. Hersi having lost her, wished to make away with himself in order to join her, and asked if any precedent could be found for a King having committed suicide. On search being made a precedent was found for a iarl having done so, but not for a king. Hersi then went to a certain house on a hill and rolled himself down, saying that he had rolled himself out of the king's title. He then hanged himself in a iarl's title, and his offspring would never after- wards take upon them the title of king (C.P.B., 528). This story is an interesting folk-tale. It is clearly an invention to cover some less romantic cause which it was necessary to disguise. I have not seen this suggested, but it seems

" Ham Id Fait hair'' and his Ancestoj s. 13

highly prohable. Kings in old days did not generally exchange their position for that of iarls except under compulsion. Let us, therefore, turn aside to another more probable folk tale.

It would seem that at an early time Haloga- land ^Yas divided into a number of shires or " fylkis," each of them with its petty ruler, but all subordinate to one supreme chief, w4io had his seat in the fylki called Naumdal, and the first of the iarls of Halogaland in the list above quoted is called King of Naumdal in a tale to which we will now turn.

Harald Fairhair was not the first Conqueror wdjo subdued this part of Norway. We are told in the saga of King Hakon that Ey stein was called the ruthless (hardhradi), the njighty (inn riki), the evil (inn illi), and the evil-minded (illnidhi). The focus of his wide realm was Heathmark where he lived, and whence he ruled the Uplands in Eastern Norway (Ynglinga, ch. 49-54). He invaded and conquered the " Isles fylki " and the " Sparebiders fylki " in the district of Throndheim, over which he set his son Osmund, whom the Thronds presently slew\ He thereupon niade a second invasion of Throndheim, which he harried far and wide and completely subdued its people. This we are ex- pressly told in the Saga of Hakon the Good, ch. xiii., and it probably occurred in the time of Harald Fairhair's father or grandfather.

Ari tells us that in order to punish the murder of his son, Eystein imposed a njost ignominious punishment on the people of Throndheim. He bade them choose whether they would be governed by his thrall who was called Thorir Faxi or his hound who was called Saur. They thought they would have more of their own way under the latter, on whom therefore their choice fell. They then

14 Saga-Book of the Viking Society,

had the dog bewitched, so that he had the wisdom of three men, and lie barked two words and spoke the third. A collar was wrought for him and chains of gold and silver, and when the roads were bad his courtmen carried him on their shoulders. A high seat was decked out for him, and he sat on a horse as kings were wont to do. He dwelt at the Inner Isle, i.e. the Eyna fyiki, and had his abode at the stead called Saur's home, and it was said he came to his death in this wise — the wolves fell on his flocks and herds, and his courtmen egged him on to defend his sheep ; so he leapt from his horse and went to meet the wolves, but they tore him asunder. This folk-tale may contain some elements of truth, for it was quite after the taste of these grim Norsemen to humiliate their enemies by a punishment of this kind.

Eystein, we are told, did many other marvellous deeds among the Throndheimers, and to escape from his ravage and cruelty many Lords and other people fled the country abandoning, their old odal lands, i.e. lands that paid no tax (op. cit.).

Among them was Ketil Jamti, the son of Onund, iarl of Sparbyggja-fylki now Sparburn and he crossed over the keel or Great Mountains and went eastwards with a great company of men w^ho took their families with them. They cleared the woods and peopled the great countrysides there, and the country was thence known as Jamtaland (ib. ch. xiv.).

Ketil's grandson was Thorir Helsing, who was outlawed from Jamtaland for murders he had committed there, and migrated thence through the woods to the East, where many people joined him, and the district was afterwards called Helsingland after him. The Norwegians, however, only settled the western part of Helsingland, while the

" Harald Fair hair'' and his Ancestors. 15

coastlands of the province were settled by the Swedes. All this seems to me quite rational and probable. The migration eastwards continued in later days, tlius we read how, in the reign of Harald Fairhair, Wethorm, the son of Wemund the Old, a miglity hersir, fied from King Harald into Jamtaland and cleared the wild forests or marks there (Landnamadel v., 15, 1).

What is plain from all this story is that the Thronds were at that time conquered by Eystein the Great, the King of the Uplands, who had other sons beside Osmund, and we nowhere hear that his victims recovered their independence again. I would urge as a most reasonable solution of the difficulty that Eystein, in fact, divided the country among his own relatives, and that the various Kinglets w^ho were found in Throndheim, Naumdal and North Mere when Harald arrived were his descendants. In one case only, namely, in that of the specially sacred Land of the Thronds, to which the name Halogaland was now limited, was an exception apparently made. There, as we have seen, the old dynasty which claimed descent from Odin continued to reign, not as Kings but as iarls — that is, they paid tribute to the conquerors. The critical distinction between a King and an iarl was the payment of skat or tribute, and a ruler, however small his kingdom, if he paid no skat w^as styled a king. This seems to be a rational explanation of the change of the rulers of Haloga- land from the status of Kings to that of iarls.

As I have said, Halogaland (the land of the Thronds) was doubtless divided from early times into several " fylkies " or provinces, answering to the Northfolk and Southfolk in England, who were all governed by the same code of laws but had their own independent administration. Four of them

1 6 Saga-Book of the Vikmg Society.

were situated on the coast, namely, Raumafylki, Nord Mere, Naunidal, and the most northern, i.e. Halogaland. Halogaland was separated b}- an inlet named Nid from N. Mere in the South, and had no definite boundary in the North, where it bordered on the great stretch of land reaching to the North Cape, which was peopled by a thin sprinkling of Lapps. The Norse inhabitants were chiefly gathered in the southern parts, where the temple of Thor was planted on Thor's Ness. In later times it furnished a few emigrants to Iceland, and produced some famous writers, notably the poet of the oldest Eddaic poem, the Yolundarkuidha, and there at Tiolto was the home of the last great skald of the Viking period, Eyvind Skaldaspieler, see A. Bugge (Op. cit., 210.) Each of the other fylkies had its sacred fane, called Hof or Thorshof, where the great gods were worshipped and which formed the focus and central point of the shire. Each of the smaller divisions, also had its Thor's temple, and its " Thing," or Assembly. On the west side of the Oreat Mountain, in fact, Thor was everywhere, and his larger temples w^ere the finest buildings in the land.

The whole district of Throndheini, called Drontliemen's by Adam of Bremen, was divided into a series of cantons, some large and some small forming eight "inland fylkies," as they are called ; they numbered 8 to 10 in the list quoted below, each with its petty ruler and all bound together by a common dialect and laws. The names of these were: — The Orkdale fylki, so called from the river Orke ; this is the westernmost of the fylkies and on the south of the Firth; Gauldoela fvlki, from the river Gaul; Strinda fylki and Stioradoela fylki, from the river Stiora ; these were grouped about the entrance of the fiord ; further inland there lived the so-called Inlanders, namely,

'•^ Harald Fairhair " and his Ancestors. 17

Verdaela fylki, so calle(i from tlie river Vera ; Skeyna fylki. Sparbyggia fylki, and Kyiia fylki.

I will now abstract from Munch : " Nordnioen denes aeldste Giideog Helte Sagn, 178," a list of the fylkies into which the land of the Thronds (which was subject to the Frosta Thing) was divided, with the situation of their principal temples, where known : —

1.	Haleygja fylki	Throndarnes
2.	Naumdael fylki	Jod
3.	Sparbyggia fylki	Maerindelni
4.	Eyna fylki	Hiissladir (Saurshaugz)
5.	Verdaela fylki	Haugr
6.	Skeyna fylki	?
7.	Stiordoela fylki	Stjoiadal
8.	Strinda fylki	Hladir
9.	Gauldoela fylki	Medalhus
10.	Orkdoela fylki	Niardvik
11.	Nordrmoera fylki	Yrjum
12.	Raumsdoela fylki	v eey.

The larger part of these fylkies, as is obvious, took their name from the principal valleys which traversed them. The two first and the two last faced the sea, and were largely backed by moun- tains and forests which made access to them from the land side almost impossible at this point. North Mere was separated from Halogaland by a narrow Sound called the Nid, which gives access to the great inland Throndheim fiord that consists of a congeries of converging valleys and w^ater- ways. Naumdale lay north of the great Firth, and was nearer to Iceland than any part of Norway, and naturally supplied a greater number of the emigrants, who came from Norwa}^ to that island, than any other district. TheThrond extended southward to North-Mere fylki which had its counterpart in South Mere, but was, however, occupied by another race, the Hords. The two Meres apparently originally represented waste

1 8 Sdgii-Book of the Viki7ig Society.

districts separating the territories of the Thronds and Hords. They are now separated by a fylki called Raumdal, which is the frontier of the Thronds in the South. Smaa-land, a similar district in Sweden, was called Mere by Othere.

Behind these four districts lay, as I have said, the sprawling Throndheim fiord, throwing out its arms in different directions, like a huge starfish, and reminding us of the Lake of the Four Cantons in Switzerland. It was naturally landlocked, and its inhabitants were not fishermen and navigators, but cultivated their rich lands and migrated eastward, and not westward, when conditions demanded it, and in this way largely peopled the Osterdals and the northern frontier of Sweden.

Having described the Thronds let us now turn to their neighbours, the Hords. They gave their name to Hordaland, now known as Sondre Bergen- husamt, which was the kernel of their land. Munch, in his analysis of the population of South West Norway, shows that from Hordaland itself, north- wards as far as the Northern frontier of South Mere, the land was peopled by Hords. This is shown by the common dialect prevailing there, and especially by the fact that it was all subject to the same code of Laws and was obedient to the same great Thing or National Assembly.

This code was known as the Gulathingslag, and took its nanje from Gula in North Horda- land, and no doubt embodied the old Common Law of the Hords. It was also obeyed in later times beyond the borders of the Hords themselves by at least two communities, which once no doubt, had local codes of their own, namely, the Bugians in Bogaland and the district of Agder, both of them famous. To them we will return presently. The Hords, properly so called, occupied

" Harald Fairhair^' and his Ancestors. 19

the fy Ikies of North and South Hord aland, Har- danger, Sogn, HaUingsyadal, Waldres, South Fiord, Nortli Fiord, and the western part of Gud- brandsdal called Lorn or Loar (Munch H. N. F. i. 110).

South of this land of the Hords was Kogaland, /.6., the land of theKygiar orRugians. The two, how- ever, were very close akin. The Rugians held the €oastand also the islands as far as the eastern district called the Vik: the frontier between the two ran between the hamlets of Nedenaes and Bratsberg called Rygiarbit in old days. Originally Eogaland also included the western part of Thelemarken with the so-called Robygger whence Robygdelag got its name. The latter points to the Rugians having once had a code of their own, and dominated Agder. Munch suggests that Robygger is short for Rogbyg- ger. (Munch, op. cit., 107).

In regard to Agder, it vvas once a separate kingdom and tlie seat of more than one legend. It seems plain that earlier however it formed a part of the land of the Rugians. The name, according to Munch, originally merely meant a strip of coast, and was given to the maritime border between the Ryfylki and the Vik, part of which, was known as RvL;iarbit. At all events, it is plain that during the Middle ages the whole of Rogaland and Agder were sul)ject to the Gulalag.

Both the Hords and Rugians were known in very early times. The Hords have been very reasonably associated with the Kharudes, who formed a section of the army that invaded Gaul under Ariovistus, in Caesar's times, and who are also mentioned in the Morumentum Ancyranum, dating from the reign of Augustus, and by Ptolemy. They were probably in part at least living in

20 Saga-Book of the Viking Society.

Jutland, and doubtless gave its name to Harde- J Syssel in that peninsula.

The Rugians (the Rygir of the Northern writers) also had colonies south of the Baltic. J The island of Rugen was no doubt connected with them. They are, in fact, mentioned as Ulmerugii or Island-Rugii by Jordanes and in the legends of Scandinavia as Holm-rygir. Rugii are also described as living near the Vistula, and are met with in the legends of the Goths and Lombards, and took a part in the great Teutonic invasion of the 4th and 5th centuries.

The two tribes, as I have said, were closely united in the most ancient Sagas and in the early romantic history of Norway called the Fundinn Noregr, we are told that Gard Agde, the son of Nor the Just, ruled over Agder, Rogaland Horda land, Sogn, the Fiords and South Mere. According to the same document, Gard Agde's sons were Hord, King of the Hords, Rugalf of the Rugians, Thrum of Egden, Wegard of Sogn fiord, Freygard of the Firths, Thorgard of South Mere and Griotgard of Nord Mere. (Munch, op. cit., 110, and note 3).

It is a curious fact, that has not been so far as I know noticed, that Odoaker, who deposed the last Roman Emperor Romulus Augustulus and occupied his place, probably came from this district of Norway. He ruled over a confederacy of four tribes — namely, the Rugii, the Turcilingi, the Sciri and the Heruli. In one place Jordanes calls him '' genere Rmjus.'^ While in another he calls him " Turcilingorimi rex''

It would seem that the Turcilingi were, in fact, a tribe of the Rugii. What is interesting to us is that their name is clearly compounded of the

*' Harald Fair hair'''' and his Ancestors, 21

Scan<lin;ivifin name Thurkil. The Sciri it has long ago been suggested gave its name to Sciringshal, the famous eai'ly trading mart, situated in the king- dom of Westfold, (|uite near Rogaiand. A colony of them seems to have settled at the mouth of the Vistula, where Pliny puts them. The name also reminds us of " the Scoringa " of Paul the Deacon. In regard to the Heruli, the most puzzling of all the tribes who invaded the Roman Empire, who filled such a notable place in the history of the 4th and .5th Century, and who apparently formed the great bulk of the army of Odoakar, I believe they were no other than Hords or Haeretha-men with a somewhat altered name. At least I know of no other tribe but the Heruli to which Jordanes' language can apply. He says of them : " Qui inter omnes Srandiae itationes nomeu sibi ob nimium proceritatem affectant prae- cipuumr (Jordanes Hist. Goth., ch. 8). Pro- copius has much to say of them as a seafaring race, and tells us how a l)ranch of them, after their great migration, returned again to their old home in Scandinavia, and that they "settled near the Goths, the most numerous of the peoples of Thule." They probably were the tribe otherwise called Hirri.

Jordanes speaks of a King Kodulv, who visited Theodoric in Italy. A. Bugge would identify him with the King of the Heruli of the same name mentioned by Procopius, and with the Koadulv mentioned in the famous Roksetenn in East Gothland, who reigned over a number of tribes in South- Western Norway. Aruth.was the name of another (Jhief of the HeruH. Bugge identifies it with the name Hord (See A. Bugge JJie Wikinger, I. 16 and 17). The names in the list are corrupted almost beyond recognition, but something can be

22^ Sag a- Book of the Viking Society.

made of them. There are the Tilae or people of Thelemark,ancl the Granii,no doubt the people who gave its name to the fylki of Grenlaiid near E-ogaland. In Agandziae, Zeuss and MuUenhof suggest, we have the same stock as the people of Agder, the former adding the phrase : " Vielleicht nur in Gothischeu Muvde lungebildet mit participial endung.'' The Ethelrugi Zeuss would make the Rugians of the west part of Thelemark. The Arochiranni, Munch divides into Arochirani, and makes the latter a corruption of Hoi'ds and of Kaumi, and Sygni, i.e., the people of Sogn. (Zeuss Die Deutsche und der Nachbar-stamme, 507; Munch 1.124).

There still remains another famous stock, the Burgundians, who very probably came from this district. It is usual to derive them from the small Baltic island of Bornholm, where a colony of them doubtless existed, but like Kugen it was probably only a colony, and it is noteworthy that the chief centi'e in the fylki of South Mere was called Borgund.

A. Bugge condenses a graphics picture of the south-west districts of Norway occupied by the Hords and Kugians in early times, and especi- ally Yaederen and the Hardanger fiord, the lowland in the south of Norway, enclosed by the sea on the one side and the fjeld on the other hand, which already in the bronze age, the early iron age and even earlier, was one of the most populous districts of Norway.

Its excellent soil made it the most fertile part of Norway, enabling it to support a large population. From Yaederen was the shortest passage to Jutland, and both districts seem at one time to have been closely united together. Thence also the passage was the shortest to

" Harald Fairhair'" and his Ancestors. 23

England. At the time of the great race migrations as is shown by its archaeological remains, it was closely tied to the lands beyond the North Sea.

In the Viking time Hordaland and Rogaland were among the great foci of piracy in Norway, and were the homes of some of the greatest of the pirate chiefs —of Geirmund and his brother Hamund Heljarskinn and of Anund Trefot, who were descended from the old kings of Horda- land (A. Bugge, op. cit. I. 205).

In early times again, Yaederen was the special home of design in handicrafts and of carved Runic stones in Norway. They were doubtless learnt in the West, where the arts were much more developed. Certain stones found in the district, and notably the famous Kleppe stone, are markedly like those from the Isle of Man and the Hebrides. It was from the West that the shorter Hunic stave which prevailed in Yaederen at one time and also other artistic ideas must have come, and were thence imported into East Gothland and the island of Gotland. It was in this district also that memorial stones began to be erected which were clearly inspired by those in the West, in the Hebrides and the Isle of Man. (A. Bugge, Die Wikinger, 208 and 209).

After the Viking time, Yaederen sank again into obscurity. Professor Sars is of opinion that Harald Fairhair, when he conquered Western Norway, laid a particularly heavy hand on this district so that it never recovered again during the Middle Ages. It occurs sometimes in the sagas of the time of Olaf Trygvesson and Olaf Haraldson, but no such heroes as Erling Skjalgsson of Sole, are then heard of It must be remembered, however, that after Norway became united into a

24

Saga-Book of the Viking Society,

was a

great

not the same scope for scale that there was in

kingdom, there buccaneering on the earlier time.

Half, or Halv, was * King of Hordaland at the beginning of the Viking time, and was the hero of a poem which now only survives in the Half's Saga. In later times, this poem partly inspired Frithiofs Saga and also Esaias Tegner in his famous story. Other poems also existed about other kings in Hordaland and Rogaland. Thus there has been preserved a strophe from one about the brothers Geirmund and Hamund Heljarskin above men- tioned, who were so alike that their own mother could not distinguish them.

At the beginning of the Viking period its chiefs were apparently already intermarrying with Anglo-Saxon wives. A. Bugge identifies the Ljufvina of the Saga, who married Hjorz Halvsson, with the Anglo-Saxon name Leofwynn or Lewina, the female complement of the well- known Anglo-Saxon man's name Leofwine. He suggests that he lived at the beginning of the 9th Century, and was the fathei' of Geirmund and his brother above named. In the Saga she is called the daughter of the King of Biarma, but this is clearly a mistake, for at this time the Norsemen had not found their way to the White Sea, and her name clearly shows she was an Anglo-Saxon. As we shall see, at the great battle of Hafursfiord, there were pre- sent Western warriors. Among them, perhaps, as Gustav Storm has suggested, was Olaf the White from Dublin. The poet Hornklofi, apostrophises the " Western swords." Among these were, no doubt, the swords inlaid with the names of English makers on which my friend Lorange wrote such an excellent monograph. The spears and white

•* Harald Fair hair'" and his Ancestirs. 25

shields (probably made of the linden or lime tree), of those who came to the great fight, were also doubtless importations.

A. Biigge also attributes one of the Eddaic poems to an author from Hordaland — namely, the splendid Hyndlaliod. Its author, Ottar, sprang from the old Kings of Hordaland, and was of the same stock as (jreirnmnd Heljarskinn and on the mother's side was related to Hordakari, whose family is described by Snorri as the most famous one in Hordaland. To it Eriing Skjalgsson belonged. Ottar became a Viking and i*esided in the West, and Bugge would identify him with Ottar the iarl, or Ottar the black, who is mentioned as raiding in England in 910—9-20 (Op. cit., 207).

So famous were the Hords, tliat Hordaland is the name by which Norway is first referred to in our own vernacular literature, and from it the fii'st piratical attack of the Vikings was made on our English coasts The name occurs in the Anglo- Saxon Chronicle as Haeretha land (see A.S.(J. MSS., D. & E. sub. ann., 787). By the Irish writers the name is given in the form Hirotha or Irruaith. (See Todd, Chronicle of the Gaedhill and Gael. xxxv. I., note).

Anothei' and more usual name foi* Norway in the Irish writers was Lochlannoch or the land of the fiords or firths, a specially appropriate name for this coast of Noi'way, where two of the fylkies weie known as North Eiord and South Fiord.

It is a pity that we have so litth^ recorded about the local history of this district before the time of Harald Fairhair, for it is quite plain that the Norwegian raids upon the British Isles for a period of nearly eighty years aftei* the one just

26 Saga-Book of the Viking Society.

mentioned (the real date of which, as I long ago showed, was 793) down to the battle of Hafurs- fiord, were conducted in great part, if not altogether, by the men of Hordaland. These raids, as well as the story of the earlier settle- ments of the Norwegians in the West, are how- ever, much too large a subject to be treated in this prologue, and need a special memoir to illustrate them.

When Harald comes on the scene we find him marrying the proud daughter of the King of Hordaland, who refused to wed him till he was mastei- of all Norway. This shows the pretensions of the race at that time and also its wealth and prosperity.

The country occupied by the Hords was divided like that of the Thronds into a number of fylkies, each with its great Thor temple, its local Thing and its large Hall, the dwelling of its local ruler. These fylkies are thus enumei'ated bv Munch, who ogives the corresponding '• county towns " where the institutions in question were planted. They were as follows : —

Name of			Site of Hof or
Fylki.			Thor's Temple.
Sunnmoera	fylki	{i.e.^ South Mere)	Borgund
Firdha		[i.e.^ the Firths)	Gaulum
Sygna		{i e., Sogn) ...	.. Vik
Horda			Gula and Mostri
Valdres			Aurdal
Haddinjg-jada	li ,,		.. AH
Rygjia			Gond
Eo^da		CAo-der)	Thruma

These different fylkis had a common centre at Gula in Hordaland, from which their code of laws

'*' Harald Fairhair^^ and his Ajices/ors 27

was named. Each, however, had its separate ruler. Although styled kings, they no doubt accepted the hegemony of the ruler of the domin.ant fylki of Hordaland, the kinc^ of which at the accession ot Harald Fairhair was the latter's father-in-law, Eric.

Having dealt with the Thronds and the Hoi'ds, we will now turn to the third main division of the Norse people — namely, the Kaunis. The great area east of the Dovrefjelds and west of Sweden, and bounded on the north by huge forests and wastes, was in early times, so far as can be seen, peopled only by a veiy scanty population of Finns, divided into two sections witli very different histories. A northern section occupying a hilly and not too fertile land, and a southein one com- prising the fertile lands round the C'htistiania fiord and eastward as far as West Gothland. The former was known as Alfheim, and was so- called from the two great rivers, with their affluents, which watered it— namely, the Glommen or Kauma. and the Klar-elf or Gotlia.

Munch identities the Alfheimers with the Hilleviones of Pliny, the Helvikones of Tacitus, and the Heliouen of Ptolemey. Pliny snys of them that they came from another world, which Munch explains as meaning that they were immigrants into the country where they were then living. He further argues that they came from the North and occupied a district once occupied by another people. With this he compares the legendary story preserved in the so-called Fundi nn Noregr, about the origin of the Norway peoples. It tells us that Nor (the e[)onymos of the Northmen) had a son Rauma, who was settled in Alfheim, which included all the country through which the two rivers flowed. By Vergdis, the daughter of the giant Thrym, Kauma had thi'ee sons among

28 Saga-Book of the Vikijig Society.

whom he divided his realm. Bi oin tc)(k Haumdal ; Brand, Gudbrandsdal ; and Alf, Osterdal and all the coniitry north of the Worm as far as the Gaut-Elf and the Kaum-Elf, the modern Gota and Glommen He goes on to say that other sons of Raum settled in Hadaland, Haddingadal and Ringeriki, which he looks upon as later acquisitions of the Raums. The focus of their country in early times was apparently Raumariki, so-called from the river Rauma, and hence the race which peopled it were afterwards known as Raums, while the name Alfheim was restricted to the fylki, bounded on eithei- side by the two great I'ivei's just named, which had a different history. The Uplands, propei'ly so called, comprised the fylkies or counties of Gudbrandsdal, Hedemark, Thoten, the southern part of Hej'dalen, Raumariki, and generally the country watered by the Rauma, the Logen, the Worm and (Tlommen rivers.

It is interesting to find some of the names sur- viving^ in this district in use as eai'lv as the time of Jordanes. He speaks of the Raumarici, the Ragnarici and the Fervii*, ( .'^ corruption of Fei'dir).

Munch iiives us a list of these fvlkies in the Uplands, with the sites of the great Thor temples, marking the central focus of each of them : —

Fylki. Site of Temples.

Rauma fvlki ... Ullinshof at UlleisaUri

Hardha ,, ... Thotmi

Ringariki ,, ... Niardharhof and a temple at Gron

Heina ,, .. Thorshof at Redahu (Vang), a

hof at Cyjunir and another

at Skaun Eyvtridalir ... ... Alfrhimir

Gudbrandsdalir ... Fron near Hundthorp

'''' Hnrald Fairhair^' and his Aucesiors. 29

Eysteiii the Great, whom 1 have spoken of above, was the ruler of the Uplands. I have already described his famous campaign against the Thronds. He had several sons namely Hogni and Frothi, Eystein the Younger, and Osmund, While Hedemark or Heathmark, was the centre of his realm and he was sometimes called King of Hedemark, he was also the ruler of the great tylkies of Hadeland, Thoten, Raumariki, Gudbrandsdal, and Osterdaler. He was in fact the great overlord of the Raumfolk, and doubtless belonoed to a verv old stock.

The fylkies, over which he ruled, were grouped round the great lake formerly called Miors and now known as Mjosen, the second largest lake in Norway, and containing a famous sacred island with a noted shrine of Thor. It was also known as the Watersend (Magnusson HeimskringlalV., 265), and stretches from Gudbrandsdal to Raumariki.

Hedemark is the district north of Raumariki, and bounded on the east by the Glommen and by the Wormen the river of Gudbrcindsdal. Its name shows it was a frontier district or mark. Thoten, the modern Toten, was bounded on the east by the Mjosen lake and the Wormen, which separated it from Hedemark, on the south by Raumariki. Hadeland was situated immediately to the 8.W. of Thoten and bordered the Randsford.

The districts which were occupied by the Thronds, Hords and Raums were Dot always contermitious, which accounts for their different customs, laws and dialect. Munch has shown very clearly what happened. It was similarly explained by Geiger in regard to Sweden. The earlier tribal settlements were doubtless once quite isolated. Each tribe having round it as a protection a

30 Saga-Book of the Viking Society.

Mark or frontier, which, iii the North really meant a wide stretch of impassable forest. As the population giew the forest was gradually reclaimed by industrious settlers — saeter's they are called in the North. The Anglo Saxons called them saetas, as in Dorsaetas, Defnsaetas, etc. They increased in numbers, and gradually pushed on as an advanced guard of each tribe until the two streams met.

Munch tells us that their ancient homes are marked both in the North and South by differ- ences in dialect, pointing to there having been a gap between them at one time. " A mark," in fact, that is a stretch of unoccupied land, separated in each case the great tribal areas. It was the best protection available in a wild country. The intervening gaps were afterwards filled up by immigrants from either side. In this way the upper parts of the so-called Osterdals were gradually encroached upon by settlers from Throndheim, and we find the people in them speaking the dialect of the Thronds. The Thrond speech extends to Noros on the Upper Glommen, but south of that town not a trace of it is to be found. There they speak the Rauma dialect as far as Quickne, a place near wher*e the Glommen and the Orka come together, and where there is another similar frontier. Munch says that it is clear the settling of this part of the country has come from two sides, and that the streams of population ran from Tonset in the north to the Lower Neendal in the south.

So much for the frontier between the Raunis and the Thronds. The evidence points to similar results in the south-west between the former and the Hords. Munch shows that the inhabitants of the upper parts of the valleys to the east of

*' Harald Fairhair'" and his Ancestors, 31

the mountains aiul south of Gudbrandsdal — i.e., of Waldres and Hallingdal, are in dialect, appear- ance and habits much more like their neighbours on the other side of the mountains in Sogn and Hardanger, who were Hords, than with those of their neighbours in the lower part of the same valleys showing w^hence the latter came. On the other hand, their land in Hadeland, Sigdal and Kingariki, obviously received their first inhabitants from the west — i.e., from the land of the Hords by the easy route of Fillefjeld Hemsedalsfjeld, the x\urlandsfjeld and the heights of Ustedal. This becomes more probable when we remember that Waldres and Hallingdal were in ancient times treated as part of the ancient Hord confederacy, and were subject to the jurisdiction of the Gula- thing. In this district, therefore, we .igain have two streams of people — one from the West and the other from E-aumdal It is not only the valleys belonging to the water shed of the Drams Elv to which this applies. Thelemark is also divided into two portions separated by their dialect. That in the Eastern, is quite unlike that in the Western '• setars," and it cannot be doubted that the two sections of Thelemarken got their population partly from the East — i.^,, from Westfold, which was perhaps once called Tliyle or Thule, and partly from the West from the land of the Rugians.

Munch has collected a good deal of evidence to show that the people of Kogaland, who were closely akin to the Hords and obeyed the Gula thing, also sent considerable colonies across the mountains northward and eastward ; both Thele- mark and Numedal afford proofs of this.

So much for the three great tribes which occupied Norway in early times. We still have to consider another district which had a distinct

32 Saga- Book of the Viking Society.

history. South of the Uplands, comprising all tht fertile lands round the Christiania fiord, and extend ing from Westfold in the West to West Gothland in the East inclusive, was apparently in early times occupied by a different race, and probably it was in fact dominated, as it was almost certainly civilised by the Goths, and Munch thus accounts, not only for the artistic work found in the graves in this district being so like that in the graves of East and West Gothland, but for the earliest Runic inscriptions of this same district being written in Gothic runes and in the Gothic speech. He is very emphatic in this matter and says that one of the Gothic monuments has been found even west of Westfold in Thelemark. He also quotes the occurrence of " mark " in the latter name, and in Yingul-mark as due to Gothic influence.

In later times, as we shall see, there is reason to think that a portion of it at least formed a part of the realm ruled over by Signrd Ring, the heroic chief of the Skioldung race, and by his ancestors. Eric, the Swedish Ring, claimed that Simrd had ruled the Raum realm and Westfold, out to Grenmar, Vingulmark, and thence away South. (Saga of Harald Fairhair, ch. xiv.)

Round the Tyrifiord in South -Western Norway was a noted centre of wealth and culture. Ringariki in this district, like Yaederen further west, is noted for the number and beauty of its monuments and the carved work on them, and it was clearly one of the great centres of culture in the Viking time. The very rich country west of the Christiania fiord, the Viken of the Norse- men, was the focus of their wealth, enterprise and artistic skill. Near Hole, not far from the modern Svangstraudvei they found a valuable material for these monuments in the red sandstone

" Harald Fatrhair'" and his Ancestors.

oo

which occurs there. Thence they were carried to he neighbouring districts. On these stones we have representations of hawking scenes and other sub- jects, in which human figures occur, and which are decorated with intertwined snakes and also with ac- anthus leaves. A. Bugge mentions such stones from Tandberg in Ringariki, from Strand inUpperHalling- dal, from Vang in Valdres, from Dynna in Hadeland and Alstad in Toten. Tlie greater part of them are carved from the sandstone of Hole. This district was divided up, like the rest of Norway, at the time we are chiefly interested in now, into a number of fylkies. Those occupying the district collectively known as Viken, comprised : —

Name of Fylkis. Site of Thor's Temple.

Grcena fylki. Lillaheradhr (?)

Vestfold Skiringssal and Saeheimi

Ving^ulinark Osloarheradhi and Tunum

Alfheimr Konungahellu (?)

As we shall see later, the first two were united under one ruler, and were named Westfold, which became the nucleus of the later kingdom of Norway. To the origin and growth of this we will now turn.

Note I. — It is interesting to remember that Adam of Bremen in regard to Thor has the phrase : " Thor praesedit in aere qui tonitrus et fulinina, ventos imhrcsquc serena et fruges guhernat .'"

Note II. — Munch has an interesting paragraph about the particle rik or ric which terminates certan names in South Norway. He says: In the old German world we never find the designation rigi or riki except in the case of conquered districts or those from which the former inhabitants have been dispossessed. Thus, Frankrige, France; Myrcena-rica, Mercia ; Beornica-rige, Bernicia ; Deorarige,

34 Saga-Book of the Vikiftg Society.

Deira, West Seaxenarige, Wessex, etc. In Norway we have the fylkis of Raumariki, Ranrike, and Ringariki pointing to these dis- tricts having been conquered from others. Their conquerors must have come from the south-east, i.e., from the land of the Goths, whose north-west frontier was doubtless Hedemark, while Vingulmark points to another marchland.

Note III. — In the Ynglinga Saga, c. 49, we read that Halfdane Huitbein was buried at Skaereidh in Skiringesal. These two names, says Munch, correspond with the Scoringa and Scoeri of Paul Warnefrid. the historian of the Lombards. He suggests that the Winili, as the latter were originally called, first made their way to Vingulmark, and thence to Skiringesal and Rygiarbit, whence with the Scyri and Rugians they fought with the Wendles (the Vandals), op. cit. 1, 113.

THE ANCESTORS OF HARALD HAARFAGKE.

Before I enter into the main part of my subject, I must lay down certain postulates which it is necessary to remember, and which, it is possible, may not meet with universal acquiescence. In the first place I hold that among the Norsemen such a thing as a parvenu ruler or chief was unknown. Among no race was loyal attachment to the sacred stock (to which alone the kings and chiefs belonged) more marked. The slaughter of particular chiefs was common enough, but this was followed by their being replaced by others of the same family and blood. The families which had this hereditary privilege were deemed to be the direct descendants of the famous companions of Odin, the Asirs, or Anses, and to them, and them alone, belonged the privilege of ruling.

In the next place we cannot help thinking that the amount of disintegration in the communities

^'' Harald Fairhair^' and his Ancestors. 35

which held Scandinavia in early days has been a good deal exaggerated by the recent critical historians. It is true that before the end of the 8th Century there was not the cohesion in the government that there was in later times, and that the supreme chief was not the autocrat he afterwards became. His authority was consider- ably distributed, and there were a number of so-called district, or-fylki, kings who divided the lands among them, each controlling his own patrimony ; but it seems to me that there was, nevertheless, a very distinct acceptance of the feudal and patriarchal notions by which the head of the house, the high priest of the community, was de facto, as well as de jure, the supreme ruler of all. I take it that the com- munity was, in this respect, organised very much as a Scotch clan or an Irish sept was, with the senior chief and many subordinate and semi-independent ones. The district chiefs all belonged to the same race as all the chiefs of the Macleods or Campbells theoretically do : all having a common ancestoi', all obeying at critical times, and at all times acknowledging as their head, the Lord of Dun- vagan or the Macallum Mor. Thus we find that when the great chief had a mortal struggle, the various branches of the' house gathered round him at his summons, and joined their ships to his. The amount of independence exercised by the district kings no doubt varied with the locality. In districts like Western Norway where every fiord is separated by difficult barriers from the next one, or where the intercourse either by land or water was difficult, and probably intermittent only, the maximum of independence would be reached. There the little community and, in many cases, the isolated farm would be practically independent.

36 Saga-Book of the Viking Society.

The same rule, caused by the same circumstances, held good in the Peloponnesus in ancient times and in the promontory of Sorrento in mediaeval ones. In more fertile and thickly peopled dis- tricts, which were more accessible and more valuable, the authority of the supreme chief was doubtless more marked and his visits more frequent : the association of liberty with a rugged country is well explained in such instances at least.

These postulates are reasonable and generally accepted, and are both supported by ample evidence. Thus, if w^e turn to the earliest poetic literature of the North, the "Traveller's Tale" and " Beowulf," we are struck by finding the Scandinavian district divided into a number of so-called "gaus," or provinces, each one occupied by a separate clan, as in Ireland and Celtic Scotland in mediaeval times ; each clan subject to a royal stock, all belonging to the sacred caste tracing descent from Odin and his Asirs, and thus having, for its chiefs at least, a common pedigree. A few lines of the " Traveller's Tale " will exhibit this division into communities, each with its royal caste. I take the following at haphazard : —

Sigehere longest

Ruled the Sea Danes.

Hnaef the Hocings,

Helm the Wulfings,

Wald the Woings,

Wod the Thyrings,

Saeferth the Sycs,

The Swepns Ongendtheov,

Sceafthere the Ymbers,

Sceafa the Longbeards, &c., &c.

Sedgefield' s edition of Widsith lilies, 28-32.

It is not my present purpose to examine these clans and their ruling stocks in detail. Our story

" Harald Fairhair'" and his Ancestors. 37

begins at a much later stage, when the petty communities were being consolidated into larger kingdoms by the absorption of several by the more vigorous and ambitious among them. This con- solidation had a very potent effect indeed on the social condition of the north of Europe. Denmark and Sweden were the first to feel its effects, and were presently followed by Norway. Norway's consolidation occurred just at the beginning of its written history, and, in fact, its real history begins with this consolidation. The movement took place under the leadership of the royal stock of the Ynglings, which, if we are to credit the very reasonable tradition to be presently referred to, was expelled from Sweden by the Scioldungs. We must always remember that the first kings of Norway were Swedes and not Norwegians. This revolution is described for us m the last chapter of the Ynglinga Saga, the general truth of which I cannot see the smallest reason to doubt. This consolidation of power in the North, and especially the internecine struggle between the Scioldungs and the Ynglings just referred to, more than aught else caused, as I believe, the vast impulse given to piracy and foreign colonisation in the ninth and tenth centuries, and converted what had previously been, so far as our facts point, a peaceable, trading, stay-at-home folk into an army of plunderers which assailed every part of the Eu!opean seaboard. It was as exiles and expatriated chieftains that many of the Norsemen emigrated from their rugged homes, and the migration only ceased when the rival stocks of sacred blood Iiad settled down into what became their normal distribution. l>efore entering on our main su))ject we must say something about our authorities.

38 Saga- Book of the Viking Society.

In a paper written many years ago on the early history of Sweden, I urged that the Ynglinga and the Scioldunga Saga (of which last we have fragments remaining, the most important being the well-known Sogubrot) were probably written by one person, and I suggested that this person was Snorri, the author of the Heimskringla. Since writing that paper I have had the advantage of reading the admirable prolegomena to the Stur- lunga Saga, written by my friend. Professor Vigfussion, in which I found my main contention confirmed — namely, that the early part of the Heimskringla and the original draft of the Scioldunga were by one hand. Vigfusson has, however, I think, shown very clearly that the author of the two in their early form was not Snorri, as I urged, but his predecessor, Ari Thorgilsson, styled Frothi, or the Learned, who was born in 1067 and died in 1148, and who was doubtless the first Norse writer who wrote prose history. One of the books he is known to have written was called the " Konunga-bok," or Kings' Book. In regard to it, Vigfusson tells us that the superscription of the C'odex Frisianus has the words, " Here beginneth the Book of Kings according to the records of the Priest Ari, the Historian : opening from the three- fold division of the world, which is followed by the History of all the Kings of Norway." To this statement is prefixed a short introduction con- taining a life of Ari. The words quoted can only mean, either that the following Sagas are Ari's " Book of Kings," or that they are derived therefrom. The discrepancy between the myth- ology of the Ynglinga and the Prose Edda (which was Snorri's own work) may be noted as some confirmation of this view " (Op. cit.,

" Harald Fair hair'''' luid his Ancestors. 39

xxix). Vigfusson concludes that Ari's " Kon- nnga-bok " probably ended with the death of King Harald Sigurdson, commonly called Harald Hai'drada. His work has been embodied in and forms the greater part of the Heimskringla ; and it is nearly certain, as Vigfusson says, that the first book of the Heimskringla — namely, the Ynglinga Saga, with which we have alone to deal here — is Ari's own work, with slight, if any, alterations.

Let us examine the Ynglinga a little more closely. In the preface to the Heimskringla we read, "The lives and times of the Yngling race were written from Thiodwolf's relation, enlarged afterwards by the accounts of intelligent people.'' The relation referred to was a poem written by Thiodwolf the Wise of Hvin, a valley west of Lindnesnaes. Thiodwolf composed this poem, which was called the " Ynglingatal," or Yngling-tale — i.e., the list or succession of the Ynglings — at the instance of Rognvald, called the Mountain High, who was fii'st cousin to Harald Haarfagre, at whose court Thiodwolf was the chief Scald, or poet. Thiodwolf was on very friendly terms with Harald Haarfagre himself, and became the foster-father of his son Gudrod, who was drowned because he would persist in sailing out in stormy weather contrai'y to the advice of the old seer (Id., i. 304-5). This enal>les us to fix the date when Thiodwolf flourished and wrote his poems on the Descent of the Ynglings as the earlier part of the tenth century ad. He is one of the oldest of the Scalds whose composition has come down to us and who treated his subject historically.

Vigfusson was the first to analyze the versicles of Thiodwolf, and to show that, as we have them,

40 Saga- Book of the Viking Society

they are very corrupt, owing to theii- long passage through many fragile memories, instead of being written down, and owing also to the language having altered and become largely obsolete and unintelligible and been misunderstood.

Fortunately the chai'acter and structure of Northern poetry, and especially its rhythm and alliteration, make it possible to restore it when corrupted with some certainty, and it has been done with marvellous insight by Vigfusson, in this case. He has shewn that we have only a fraction of the poems preserved in the versi- cles as we have them. I have not noticed the fact anywhere, but it is curious that in almost every case the only versicle which is preserved about each king is the last one — i.e., that reporting his death and place of burial ; all the rest are gone.

The poem, in fact, had no doubt become largely quite obscure and incomprehensible after the people in the North had thrown away their old gods and their old modes of thought, and the versicles that were preserved in a corrupt form were doubtless kept alive merely as a convenient meinoria tecJinica to preserve in a ready way a record of the catalogue of the early rulers. Originally we can hardly doubt that this poem was a genuine historical epic. It was inatched in the early poetry of Ireland by similar poems, one famous one of which is still extant, dating from almost the same time. It is almost certain that in this case the poem of Thiodwolf was intact in its original form in the time of Ari Frothi, and that he really translated it into prose in the vernacular of his day. This was supplemented by certain additions from tradition or early songs, and we doubtless have its contents substantially

" Humid Fairhair^' and his Ancestors. 41

preserved for us as incorporated in the Ynglinga Saga, with some further additions made by Snorri, and notably the early section about Odin and other gods and including the first thirteen chapters, none of which, it will be noted, is marked by a versicle.

Vigfusson has argued very reasonably that in Ari's original Ynglinga none of the versicles were, in fact, inserted, for they repeat the same story in part, and confuse the narrative, but that they were added by Snorri, who broke up what remained of the poem and distributed it in Ari's narrative. This is strongly supported by the corrupt state of the text of these versicles as we find them in the Heimskringla.

It seems plain, however, that we have in the prose part of the Ynglinga a perfectly reputable historical document of the Llth Century, based on a quite respectable historical poem of the early part of the 10th Century, that is of an approximate date to that of the composition of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, before which the late Mr. Freeman, who poured contempt on what he called ''mere sagas," used to do obeisance night and morning.

In addition to the edition of the Ynglinga in the Heimskringla we have an inde})endent witness about it in the so-called " Historia Norvegiae.'* It only now exists in a Scotch MS. of the 15th century, but was composed much earlier, since it is quoted in the composition known as " Agrip," and was therefore composed before 1190. It was written in Latin by a Norwegian. The earlier part, as my friend Gustav Storm showed, is based upon the Ynglingatal before it was sophisticated by Snorri's addition (Storm's "Snorre Sturlasson's Historieskrivning, etc.," 22 and 23).

42 Saga- Book of the Viking Society,

Beside this we have another tradition, doubt- less also derived from Thiodwolf s poem, if not from the '• Historia Norvegiae" in the accouut of the Upland Kings, by Hauk Erlendson, who was born inNorvvay. He is named as Lawman of Ice- land in 1294 and also Lawman of the Gulathing of Norway, and died in 1334 (Vigfusson, preface to the Sturlunga Saga C 2, x, 1).

With the earlier part of the Ynglinga Saga, before chapter xxxviii., we have nothing to do at present. We begin with the death of Ingiald Illradi, or Evil -heart, who, by his conquests and diplomacy, became sole king of Sweden. He filled the canvas with a considerable figure, and eventually was burned to death in a fire lit by himself while entertaining some of his under- kings, having already destroyed all the rest — a notable and terrible holocaust. Whatever may may be the case in regard to the earlier parts of Thiodwolf s story, I cannot help thinking that from the time of Ingiald, who was but six generations removed from him, the tradition was perfectly lively and reliable. In our own day a tradition ranging over six generations and extend- ing considerably over a century is a very ordinary occurrence, especially about famous characters who have taken part in history. Many of our own acquaintances repeat stories told them by their grandfathers which they heard from theirs, and which are quite reliable. But in our sophisti- cated society this is accidental only. The introduction of contemporary writing and of print- ing has done away with the necessity for pre- serving a special aptitude for the preservation of a viva voce tradition. Before contemporary chronicles were introduced such traditions were preserved in songs and recited sagas by schools

^'' Harald Fairhair" and his Ancestors. 43

of Scalds, whose continuity and wide dispersal made their report most valuable, since they checked one another. They took the part of State historiographers, and the limits of a possible tradition reaching back without written records were greatly extended. At all events there can be no question that within six generations such traditions, when stated honCi-Jide, and when not obviously fables, ai'e worthy of considerable credit.

Our present purpose is with Ingiald's succes- sors, and not with himself. We are told by Ari that he married Gauthild, the daughter of Algaut, the son of Gautrek the Bounteous and orandson of Gaut, from '' whom Gothland took its name." Gauthild's mother was Alof, daughter of Olaf Skygne or the Farsighted, king in Nerike. ( Ynglinga Saga, xxxiii. and xlvi.). Munch argues that the repetition of the particle " Gaut " in these names, the introduction of Olaf Skygne, (who with Gautrek the Mild are named as contemporaries of Vikar and Starkad in the Gautrek Saga), and the connection of several of the names in form with Gothland, points to a mythical origin to the whole. This rather points, in my view, to Ari having followed the practice of Saxo Grammaticus in connecting names of a quite probable authenticity with others of the same sound; and thus rounding off a truncated pedigree by a bold leap into the realms of myth where eponymous names such as Gaut abound. To proceed with our story, however. By Gauthild, Ingiald had two children — a daughter, Asa, whom he married to Gudrod, king of Scania, and who l)rought about the death of her husband and his brother Halfdane, and eventually perished with her father. Beside his daughter Asa, Ingiald had a son, Olaf, who lived

44 ^aga-Book of the Viking Society.

with his mother's foster-father Bove, in West Gothland, where he was brought up with Saxi, Bove's son, who was surnamed Flettir (YngHnga Saga, xhii). Saxi Flettir is named by Saxo Gram- maticus in conjunction with Sali Gothus as fighting in the Bravalla struggle on the side of Ringo {i.e., of Sigurd Ring). He brings them both from the noi'thern part of the river Albis (i.e., the Elf par excellence, the Gothelf). In the fragment of the Scioldunga Saga called Sogubrot, the two are respectively styled Saxi Flettir and Sali Gautski, and are also brought from the notth of the Gothelf, and therefore from Alfheim. The conjunction of two such different authorities, as are the author of the Sogubrot and of Saxo in this statement is notable and interesting. '' Flettir," says Mllller, is an "appellative, and means a cleaver" ("diffisor," Miiller's Saxo, i. 381, note 5 f . Mag- nuson equates the name with that of Fletcher Heims. iv. 174). The Saxi Flettir of the two notices is no doubt the same person. Miiller and Munch have argued that a foster-brother of Olaf's could not have fought at Bravalla ; but this is by no means so clear, for, as we shall see presently, Olaf's grandson outlived the victor at Bravalla, Sigurd King, who, again, lived for many years after that fight. But to resume.

The Ynglinga Saga tells us that when Olaf heard of his father Ingiald's death he went, with those men who chose to follow him, to Nerike — i.e,, the Nether rik, or Nether realm — situated in the western part of Sweden it abuts on the north-eastern corner of Lake Wenern and is bounded on the west by Wermeland. He fled thither because the Swedes had risen with one accord to drive out the family of Ingiald and all its supporters. His maternal grandmother, as

" Harald Fair hair'' a7id his Ancestors. 45

we have seen, came thence. Munch suggests that as Olaf was brought up in Gothland, and as the statement of the Saga seems to imply that he had not returned to his home in Sweden when his father died, that his followers were in fact Goth- landers. (Munch, Hist, of Norway, ii. 107, note 2). "When the Swedes heard where he was, he could not remain in Nerike, but went on westwaixl with his followers through the forest to a river which comes from the north and falls into the Wenern lake and is called the Klar river. There they sat them- selves down — turned to, and burnt and cleared the woods. Soon there were great districts, with settlements in them, which were collectively called Wermeland, and we read that a good living was to be made there. When it was told of Olaf in Sweden that he was clearing the forests, they laughed at his proceedings and called him Tretelia, or the Tree-feller. There were many people who fled the country from Sweden on account of King Ivar, who had meantime come from Scania, and had supplanted the family of Ingiald and become ruler at Upsala, and when they heard that King Olaf had got good lands in Wermeland, so great a number came there to him that the land could not support them." Here we have detailed, in neither unintelligible nor incredible form, the first colonisation on a considerable scale of the western and remote province of Sweden called Wermeland.

The Klar Elf, or Klar river, of this notice was the Gauta Elf, and was also known in early times as Eystrielfr ; in a document of the 13th. century it is called Gautelfr (See Aal's Snorri, p. 31, note to chap, xlvi), Wermeland probably merely means the warm land. Geijer says it was a debatable territory between the

46 Saga-Book of the Viking Society.

Swedes and Norwegians — '-^ Inter Novmatmiam et Sinoniam Vermelani,'' says Adam of Bremen — subject to either kingdom alternately. The early settlers kept to the fertile dales along the rivers in the Western part of Wermeland, between the dales were forests and mountains ; the whole of Eastern Wermeland was a wilder- ness. The settled districts were separated from Norway by the Eidha Skoge, or Waste Wood, whose name survives in the parish of Eda in Wermeland and Eidskog in Norway, through which the road into that country has long passed. Towards Gothland forests were the boundary both on the eastern and western side of Lake Wenern. Above Wermeland the Skridfins or Einn Laps still wandered in the 11th Century ; the name of Dalecarlia was not then known. (Geijer, Eng. Trans. 19). Northern Wermeland must have been at the tmie we are describing very scantily peopled, although, as we know from the archaeological remains that are still found there, its southern part had been partially settled long before, and, in fact, Snorri suggests this when he makes Olaf's foster-father come from there.

Let us on with our story. We are told that Olaf got a wife called Solva or Solveig, the daughter of Halfdane Guldtand, or Gold-Tooth, the son of Solve Solveson, who was the son of Solve the Old, who first settled in Soloer (Yngiinga Saga, xlvi.). Munch argues, reasonably, in regard to these names that they are artificial, and that their common particle " Sol " has some connection with Soleyer, whose etymology is still unknown. Saxo explains it as meaning " insular solis," islands of the sun ; but this, says Munch (ii. 106, note 1), cannot be so, since in ancient times the name was written Soleyar, and not Soleyyar. The district

** Harald I< air hair '" and his Ancestors. 47

lay immediately west of Wermeland, and between it and the Glommen. Soloyar, or Soleyar, now called Soloer (says Aal), although forming no part of Eaumariki, was yet included in the Eauma fylki (^.6., the gau, or county, of Rauma) . It formed a long nar- row strip, bounded on the east by Wermeland, on the north by the so-called Alfrhiem's Herad (surviving in the parish of Elverum), on the west by the river Glommen, and on the south by Alfheim and Raumariki {see Aal's map). It has been suggested that the early chiefs of Soloer had their' seat at the house called Kongshaug, in the parish of Grinder, which in the Red Book and in charters of the fourteenth century was called Konungshof (Aal, op. cit., 32 note).

By Solva, Olaf had two sons, Ingiald and Halfdane. The latter was brought up in Soloer, in the house of his grandfather Solve, and was called Halfdane Huitbein — ^.e., White Leg (Yng- linga Saga, xlvi.). We have described the overpeopling of Wermeland by the immigrant Swedes. " There then came dear times and famine," says our author, " which they ascribed to their king — as the Swedes used always to reckon good or bad crops for or against their kings." The distress was attributed to Olaf's neglecting the sacrifices ; they therefore gathered their troops and surrounded his house, and burnt him in it, offering him as a sacrifice to Odin for good crops. Thiodwolf's verses describing this are as follows : —

The temple destroyer" by the bay,

The corpse of Anleiff the tree-hewer (swallowed),

And the ember hot Forniot's sonf

Dissolved the frame of the Swedish king,

So the Scion of Upsala's glorious race

Disappeared long ago.!

* i.e., the fire. f Forniot was the father of Logi fire. \ Vigfusson and Yorke-Povvell, Corpus, etc., i. 249.

48 Saga-Book of the Viking Society,

It is said that tlie haugr, or mound, in which his remains were buried is still to be seen at Saflebro, in the Herad of Naes, not far from the Wenern (Aal's Bnorri^ note to chap. xlvi.). The sacrificing of the king in a time of calamity was widely recognised in early times in the North. Geijer tells us that sometimes the shedding of noble blood was deemed requisite, even that of the nearest and dearest. In the appendix to the old Lawof Goth- land we read, " In that time when men believed in groves and mounds, in holy places and palings, then sacrificed they to the heathen gods their sons and daughters and their cattle, withmeatand drink." Adam of Bremen reports how a Christian had seen at Upsala seventy-two dead bodies of immo- lated men and animals hanging in the sacred grove of the temple at Upsala, which shone with gold, and in the interior of which were set up the images of Odin, Thor, and Freya.

In regard to this saga it will be seen that Thiodwolf's verses do not say anything about Olaf having been burnt alive, but merely report the burning of his body on the shore of the lake, as was usual in the case of all royal funerals. The " Historia Norvegise " distinctly tells us that he died full of years in Sweden, and says nothing about his tragical end as reported in the Ynglinga Saga. Its words are, " Olavus diu et pacifice functus regno, plenus dierum obiit in Suecia " (See Storm, op. cit. 110.) Hauk Erlendson also says that Olaf ruled over Wermeland till his old age ; nor does he say any- thing about his having been sacrificed. (Munch, ii. 106, note 2). The phrase in the verse about the burning of the body has been probably mistaken by the author of the prose setting. Olaf Tretelia, as king of Wermeland, is mentioned in Egils Saga

" Harald Fairhair'\, and his Ancestors. 49

(Op. cit. ch. 73), one of the most importjant and earliest of the Sagas. He is also named in the " Laiigfedgatal " as the son of Ingiald Illradi, while an " Olavus Wermorum regains " is men- tioned by Saxo (Op. cit. i. 370) ; but, as usual with him, in connection with names from heroic times, and in a story full of anachronisms. As the tale is quaint, it may not be inappropriate to interpolate it here as a folktale only. It is intro- duced to show the prowess of Olo, whom he makes the son of Sigurd by a sister of Harald Hildetand, and assigns him a special role during the latter's reign. Inter alici^ he says that at that time the insolent conduct of the brothers Scatus and Hiallus had reached such a point of wantonness, that they took virgins of remarkable beauty away from their parents and violated them. It came about that, intending to carry off Esa, daughter of Olavus the ruler of the Werrnii, they an- nounced to her father that, if he was unwilling for her to submit to their desires, he must fight them, either personally or by means of some champion, in defence of his child. When Olo heard this, rejoicing in the opportunity of fight- ing, he went to the house of Olavus, having first borrowed a rustic dress as a disguise. He was sit- ting among those at the end of the table, and seeing the distress of the king's family, he entered into conversation with his son, and inquired why the rest looked so sad. The latter told ; him that, unless some defender speedily intervened, his sister's chastity would be violated by some very formidable warriors. Olo then inquired further what reward would be given to the man twho should risk his life for the virgin. Olavus, being pressed by his son on the point, answered that his daughter would be ceded to the champion, an answer which greatly aroused Olo's desire to

D

5© Saga-Book of the Viking Society.

hazard the danger. The maiden; however, used always to examine the faces of her father's guests near at hand and attentively, with a light, in order that she might form a better i^ea of their manners and dress. It is also believed that she could dis- criminate, from the lineaments of the countenance, the stock of those she examined, and, by mere sagacity of sight, distinguish whether a person was of high descent or no.

When she drew near to Olo, who, as we have seen, was disguised, she viewed him with a very searching examination, was seized with horror at the unwonted expression of his eyes, and fell down almost insensible. When her strength gradually returned and her spirit revived, she again tried to examine the youth, but again fell down and lay as if insensible. She tried again a third time to raise her closed and downcast eyes. Not only her eyes but her feet also now failed, and she again suddenly fell. When Olavus saw this he asked why she had thus thrice fallen. She replied that she was struck with horror at the truculent expression of the stranger ; while she asserted that he was of royal descent, and that if he prevented the ravishers from carrying out their purpose she would deem him quite worthy of her embraces. Olo, who had his face muffled up with a woollen wrapper, was now requested by all to put aside this veil and let them see his face. Thereupon, he bade them all to be more cheerful and to lay aside their grief, uncovered his face and drew the eyes of all upon him in admiration of his remarkable beauty — for he had yellow shining hair. He took care, however, to keep his eyes concealed by his eyelids, lest they should strike fear into the beholders. The guests were so elated that they danced, and the courtiers leaped with joy. " In this way the

^^ Harald Fairhatr'' and his Ancestors. 51

kindly promise of the guest drove away the common fear of all." In the midst of these pro- ceedings Hiallus and Scatus came up with ten slaves as if to carry off the maiden straightway. This threw everything into tumult and confusion. They challenged the king to fight, or surrender his daughter ; but Olo at once stopped their boasting by accepting the challenge, making one condition only, that no combatant should approach another behind, but that they should only fight face to face. He succeeded in slaying the twelve with his sword named Lagthi, and thus accomplished a unique exploit. The place where the fight took place was an island which stood in the middle of a marsh, and not far from it, says Saxo, is a village which has a memento of this struggle, bearing conjointly the names of the brothers Hiallus and Scatus. Olo now married the maiden, and by her had a son Omund. (Saxo, ed. Mliller, 370-72). This story, like many others in Saxo, is full of anachro- nism. Sniallus and Hiallus (Sniallr and Hiallr) are mentioned in the " Mantissa " appended to the " Landnama-bok " as the sons of King Vatnar, and are made contemporaries, not of Harald Hildetand, but of Harald Hardrada. (Op. cit. 388). They are also named in the history of King Half. (Fornald, Sogur, ii. 28. See Notse Uberiores to Miiller's Saxo, 215-16).

The Saga reported by Saxo must be treated, like his other tales, as another instance where he has fathered a famous heroic tale upon well- known names. At all events, the fact that he associates his Olaf, the petty king of the Werme- landers, with figures of the mythical cycle, and that his chronology is entirely arbitrary, is not enough to remit the quite reasonable story told as in the Ynglinga to the land of mere legend ; for we

52 Saga-Book of the Viking Society:

must remember that Thiodwolf lived well within the reach of a lively tradition about Olaf Tretelia. To return to the Ynglinga.

" Those of the Swedes who had more under- standing, found that the dear times proceeded from there being a greater number of people on the land than it could support, and that the king could not be blamed for this. They took the reso- lution, therefore, to cross the Eida forest with all their men." This was the Eydaskog, already named, which formed the march between Sweden and Norway. " The emigrants, having crossed the forest, arrived unexpectedly in the district of Soloer, where they put to death King Solve, and took prisoner his grandson, Olaf the Tree-feller's son, Halfdane Huitbein or Whiteleg (who had been brought up there). They made him their king. He thereupon subdued Soloer " (Id. xlviii.).

We are told in the fiftieth chapter of the same Saga that Olaf's other son, Ingiald, succeeded his father in Wermeland. The real story seems to be that the revolution which had taken place at Upsala, by which the old royal stock there was driven out, led, as was ver}^ natural, to a consider- able migration, voluntary or otherwise. The emigrants followed the steps of their expatriated chiefs westward to Weruieland. Finding no elbow-room there, they left Ingiald in charge of that province which had been his father's, and went onward across the forest to join Halfdane Huitbein in Soloer. Hauk Erlendson, in his account of the Upland Kings, says nothing of Halfdane having killed King Solve, nor of the Swedish expedition to Soloer, but merely that he succeeded his grandfather there ; and it may be that the account in the Ynglinga has been to this extent coloured.

" Harnld Fairhair'''' and his Ancestors. 53

Halfdane Huitbein, says the Ynglinga, became a great king. He was, in fact, the real founder of the Norwegian Monarchy. Munch, who is dis- posed (as I think) capriciously to question -the connection of Olaf Tretelia with the stock of the later Westfold kings, says of Halfdane Huitbein that his historical existence is not to be doubted. (Op. cit. ii. 107). He is made the son of Olaf Tretelia in the " Langfedgatal," and in Hauk Erlendson's account of the Upland chiefs. The " Landnama-bok " makes Halfdane Huitbein the ancestor of the famous king of Dublin, Olaf the White. (Op. cit. 106). He married Asa, a daughter of Eystein the Severe, otherwise called the Great, king of the Uplands, by whom he had two sons, Eystein and Gudrod. (Ynglinga, xlix.).

Halfdane's father-in-law^, Eystein the Great, was a much more important figure than has generally been supposed. A large part of the various districts peopled b}^ the Rauma clan were united in obeying a common code of laws known as the Eidsivathing, and in being, as we have seen, subject to Eystein the Great, for we presently find his sons and grandson having a fierce struggle with the descendants of Halfdane for the districts which the latter had appropriated ; among these we are expressly told w^as Hedemark, where Eystein had his court. Eystein was, in fact, master of all Norway east of the Dovrefelds, except Westfold, Alfheim, and Vingulmark. He thus ruled over the so-called Uplands, including Hedemark, Thoten, Raumariki, Hadeland, Ringariki, &c. In addition to this he also, as I have described in the Prologue, made a famous conquest west of the Dovrefelds. It is clear, therefore, that Halfdane made a great alliance when he married his daughter, and this distinction he doubtless owed to his ancient and unmatched

54 Saga-Book of the Viking Society.

pedigree. Halfdane Huitbein's heritage in the district of Soloer was doubtless too narrow for the Swedish emigrants who had joined him from Upsala, who were probably among the most martial men of his country, and ready enough to assist an adventurous chieftain. During the life of his father-in-law Halfdane, Eystein apparently remained quiet and it was only on his death that he began his conquests of which we have only very meagre details. We are told that he first proceeded with an army to Eaumariki, which he plundered and subdued (Ynglinga, xlviii.).

Raumariki lay west of Soloer, and formed with ic the Rauma fylki, the two being only separated by the river Glommen. It was doubtless settled from an early date, and it is probable that the original people of Soloer came from Baumland.

In addition to Eaumariki, Halfdane subdued a great part of Hedemark, Thoten and Hadeland (Id., xlix.). Hedemark is the district north of of Eaumariki, and bounded on the east and west by the Glommen and the Yormen, the river of Gudbrandsdal. Its name shows it was a frontier district. (For Thoten see ante p. 29). Hadeland was situated immediately to the south-west of Thoten, and traversed by the Eands-fiord. Hadeland, or Hadaland, according to the Sagas was so named from one of the grandsons of the mythical Nor, called Haud, or Hod, and according to an obscure report, he lived at a place in Thingelstad Sogn, near which there is still a mound known as Kongshaug. These various districts, as I believe, were conquered by Halfdane from his own brothers-in-law, the sons of Eystein the Great of the Uplands. It was doubtless from this conquest that Halfdane was called the King of the Uplands. (Landnamma bok ed., Vigfusson,

'''' Harald Fairhair''^ and his Ancestors. 55

ii., 144). 4'his did not include all his kingdom, however. In chapter xxxvii. of the Yynglinga Saga, we are told that his son Eystein married Hilda, daughter of Eric Agnarson, who was king in Westfold. King Eric died without leaving a son during Halfdane's life, whereupon he and his son took possession of Westfold.

The story shews that Halfdane only acquired Westfold in his old age, at all events after his son's marriage.

The district of Westfold is described in a work entitled " Regesta Geographica in scripta Islandorum, etc.," (Eoyal Ant. Soc, vol. xii., Copenhagen, 1846). In it we read that W^estfold was the part of Norway bordering the Christiania fiord on the west. It was bounded on the east by Vingulmark and Fiordis, on the west by Gronalandr or Gronafulki, and on the north by Ringariki, and in ancient days comprehended, beside the modern governments of larlsbergen and Laurvigen, the districts bordering them on the north, namely, the parishes of Sandveren, Ekeren, and Liericum. Westfold was divided into two parts, Upsio (Ofsi or Upsi), and Westmare, the former in the north, the latter in the south, and near the sea. Tunsberg, one of the most ancient emporia of Norway, was situated there (Kruse Chron. Nort., 69, 70).

Munch argues that the early inhabitants of Westfold belonged to the same Hauma clan as the folk in the neighbouring gaus (Op. cit., i. 104). The famous code known as Eidsivathing's law had authority there as in the country of the Kaumas (Id., ii. 168), and it would naturally have formed part of Eystein. the Great's dominions, and pro- bably of those of his ancesters ; but at this time we are expressly told in the Ynglinga that

56 Saga-Book of- the Viking Society.

Eric, who was kiDg in Westfold, was the son of Agnar, who was the son of Sigtryg, king in Yendil. The question arises, where was Vendii. Some have suggested Yinguhnark ; but this is quite out of the question : Vingahnark is always so called in" the Heiinskringla, and it was ruled by quite a different set of kings. There is no place in Norway or Sweden answering to the name Yendil, and we must cross over the water to Jutland to find it. The part of Jutland, north of the Lim- fiord is still called Wendsyssel ; Syssel or Sysla being a well-known early Norse land-division, of which several examples may be found in Aal's map ; the inhabitants also call it Yendilsbyggiar. It seems to me that this is the Yendil referred to as the homeland of the early Westfold kings. On turning to the thirty-first chapter of the Ynglinga Saga, we read how when King Frode of Denmark was away from home, Ottar, the ruler at Upsala, set sail for Denmark and wasted the land. Inter alia, he sailed north to Jutland, entered the Limfiord, and plundered in Yendil. The Danes collected an armament ; a battle was fought in the great inlet ; Ottar was killed, and his body given to the wild beasts and ravens. The victors then made the figure of a crow in wood, sent it to Sweden, saying he had been no better than that, whence he was called Ottar Yendilcrow. (Ynglinga, xxxi. and Aal's note). In Thiod wolf's verse, which is appended to the notice of this Ottar, Yendsyssel is replaced by Yendli.

There can be little doubt, therefore, that, accord- ing to the Ynglinga Sa,ga, Westfold, for some time before Halfdane Huitbein took possession of it, was ruled by a dynasty which came from Jutland, and which doubtless had authority on both sides of the water. This introduces some curious subjects

*' Harald F air hair '''' and his Ancestors. 57

of speculation. Such a dynasty was no doubt an intrusive one in Westfold, and the authority it exercised both there and in Jutland probably led, as we shall see, to a more important claim of ■similar authority, but in a reverse way, somewhat later. In addition to his other possessions already named, we are told that Halfdane, on the death of his brother Ingiald, took possession of Wermeland, imposed scatt, or taxes, upon it, and placed iarls there as long as he lived.

Thiodwolf tells us Halfdane lived to be an old man, and that he died in his bed at Thoten, whence his body was transported to Westfold, and that it was laid at Skaereid, near Skiringesall. (Ynglinga Saga, xlix). Hauk Erlendson, who here contradicts Thiodwolf, and is not therefore of much value, says he was buried at Thoten.

I will now extract some phrases from Jacob Aal about the famous site at Skiringesall — just named. It has been the subject of much debate, and has been fixed in several positions, as in Bohuslan, in Skane, in the neighbourhood of Stockholm, and even in Prussia, notwithstanding •that Snorri and the authors of the Sogubrot and the Fagrskinna put it in Westfold. Aal says that in the 15th Century the name survived as that of the district forming the parish of Tiolling in the bailiwick of Laurvig. (Op. cit. ch. xlix, note). The Sogubrot tells us that a great temple of Freya once stood there. This temple. Munch suggests, was built by Halfdane and his son Eystein, who also probably introduced the w^orship of Freya, the special divinity of the Ynglings, from Upsala. (Op. cit. ii. 75). He adds that not far from the sea, on an open space in this district, is the old church of Thioling (or Tiolling, formerly called Thiodalyng, the people's heath). On this

5^ Saga-Book of the Viking Society.

open space are still the remains of a stone circle, which was probably connected with some great Thing, or meeting-place for law-makiDg; not far off is another and smaller circle. The church doubtless marks the site of the former heathen temple, and the open place is where the great gathering of the people of Viken took place (Munch, ii. 139).

Close by Thioling, is a field containing a number of mounds, where many antiquites have been found (Id. 141, note), no doubt marking the site of an early cemetery. Somewhat to the west was the royal seat of Geirstad (now Gierrstad), to which we shall revert presently. Besides being a great religious and political meeting-place, Skiringesall was also a noted staple or market, and this was why it was probably visited by the famous navigator Othere, or Ottar, in the ninth century, whose story has been written by King Alfred (See Bosworth's edition, 46, note 53) From its repute as a market came, no doubt, the fact that the name '' Kaupangr," i.e., a cheaping or mart (reminding us of Cheapside) is still applied to two farms on the so-called Viggs Fiord. The Yiggs Fiord and Sandy Fiord were formerly united by a creek ruuning from Siavagaristra (now Sogrist in Thioling parish) to Eid (Eidet). This creek converted Skaerid, near Skiringesall, into an island. It is now a peninsula called Lande, separating the two fiords. Close by, again, is an island which in the Red Book, dating from the end of the fourteenth century, was called Thorsoy, i.e. Thor's island. The mart at Skiringes- all was doubtless supplanted by that at Tunsberg (Snorri ed. Aal, op. cit., xlix. note. Magniisson Heinskringla, iv. 277 and 278). With Hetheby, in Jutland, Skiringesall, formed a twin haven.

*' Harald Fairhair'" and his Ancestors. 59

where the mercantile world of the North met, and where, doubtless, at special times, fairs on a large scale were held. At Skiringesall, as Munch says, there, no doubt, assembled traders from widely separated districts, Helgelanders and Prus- sians, Thronders, Saxons, and Wends, Danes and Swedes. There were exchanged, cordage made of walrus hide, and peltries from the far North, amber from Prussia, costly stuffs from Greece and the East, Byzantine and Arabic money, bangles and brooches of silver, and richly decorated armour and weapons. Let us now go on with our story.

As Halfdane was an old man when he died, and was the successor of Olaf, the victim of Ivar Vidfame, it is almost certain that he himself was the contemporary of Ivar's successor, Harald Hildetand, who ruled both at Upsala and also at Lethra. Halfdane's territory was a very consider- able one, and, as the representative of the senior line of the Yngling race, he no doubt had, a prestige far surpassing those Norwegian rulers who were still independent.

By Asa, his wife, already named, Halfdane had two sons, Eystein and Gudrod. The former, as we have seen, had married, the daughter and heiress of Eric, the ruler of Westfold. He succeeded his father in Baumariki and Westfold, and lived to a great age. It is equally probable, therefore, a "priori^ that Eystein was the contem- porary of Sigurd Ring, and the Sagas, in fact, as we shall now see, bring the two into contact.

Arngrim Jonsson, who, in 1596, published a well-known work, entitled " Begum Danorum frag- menta ex vetustissimis Norvegiorum commen- tariis historicis Islandorum, translata," has a very curious fragment on the death of Sigurd

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Ring, which Yigfusson says is evidently taken from another manuscript of the Skioldunga than that from which the Sogubrot comes. This fragment enables us to complete the incident at the close of the ordinary version of the Sogubrot. In the latter we read that " when Sigurd was very old, he happened to be in West Gothland in autumn, dispensing justice among his people, when the sons of King Grandalf — ^.e., his brothers- in-law — went to ask his assistance against King Eystein of Westfold. At this time the sacrifices were being offered at Skiringesall, which it was the custom for the people of all Yiken to celebrate there." At this point the " Sogubrot " breaks off. The fragment preserved by Arngrim, which is translated into Latin, tells us that on the death of his wife Alfhilda, the mother of Ragnar Lodbrog, Sigurd determined to find himself a fresh wife. Having, therefore, set out from his province of Vestra Gotia {i.e.^ West Gothland), he went to Skiringes all in Yikia (i.e., Viken), in Norway, to attend the solemn sacrifices which were at that time being carried on there, and he saw a beautiful maiden named Alfsol, daughter of Alf, king of Vendil, and having seen her was determined to secure her, notwithstanding that the gods were unwilling. She had two brothers, named Alf and Inguo, from whom Sigurd asked their sister in marriage. They refused to give the young maiden to the old greybeard. Sigurd was enraged that he, such a great king, should be thus thwarted by the sons of a petty chief. He threatened them wdth war, but, on account of the solemn sacrifices then going on, had to postpone his vengeance. Presently he prepared an armament to punish them ; and, as they were too weak to resist him, they gave their sister poison. In the struggle which ensued they were both killed. Sigurd Ring

^^ Harald Fairhair'' and his A^icestors. 6i

himself, however, was so badly wounded in the struggle that his end was clearly seen. He ordered the bodies of the two brothers to be put in a ship, which he himself mounted, and lay down in the poop with the corpse of the beautiful Alfsol. The ship was charged wirli inflammable matter, it was set on fire, and he held the rudder himself as the wind blew it out to sea. The crowd on the strand was greatly moved that he, the author of so many crimes and the master of so many kingdoms, preferred to visit Odin with regal ponip, after the fashion of his ancesters, rather than pass away into senile imbecility. Before setting sail he had made himself a mound on the strand as a memorial of himself. This was called Ringshaug. Munch says a place called Bingshaug is still to be found in the parish of Slagn) north of Tunsberg (Vigfusson, Stiivhinga Saga, Prolegomena, xc, note. Munch, op. cit. ii. 81 and 82, notes). One thing to be remembed from these notices is that they point to Sigurd Ring having had a potent position in Norway at this time, when he probably, in fact, held the hegemony of Scandinavia.

If Sigurd be the Sigifrodus of the Frank Chronicles, as has been often argued, and as I have a strong conviction he was, we may place his death approximately about the year 800. He is last mentioned by name by Eginhardt, in the year 798; while in 804 we meet with his successor Grodfred, as king of the Danes.

Let us now continue our story. I would tentatively suggest as probable that Eystein, against whom Sigurd Ring went to war in his last days, did not long survive his rival, but died shortly after. We will now set down what the Ynglinga Saga has to say of him. It tells us that in his time " there lived at Varna a king named

62 Saga-Book of the Viking Society

Skiold, ^Yho was a great wizard. King Eystein went

with some warsliips to Yarna, and plundered there,

carrying away what he could of clothes and other

valuables, and of the peasants' stock, and killing

their cattle on the strand for provision, and then

went off. King Skiold came to the strand with his

army just as Eystein was at such a distance over

the fiord that the former could only see his sails.

Then he took his cloak, waved it, and blew into it.

King Eystein was sitting at the helm as they sailed

within the larlsoy, or Earl's isle, and another ship

was sailing at the .side of his, when there came a

stroke of a wave, by which the boom of the other ship

struck the king and threw him overboard, which

proved his death. His men fished up his body,

and it was carried into Borro, where a mound was

thrown over it upon a cleared field out towards the

sea at Vodle " (Ynglinga Saga, li.). Thiodwolf's

verse reads thus in Yigfusson's translation : —

" King Eystein, struck by the boom, went to Hel^

and the Washer of Blades is now lying under the

bones of the sea [i.e., the stones) on the beach,

where the icy cold Wadle Stream, runs into the

bay close by."

In regard to the various localities in this notice, the name Yarna, Yaurno, or Yorno, denoted, in early times, not only the farm Yaerno. but com- prised the ecclesiastical district of Ry gge, as far as Kambo, with the exception, perhaps, of Joeloen. At early as the thirteenth century the knights of St. John of Jerusalem built a hospital at Yarna. Munch says this foundation is still called Y'aerne (Op. cit., ii. 138, note 1). The Earl's Island, or larlsoy, is on the opposite side of the Christiania fiord in Yingulmark. It is still called Jaerso, and is near Tunsberg. Borro, or Borra, now

"' The Maid of Byleists' brother.

** Hay aid Fair hair ''^ and his Ancestors. 6

o

called Borre, is situated about a Norwegian mile north of TuQsberg. Vadle is now called Void, and is a farm near the fiord, close to Borre, where the mounds of Eystein and his son still remain.

On Eystein's death he was succeeded by his son Halfdane, known as the Mild, and the Bad Enter- tainer. This was because, though he was lavish in giving his men gold, which he distributed as pro- fusely as other kings did silver, yet he starved them in their diet. We are told he was a great warrior who had been on viking cruises and had collected great property. Munch suggests that he was the same Haldane who was sent as his envoy by King Sigfred {i.e., Sigurd Ring) in 807 to the Frank emperor, but this is very improbable. The later kings of Westfold and their descendants were at deadly issue with the Scioldung family, and were not their familiars. Again, the envoy Halfdane w^as father of Harald Khik, and, if so, was himself the son of another Harald, and, as I have argued, was the son of Harald Hildetand.

In the text of the Ynglinga it is said that Halfdane the Mild took Eystein's kingdom after him. He married Hlif, the daughter of King Day of Westmere. His chief manor was Hottar in Westfold, and he there died in his bed and was laid in a mound at Borre (Ynglinga, ch. lii.) close to his father. Let us now turn to Grudrod, who was the son of Halfdane Whitefoot, and a brother of Eystein, and not a son of Halfdane the Mild, as some have thought. We are expressly told that Halfdane Whitefoot liad two sons, Eystein and Gudrod (Ynglinga, ch. xlix).

The Ynglinga Saga gives Gudrod the surname Mikillati (i.e., the Magnificent) also Veidhikonge (i.e.,, the Hunter) ; the latter name also occurs in

64 Saga-Book of the Viking Society.

the " Historia Norvegiae," where he is called " Gun- thodus rex Yenator," some reminiscence, probably, of his fame as a sportsman. In the " Langfedgatel " Gudrod is surnamed Grofuglati i.e.^ the Magnani- mous). In several of the genealogies he is styled hinn Giafmildi (i.e.^ Very Beneficent). In the "Mantissa," or supplement to the " Landnama," he is called Gudrod Leoma (i.e.^ Splendoris). These various synonyms are evidence of the im- portant position he filled (Vigfusson, i. 271). It is curious that the Monk of St. Gallen, in reporting the death of Godfred (which he, strangely enough, states took place on the river Mosel, during his invasion of the Empire) says further that he was killed by his son, when ahorit to release a ditch from a falcon^ in revenge for the wrong he had done his mother in taking another wife (Pertz, ii. 757).

Gudrod's wife was Alfhild the daughter of Alfarin of Alfheim, in the maritime district on the east of the Wik, between the Raum elf and the Gaut elf, and with her he got as a dowry one half of Vingulmark. Their son was Olaf, after- wards called Geirstadalf. When she presently died, we are told, Gudrod sent messengers to Harald Eedlip, King of Agdir, to ask for the hand of his daughter Asa, but was refused. . He thereupon launched his ships and went with a great host to Agdir, where he arrived unawares, Harald, nevertheless, dared to face his powerful assailant, but the odds were too great, and he was killed, together with his son Gyrd. Gudrod then carried off Asa, whom he married, and by her had a son named Halfdane (Ynglinga Saga, ch. 1.).

Gudrod had succeeded to a great heritage from his father, and was no doubt , the most potent ruler in the North.in his time. .

'■'' Harald Fair hair '^ and his Ancestors. 65

I long ago identified him with the Godfred who was the contemporary and rival of the Emperor Charles the Great. I did not then know that Munch had already published this conclusion.

I will remit the evidence to a note at the end of this paper. Meanwhile I shall take it for granted that the identification is a reasonable one, and shall proceed to record his doings, and those of his sons, outside of his own lands. I shall first epitomize what had happened in the further lands of the Empire in previous years.

In the year 777 Charles the Great (more widely known as Charlemagne), invaded Saxony with an armament, to punish the Saxons for repeated rebellions and the slaughter of his garrisons.

The pomp of his surroundings and the strength of his forces cowed them, and he marched through Westphalia and held a general assembly at Pader- born, at the sources of the Lippe, where he built a fortress at Eresburgh, not far from where Drusus had planted his stronghold. A great crowd of Saxons were baptized and did homage, one only of their chiefs, the most redoubtable and dangerous of them all, whose real name was probably Withmund, but who is generally known by his nickname of Witikind refused to bend his neck, and fled with his followers.

The annals of Lorsch tell us that he fled to Northmannia [in jpartilus Nortmanniae)^ while in the annals of Eginhardt, the biographer of Charles the Great, we are told that he went to Sigifridiis, the King of the Danes.

Sigfred and Godfred are German forms of the Norse names Sigurd and Gudrod, and I have long held that this Sigfred was no other than the famous Northern hero — Sigurd Ring.

The Battle of Bravalla, in which Sigurd Ring defeated his uncle Harald Hildetand and sup-

66 Saga-Book of the Viking Society.

planted him, as ruler of Sweden and Denmark, was a notable struggle. It has been hypothetically dated by Kunlk and others about the year 775. After this struggle Sigurd was acknowledged as " Imperator," or over chief, of the greater part of Scandinavia, and he filled that position for some time. His reign, therefore, coincides exactly with that assigned to Sigifridus in the Frankeil annals, and the identification of the two rulers as one person seems quite reasonable.

Returning to the annals: about the year 781, the Emperor, having meanwhile put down some fresh outbreaks among the Saxons, sent St. Willchad to plant Christianity in Wigmodia, the district between the Elbe and the Weser, where Bremen afterwards stood ; this mission was a partial success, and thus was the faith first carried to the borders of the Danish land.

In 782 Charles held another great assembly on the Lippe, which, we are told in the Lorsch Annals, was attended by envoys from king Sigfred, namely, Halbtani and his compani9ns. In two late copies of the Lorsch annals, one of the Fulda annals and in the chronicle of Reginon the name Godfred is wrongly substituted for Sigfred, while Reginon, who was not remarkable for his accuracy, calls the envoy Altdeni and gives him a companion whom he calls Hosmund, which is not a Norse but a Saxon name and which he has apparently made by misreading the word sociils in the earlier authorities.

Pertz rightly insists that we are bound by the testimony of the oldest copies of the Lorsch annals and those of Eginhardt, which were contem- porary. The name of the envoy was no doubt the well known Norse name Halfdane. He was doubtless a person of moment, and possibly a

" Harald Fairhair'' and his Ancestors. 67

relative and the deputy of Sigurd Ring, in Jutland, and was not improbably sent to enquire what was the meaning of the ambiguous movement on his borders, and whether it meant the planting there of an advanced post of the Empire from which the land might be menaced.

The assembly was followed by another revolt of the Saxons under Witikind, in which the Frank garrisons in Saxony, were again slaughtered, and the Christian missions in Friesland, and the young Church there were desolated. These outrages were punished ruthlessly by the beheading of 4,500 Saxons. The Emperor now began a policy of trans- planting large bodies of Saxons to other parts of the Empire and replacing them by Slavs.

The year 792 is marked, in the Biography of Charles by Eginhardt, by the ominous sentence that " the Emperor left Aachen " (Aix Chapelle, as the French call it) in March and made a journey along the maritime district of Gaul and Germany, which was infested by Normans, who were called Danes {contra Nortmamios qui Danos vocantur) and he ordered a special fleet to restrain them.

The next year is notable for the first attack made by the Northmen on Britain {vide infra).

In 797 the Franks employed their new fleet for the first time and punished the Saxons beyond the Elbe (Annales Eginhardti ad an). The next year the Saxons from the other side of the Elbe killed some Frankish envoys who had been sent to obtain a redress of grievances, and also put to death another one who had the Slav name of Godescalc, i.e., Gottschalk. They had been sent by the Emperor to the Danish king, who is again called Sigifridus i.e., Sigurd, by the Chronicler Eginhardt. This is the last time he is named, and it is remarkable that

68 Saga-Book oj the Viking Society

for the next few years there is no mention of the Northmen in the Frankish annals pointing to its having been a turbulent period in their land. When a northern king is next mentioned, he is called Godfred and it is most likely that Sigfred had died soon after his last mention in the chronicles.

The interval between the years 797 and 804 is a blank in the Frankish Chronicles as far as the Northmen is concerned, and it no doubt corresponds with great changes among them. Sigurd's great victory over his uncle Harold Hildetand had no doubt prostrated all rivals. According to all the traditions he left an only son, Ragnar Lodbrog, whose story is one of the great enigmas of early Northern history. He probably succeeded to only a small part of his father's kingdoms, and became famous not as a great territorial ruler, but as the greatest of the Vikings.

Meanwhile, his relatives, the sons of Harald Hildetand, asserted their pretentions. One of them, Eystein, became King at Upsala and in the Saga of Ragnar Lodbrog, the latter is made to have a struggle with him. Another son, Thrond, is named as the ancestor of an Icelandic family in the Landnamabok. This family was named Odd- werja and to it belonged Saemund Frothi. The descent is thus given. Harald Hildetand, King of Denmark, the father of Hroerck Sloengvand-bauga, the father of Thorolf Wagane, father of Wemund Ordhlokar, father of Walgard, father of Eafn the Fool, who emigrated to Iceland from Throndheim (Landnamabok ed., Vigfusson, v. 3.1). I believe that a third one was the Halfdane, who was sent as an envoy to the Emperor by Sigurd, as we have seen. He was apparently the ruler of Jutland under him, and on his patron, Sigurd's death, apparently sought refuge from the Emperor.

** Harald Fairhair" unci his Ancestors. 6(9

The death of Sigurd Ring also gave an oppor- tunity to a stronger person than any of the sons of Harald Hildetand, namely Gudrod, who also possessed a wider kingdom and a larger fleet. His position in Yiken, looking straight upon Jutland, was a powerful vantage, nor could he forget that Westf old, the focus of his kingdom, was recently held by a ruler who also governed at least Northern Jutland [vide ante), nor that he had a heavy debt to exact from the person who, I take it, was then its ruler ; since his predecessors had expelled his own from their ancient heritage. I have no doubt that he used all his advantages and proceeded to drive out Halfdane.

This is strongly confirmed by a curious and neglected entry in the narrative of the anonymous Saxon poet, who for the most part follows Eginhardt, but who here records the very interesting fact, not mentioned by the latter, that Halfdane, the leader of the Northmen, and with him a considerable force, submitted to the Emperor and tried to enter into a perpetual pact with him.

Interea Northniannoriim dux Alfdeni dictiis Augusto magna sese comitante caterva Subdidit atque /idem studuit firmare perennem.

(Poeta Saxo, Pertz, i. 263).

This admission to the Empire of a great Northern chief with a considerable following is hardly a probable event, unless he was in fact an outcast from his own country, and it is significant that his disappearance from Jutland is coincident with Gudrod's appearance there. I suggested long ago that it is quite probable that the Emperor granted Halfdane an appanage in Friesland, where Harald Klak, who was probably his son, received one some years later. This was quite consonant with the policy of the Franks at this time, which

70 Saga-Book of the Viking Society.

was to play one of the frontier rivals against another, and to embroil his neighbours, while a feudatory Norse chief in Friesland would be a good fence against his countrymen's piratcal attacks.

We are told by both Eginhardt and Keginon that in the year 804 '' Godfred, the Danish King " went with his fleet, and all the army of his kingdom, to Sliesthorp (i.e.., the far-famed mart of Schleswig, on the Schlie. Eginhardt, in his biography, ex- plains that the enmity {inimicitia) of the Northmen arose from the appropriation of the Saxon land beyond the Elbe by the Franks. A very notable encroachment of this kind was made by the latter in the year 804, when, according to the Chron. Moiss- iacense, the inhabitants of the three gaus or counties of Wigmodia, Hostinga and Rosoga, which formed the later diocese of Bremen, were transported and their lands largely made over to the Slavs called Obotriti. From this time the district of Wagria became a Slav land. According to Eginhardt, Godfred had promised to attend the Imperial diet, but was restrained by the counsel of his own people. This not very friendly mood seems to me to point to some change of policy and to strengthen the view that he was himself an intruder into Jutland, which probably he appropriated at this time. The Emperor who was at HoUenstedt, south of Harburg, sent some envoys to treat for the return of fugitives (probably Saxons).

No doubt Gudrod would hesitate before making a direct attack on the Frankish forces, when they were in strength in Saxony, and he doubtless had in view an attack upon some of their allies, and especially the hated Slavs who had been introduced into what he deemed his borders without his permission, and against whom he had made due preparations. These

'* Harald Fair hair ^"^ and his Ancestors. 71

lasted some time, but we are told that in 808, while the emperor was at Aachen, Giidrod and his men marched against the Obotriti. Charlemagne sent his son Charles to the Elbe with an army of Franks and Saxons, with orders to resist him if he attempted to cross the Saxon frontier. Gudrod ravaged the borders of the Slavs, captured some of their fortresses, drove away Thrasco, one of their chiefs, hanged Godelaib, another, made the two sections of the Obotriti tributary, and also destroyed their emporium on the coast, called in the Danish tongue Reric. This, as we are told by Adam of Bremen, was the site of the old Mecklenburg, near Wismar, and its inhabitants were afterwards known as Reregi : '''' T>einde secuntur Ohodriti qui nunc Reregi vocantur et civitas eoruin Magnopolis " (Adam of Bremen, Pertz, ix. 311 ; Ann. Laur. 808 ; Chron. Moiss., ib. Ann. St. Amandi, p. ii). Gudrod carried off its merchants, and im- posed a heavy tribute on the Obotriti (Eginhardt in Pertz, i. 195 ; Kruse, 46.) I have small doubt that this expedition has been confused by the author of the longer saga of Olaf Trygvason (copying Saxo), with the campaign against the Friesians in 810, and by the " Islandic Annals," and that they have converted the emporium Reric into a Hrserek or Purik prince of Friesia, who is quite unknown to the contemporary Frank annalists. This campaign cost Gudrod some of his best men, and among them, according to Eginhardt, was Peginold, his brother's son, who was killed with many Danes in attacking a town. The " Chronicon Moissiacense," calls him Gudrod's nephew, and the first in the king- dom after himself (Eginhardt, Pertz, i. 195 ; Chron. Moiss., Pertz, ii. 258 ; Kruse, Chron. Norm., 46, 48).' To oppose the attacks of Gudrod, Charlemagne's son, Charles, crossed the Elbe into Lauenburg, marched in the direction of the modern Lubeck, and having

72 Saga- Book of the Viking Society.

devasted the lands of the Linones and Snieldingi (Slavic tribes which had gone over to Gudrod), he once more recrossed the Elbe. According to one ingenuous writer, his expedition was by no means altogether a success, for he lost most of his men (Lesser Annals of Lorsch, Pertz, i. 263 : Kruse, 49, 50.) Gudrod had been assisted in his campaign by the Wiltzi, another Slavic tribe, the eastern neighbours of the Smeldingi and Linones, who were ancient foes of the Obotriti. They returned home with a considerable booty. Gudrod himself, after his campaign, sent his fleet round to Schleswig, marched his army there, and proceeded to build a mound along the northern shores of the Eider, from one sea to the other. This was pierced by a single gateway for the passage of men and mer- chandise. After dividing the work among his chiefs he returned home. This mound was according to Worsaae, probably not the cele- brated Dannewirke (that having been traditionally connected with another Danish king, namely, Gorm the Old), but rather an older and ruder mound which still runs along the Eider. The making of a mound by Gudrod is, however, distinctly mentioned in the Annales Islandiac, and it is there expressly called the Danewirke. The larger mound ran from the termination of the Schley inlet (Selke Noer) as far as Kurburg, or perhaps to Hollingstette. It is 20 feet high, and the narrow entrance mentioned by the annalist is situated near the village of Little Danewirke, now called Ost Kalegat (Kruse, 48 ; Chron. Moiss, p. 48). Having heard that the emperor was displeased at his campaign against the Obotriti in the previous year, Gudrod, in 809, sent him envoys asking him to fix a convention beyond the Elbe, where explanations might be given. Such a convention was held at Badenfliot (probably the village now called Baden-

" Harald Fairhair'' and his Ancestors. 73

lleth, on the banks of the Stur — Kruse, 50, fiote). This convention was apparently not very effective in humbling the Danes, but, on the contrary, we find that directly after, Thrasco, the Duke of the Obo- triti, and the ^protege, of the Franks, surrendered his daughter as a hostage to Gudrod. This was probably to secure his neutrality in the war which he was then pressing against the old enemies of his people, the Wiltzi, and from which he returned with a great booty. He afterwards, with the assistance of the Saxons, captured the chief town of the Smeldingi, i.e.^ Mollen.

When the emperor heard of the arrogant behaviour of the Northern king, he determined to build a fortress beyond the Elbe, and having collected a number of artificers in Gaul and Germany, he sent them thither under command of the Saxon Count Egbert. I have else- where in a paper in the Numismatic Chronicle on the coinage of Egbert, King of England, identified him with this Count Egbert. The former was certainly living at the Court of Charles the Great at this time and his name is very specially an English one. Esesfeldt was fixed upon as the site of the fortress It has been identified by several inquirers with Itzehoe on the Stur. Mannert (Gesch. der alt. Deuts., i. 486), would place it on the site of Gluckstadt at the mouth of that river. We are told it was occupied by Egbert on the Ides of March.

Meanwhile Thrasco, the chief of the Obotriti, was treacherously killed by an emissary of Gudrod's at Eerie (Eginhardt, i, 196, 197 ; Kruse, 51), which may have been meant as a counter blow. He was probably considered a too faithful friend of the Franks to be well disposed to the Northmen. These acts Avere hardly a gauge of peace. We next read

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how Godfred, i.e. Gudrod, at the head of 200 ships, feU upon Friesia, devastated its coasts and islands, and fought three battles with the Fresians, whom he made tributary, exacting a sum of 100 pounds of silver from them, after which he returned home (Einhardt, Pertz, i. 197, 198 ; lb., Vit., Car. ch. 14, 17 ; Poeta Saxo, v. 403, 404 ; Fulda Annals, ib., i. 3.54, 345 ; Kruse, 53, etc.). This may have been a blow against Halfdane who, as we have seen, was then probably the emperor's feudatory there. A curious fact is cited by Depping to show to what straits the Friesians were at this time reduced. He quotes an old law by which a captive Friesian, who, in the service of the Northmen, should attack a village, violate women, kill men, or burn houses, was not to be punished when he returned home ; it being held that he was not a free agent, but only doing the bidding of his exacting masters. Another law authorised niothers to dispose of the property of such of their children as were carried off, showing how hopeless their return generally was.

We at all events find that the throne of Jutland was immediately occupied by one who courted the friendship of the Franks, while the sons of Godfred escaped beyond the water — assuredly this means their withdrawal to Westfold.

Saxo, as I mentioned in a previous page, tells us that, w^hen Godfred exacted tribute from the Friesians, he made them throw their money into the hollow of a shield and guessed from the sound whether it was good coin or no. Miiller throws light on this story from some rather ghastly features of the old laws of the North in reference to compounding for punishment ; thus he tells us how, by the law of Sialand (Lib. ii. cap. 39), two pieces of money {over) were to be paid in cases of wounding, for each bone out of the wound^which

^*' Harald Fairhair''' and his A?icestors. 75

made a sound when thrown into the hollow of a shield. (" Hivaert hen i mulhigh shiaelder thaer hotaes twa orae forae.'') This almost incredible provision is repeated in the Friesic laws (Ed. Gaertner. Addit. Sapient, tit. iii § 24) in the following words: — ^' Si ossa de vulnere exierint tantce magnitiidinis^ ut in scutum jactum XII. pedum spatio distante Jiomine possit aiidiri^ unurn ter IV. solid, componat, aliud ter duobus, tertiiini ter lino solido.'' The same occurs again in the Kipuarian Code, tit. Ixx. § 1 (See Miiller, op. cit. 251). What) was true of bones was transferred to the coin paid, in Saxo's narrative, and perhaps also in the popular traditions which had reached him. Iq the law just cited, the person testing the sound was to stand twelve feet off. In Saxo's narrative this has grown greatly, for he tells us Godfred had a building erected 240 feet long, containing twelve rooms of equal size, in the innermost of which sat the royal tax-collector, while the shield was placed in the one at the other end of the building. Saxo also tells us that when Godfred conquered the Saxon chiefs (this, as we have seen, is an unwarranted assertion) he imposed a tribute of a hundred white horses, which were to be paid on the accession of each king. Miiller explains that in the middle ages it was customary to use white horses in solemn processions, as when homage was done ; and that it is not improbable some Saxon chiefs may have done homage to the Norse chief and offered him a present of white horses (Op. cit. 251).

Saxo has another story about Godfred of the usual type in which he has borrowed the incidents and the facts from other sagas, and the only interest of which is the local colour which he has pre- served. In this he tells us that Godfred was famous not only for his prowess but for his

76 Saga-Book of the Viking Society.

liberality, and he was no less clement than strong. At this time, he says. Goto, i.e.^ Gautr, the king of Norway was visited by Bero, and Kefo (Kefr means a fox), from Thule, who presented him with a bracelet of great weight. The by- standers thereupon declared that Goto's generosity was unsurpassed. Kefo however, who, notwith- standing the present, was disposed to be candid, declared that Godfred, whom he treats as a Danish king, excelled him in this quality. Ulvus, i.e., Ulf, who was nettled at this, thereupon proferred a wager to Refo to go and test the Danish King. Refo accordingly set out, and found Godfred seated on his throne dividing prey or booty among his soldiers. On being asked what his name was he answered that he was a little fox. This aroused the laughter of some and the admiration of others. " A fox," said Godfred, " ought to take its prey in its mouth," and thereupon detaching his bracelet he tried to insert it inEefo's proffered lips. The latter placed it on his arm and showed it, decorated as it was with gold, to all pre- sent. Meanwhile he hid the other bracelet which had no ornament on it so that it might not tempt Godfred into another act of generosity, but that his gift should be spontaneous. He was delighted, not only with the value of the gift, but at having won his wager. When Godfred heard of the bet and how it had been won by accident rather than by design he was more delighted than Refo himself. The latter returned to Norway to obtain the wager, which being refused, he killed the king there and carried of! his daughter as a prize to Godfred (Saxo i. 435).

This story has been shown by Miiller in his Notae Uberiores to Saxo, to have been transferred to Godfred (a supposed Danish king) from another God- fred altogether, for the Saga occurs in an Icelandic

^^ Harald Fair hair " and his Ancestors. 77

recension. As Miiller says, Saxo's narrative shows it is an epitome. In the first place, two Thylenses, Bero and Refo, are mentioned by him as taldng part in the adventure ; but Bero speedily disappears from the scene altogether, and Ulvo is introduced without warning as if he had been already described. Nor does Saxo explain how the quarrel arose between Eefo and Goto, his former benefactor, which led to his carrying off his daughter.

In the much longer Icelandic legend (Forn. Sog. iii. 40 — 53) the story is more consistent. According to this account, Refo, or Giafa Refr, who was the son of a rich Norwegian peasant, born on an island in the north of Norway called Jadria, spent his youth in great squalor and indolence. Being scolded by his father, he expressed his willingness to leave home if he might take with him the thing his father most valued. To this the father consented, and he accordingly led away an ox whose horns had been decorated with gold and silver and been united by a silver ring.

This ox he took as a present to Nerio, or Nerius, iarl of the Uplands, a prudent, and a very firm person, who was his father's patron. Nerio accepted the gift, presented him in return wdth a be- coming garment, and also with a gilt shield. Refo having observed that Nerio directly after repented of having parted with such a rich shield, he willingly returned it again. Nerio was pleased with this, and gave Refo a touchstone {cotictila), and bade him go to Gautric, or Gotric, king of Gothland, who, after the death of his beloved wife, was accustomed to assuage his sorrow by hawking. He was to seize the opportunity when the king was sitting alone on a mound and was looking for stones with which to excite the hawks, and then he

78 Saga-Book of the Viking Society.

was to slip the touchstone mto his hand. Eefo duly performed his task and slipped the stone into the king's hand, who, in return, gave him a golden bracelet. Eefo now returned to Nerio, and spent the winter with him. Again, on his persuasion, he went to Ella, king of England, and presented him with the bracelet.

Ella in return, gave him a ship laden with mer- chancise and furnished with sailors, and, in addition, gave him two beautiful Melitaean, i.e,^ Maltese dogs, which Eefo in turn gave to Eolf Krak, who repaid him with the gift of a laden ship, as well as a decorated helmet and corslet of singular fabric.

The helmet and corslet he presented to Olav, a sea king who had command of eighty ships, and who offered in return to let Eefo have the use of them on some occasion. Having put himself at the head of these, he set out against king Gotric, to whose generosity he owed his subsequent good fortune, and compelled him to adopt him as his son-in-law. Nerio, by whose counsel Eefo had acted in these matters, now deemed that he had in some measure repaid him for the ox he had given him.

This Saga agrees with the story told by Saxo in the names of two of its chief actors, Gotric and Eefo. Saxo, could not well introduce Eolf Krak, king of Denmark, nor Nerio, chief of the Uplands, into his story without making it incredible, and in appropriating the story he had to make some sacrifices to consistency and he apparently con- verted the name of Nero or Nerio into Bero. Some of the incidents in Saxo's narrative, and its terminating phrase about Eefo's journey to Sweden, prove, perhaps, that he had before him a more perfect copy of the Saga in some respects than is extant in the Icelandic edition.

*' Harald Fairhair'''' and his Ancestors. 79

The story, however, is quite a fabulous one, and full of anachronisms, Rolf Krak and Ella, King of England, i.e.^ of Northumbria, being brought into contact. Ella seems to have been a generic name for English kings among some Icelandic Saga-tellers, and its occurrence causes difficulty as is well a known in explaining the Sagas about Ragnar Lodbrog. Another anachronism of a very patent kind is the bringing of Thylenses or Icelanders into contact with King Godfred. Iceland was not discovered till long after the latter's reign.

Returning to our main story it is strange to read the notice of the preparation of the Frankish forces to meet the attacks of the Saxons, and their march towards the Rhine mentioned in the same paragraph with the death of an elephant which had been sent as a present to Charlemagne by Aaron, the King of the Saracens, i.e.^ by Harun- az-Rashid, the Khalif of the Arabian Nights. The Franks marched towards the Alar, and at its confluence with the Weser, they awaited the attack of the Norsemen, who had boasted loudly of their intentions after the Friesian war. They did not, however, come, but news arrived that Godfred had been assasinated (Eginhardt, Pertz, 197, 198), assuredly an abi'upt and tragical phrase. The Chronicle of St. Gallen says the deed was done bv one of his sons in reven^^e for his having deserted his mother in favoui* of another wife (Pertz, ii. 757).

The Ynglinga Saga has a different story. It says that when his son Halfdane was one year old and another son Olaf was twenty, Gudrod went on a round of visits. He lay w^ith his ship in Stifla- sund, and there was heavy drirdving, and having drunk hard he got very tipsy. His ship was connected with the shore by gangways. When

8o Saga-Book of the Viking Society.

it was (lark, he went ashore and had got to the end of the gangway when a man ran a spear into him and killed him. The man was instantly put to death, and in the morning it was discovered that he was Queen Asa's foot-boy, nor did she conceal that it was done by her orders. In Thiod- wolfs versicles as edited by Vigfusson we read : " Gudrod the Magnificent (in Gaofoglati), who lived long before, was struck down by treason, and a deadly hatred long nursed, drew treachery upon the King, upon the drunken prince ; and the traitorous messenger of Asa won a murderous victory over the Kin^, yea the prince was stabbed to death on the ancient bed of Stiflasund" (Vigfusson Corp. Poet., 1.250 note).

Saxo merely says that Godfred was the victim of the treachery of one of his dependents, which agrees with the story told in the Ynglinga, and is anothei* proof that the Godfred of the Franks and Gudrod were the same person, and, if so, the Frank Annals are witness that he died in 810. In the annals of the so-called Rykloster we read that when he had defeated the Emperor and laid waste Saxony he was thrust through the body.

Gudrod's Norwegian possessions stretched from the modern Folda, along the shores of the Christiana fiord as far as the Miosa lake and the Randsfioi'd, and thence directly south as far Kygiarbit. They reached eastward as far as Soloer and Wermeland inclusive.

The death of so great a chieftain would have caused a great gap anyhow, but it was made greater by the misfortunes or perhaps the incompe- tence of his eldest son Olaf, (who was only twenty) and who succeeded to most of his possessions in Norway. In Jutland he was succeeded, we are

*' Harald Fair hair"' and his Ancestors, 8i

expressly told, not by either of his sons, but by Hemming. Eginhardt calls him his brother's son (Pertz, i. 197). We shall return to him presently, meanwhile a few words about Olaf The later Saga of Olaf Tryggveson calls him a brother of Godfred, but this cannot weigh against the contemporary Frank annals, while Saxo makes him his son.

This seems to be a mistake, and to have arisen from a confusion between Halfdane, the brother and predecessor of Gudrod, and Halfdane, the deputy of Sigurd Ring in Jutland, who was a jjrotege of the emperor. It is most un- likely that Gudrod, who had sons of his own, who as we shall see were very active at this time, should have been succeeded by his nephew, and, as we shall see presently, Hemming was really a son of another Halfdane, who belonged to a rival family to that of Gudrod, and which had been driven from Jutland by himself, had recovered it on his death. In this way only can we explain what happened

The new king came to terms with the Empire, and in a treaty made between them in 811 the Eider was accepted as the frontier between the two kingdoms (Helmold, Kruse, 58). Steenstrup argues that this was not the North Eider, or Treewe. This is the Danish view, the German view as maintained by Waitz, Simson, and others is that the boundary was the Treewe. Thus the border district occupied by the Transal- bingian Saxons, with the Obotriti of Wagrien, over which Godfred had exacted a kind of suzerainty, were surrendered to the Franks. This treaty was concluded at a conference held on the Eider, in which ten chiefs on the side of the Franks were met by an equal number of Danes,

82 Saga-Book of the Viking Society.

In a letter from Pope Leo, the names of the Franks are thus given : — 1. Count Walach, son of Bernhard, that is Walach or Wala, afterwards Abbot of Corbey, cousin to Charlemagne (and son of his uncle Bernard, by a Saxon mother) ; whom he had sent against the Lombard King Desiderius (Simson, Jahrbuch, 466 and note 5). 2. Count Burchard ; who was comes stahidi to the Emperor, and was sent by him, in 807, with a fleet to Corsica to fight the Moors (Eginhardt sub an. calls him missus do mini).

3. Count Unroch who was sent into Dalmatia ; he was the grandfather of the Emperor Berenger, (Einh, sub an. 817, Sims., 466 and note 5).

4. Count Wodo, or Odo, doubtless the Odo legatus mentioned in 810 as the commander of Hohbuoki (Eginhardt annales Pertz i, 197). 5. Count Megin- hard, i.e., the father of Eberhard the Saxon, who was killed in 881 by the Norsemen. 6, Count Egbert (already named as the founder of a fortress across the Elbe and probably the later King Egbert of Wessex). 7. Count Theotheri, w^ho w^as doubtless the same person sent as an envoy to the Danes with Kruodmund in the next reign. 8. Count Abo, probably Abbio, who was baptised with Witikind, {Annales Lauriss. and Eginh. sub anno 785 ; Kruse, 62). 9. Count Ostdag, doubtless a Saxon. Count Wigman, a Saxon, mentioned in 939 (Pertz, i, 619)." On behalf of the Danes the deputies were thus named : — Two brothers of Hemming named Hancwin (probably a corruption of Hakon, Dahlman, I., 25) and Augandeo (Aug- antyr, ib.). and the following chief men : — Osfred, styled Turdimul (? from Islandic tutinn thick, and niuli mouth, Dahlmann 25), Warstein (this name also occurs in the Landnama bok, Y. Powell) : Suomi ? and L'rm, and another Osfred, the son of Heilig {i.e., Helye), and Osfred of Sconaowe,

" Harald Fair hair ^^ ayid his Ancestors. 83

i.6^., of Scania, and Hebbi, (I'eminding us of Hubba Y.P.), and Aowin (Eanwind, i.e.^ Onwend). The names are given by Eginhardt in their Frankish form (Pertz. i. 198-9, suh an. 811.

We are told that peace was sworn according to the method of the Danes.

The Emperor now divided his army into three sections ; one was sent into I^>rittany, another into Pannonia, and the third crossed the Elbe into the country of the Slavic Linones, which restored the fortress of Hohbuoki, destroyed the pi'evious year by the Wiltzi. Charles himself went to Bononia, i.e., Boulogne, where the ships he had ordered to be built the year before were assembled. He restored the pharos there, doubtless that which had been built by the Roman Emperor Caligula ; and caused the nocturnal fire to be relighted. Eginhardt speaks of it as antiquitus constitutam. He then went up the Scheldt to Ghent {in loco qui Ganta vocMiir). where he inspected another fleet, and in the middle of November returned to Aachen, where there came Aowin and Hebbi, two envoys of the king (Hemming) bearing gifts. While the Emperor thus extended a civil hand to the Norsemen, he carefully prepared more effica- cious defences for the coasts.

The Frankish chronicles here introduce us to a fierce struggle. Sigfred, i.e., Sigui'd, (who by Eginhardt is called the nephew of Godfred), and Anulo the nephew or grandson (nepos) of Harald who was formerly king (that is, of Harald Hilde- tand) ; in this battle we are told that 10,940 men fell.

Anulo is translated Kingo by Saxo and in the longer life of Olaf Ti'ygveson, which at this point apparently follows him, it has been supposed by

84 Saga-Book of the Viking Society,

some that by him Sigurd Ring was really meant, while it is almost clear that the latter had been dead some years.

Who then was Anulo ? He was clearly a pre- tender. The name Anulo is conjugated Anulo Anulonis, and has apparently nothing to do with Annulus as Saxo thought. It is probably some form of a Norse name. Munch suggested that it stood for Aale, formerly Anli, Saxon Anlo, (op. cit., ii. 153, note 2).

I have suggested that he was the son of Halfdane (above mentioned as having had authority in Jutland) and the brother of Hemming.

As I read the difficult story, the fight which occurred, took place between some relative of Gudrod, possibly a son, named Sigurd, and the family of Haldane whom Gudrod had expelled from Jutland. The [)arty of the former won the fight, and that that of Gudrod which had been in possession of Jutland, and had expelled Hemming, was defeated and driven out. We are told by the Frankish writers (whose story at this time is not at all clear), that both Sigurd and Anulo were killed in the battle. What seems plain is that the party opposed to Gudrod's interests, and who were his heirs, won the day. It was fought in 812, and the number of casualties shows that it was a despei-ate struggle and a huge strain on such thinly peopled countries as the Scandinavian lands.

The next few years were occupied with a per- sistent struggle in which the sons of Gudrod and those of Haldane, took a part and in which the suc- cess was intermittent on either side. The general result was the great set-back of the new Nor- wegian kingdom, which is not disguised by Ari's phrases about the courage and manliness of Olaf, the King of Westfold, and probably accounts for

" Harald Fairhair^'' and his Ancestors. 85

the virtual silence of the Northern Sagas on the details of the struggle for which we have to turn to the Frankish historians. It is curious that even these do not mention the particular names of the Norse chieftains at this time, and only refer to them as " the sons of Godfred." Of their opponents it only mentions two, namely, the two brothers Harald and Reginfred, the sons of Half- dane, who fought against the Emperor's proteges and dependents.

Olaf, according to the Ynglinga Saga, was a great warrior, and was yery handsome, strong, and large of growth. This is an astounding statement, for it is immediately followed by the most complete confession of disaster that was perhaps ever I'ecorded in such a few sentences. It tells us that the very wide dominions, which had been conquered by Olaf's father and grandfather, were reduced to the small districts of Westfold and Westmar (the latter being named as his in the Flatey-bok). Meanwhile King Alfgar of Alfheim took all Vingulmark (part of which had been ruled over by Olaf s father) and placed his son Gandalf over it, after which the father and son reduced the greater part of Raumariki. On another side Hedemark and Soloer with Thoten and Hadeland were recovered by Hogne, son of Eystein the Great of the Uplands. Hauk Erlendson, in his account of the Kings of the Uplands, and the Flatey-bok, with whom Munch agrees, say this last conquest was made by Eystein, son of Hogne, and grandson of Eystein the Great (Ynglinga Saga, ch. 54; Munch, 154). Wermelandwas also conquered by the Swedish king. Meanwhile, Gudrod's widow Asa, ruled over Agdir, in the name of her young son Halfdane.

It is not to be wondered at that Gudrod's sons also lost their hold on Jutland, which the two

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victorious brothers Harald and Reginfred appro- priated.

We are told that in the same year they sent envoys to make a pact with the Emperor, and to ask him to send them back and to release their brother Hemming, shewing he was still living (Eginhardt, Pertz, i. 199) ; he was doubtless the same Hemming, who died in Walcheren, as I shall show presently, many years later, and is there dis- tinctly called the son of Halfdane. The next yeai* an imperial conventum or council was held at Aachen, where at the request of their king (i.e., Hemming), it was determined by the Emperor to send sixteen ^"^of the Frank and Saxon chiefs across the Elbe to ra:tify a peace with the Danes. They accordingly went, and met sixteen of the latter. They took with them Hemming, and returned him to his people. His brothers were at this time absent with their army, and had gone to Westarfold, which region we are told lay beyond their kingdom between the north and west, and looking towards Britain (Eginhardt, Pertz, i. 200). Steenstup and his followers have tried to claim that Westarfold was some obscure place in Denmark, but as Pertz, i. 200, note 17, and Kruse have argued a view which is also Simson's, the expression domi non erant, shows they were not then in any part of Denmark (Simson, 521 note). It was clearly the district of Westfold in Norway, which looks towards England, and was the very homeland of Gudrod and his people, and then subject to the rival family of Inglings. We are told the two brothers reduced the chiefs and people of Westerfold to obedience (Eginhardt, Pertz, i. 200 ; Kruse, 69).

The same year, i.e., in 813, Godfred's sons returned from exile with not a few of the chief

" Harald Fairhair'''' and his Ancestors. 87

Danes who had left their country [relicta patria is a most suggestive phrase) and had sought refuge among the Swedes. Tliey also collected a large body of people from all parts of Denmark, who had joined them etiam regno iion rnulto eos labore pepulerunt. They were ap[)arently welcomed by a large number of their father's folk, and fought against the two kings and drove them and their brother Hemming out (Eginhardt, Pertz, i, 200 ; Chron. Moiss., id i. 311, ii. 259). Meanwhile, Karl the Great died on the 28th of Januarv, 814 (See the fine account of his death and burial in Hodgkin, Invaders of Italy, vii. 200, etc.). His sti'ong arm and vigorous policy had preserved the empii'e from ravage. The garrisons he fixed on the coast, the guardships he had built on the rivers, the heavy hand he laid on marauders had restrained the pirates of Denmark and the Saracens from too daring attacks, But even these precautions had not entirely availed. Already the bold seamen of the North had coasted round the peninsula, and entered the Mediterranean, and the monk of Saint Gallen relates how the Emperor one day, when in one of his southern ports, saw from the walls the ships of the Northmen in the distance, and although they dared not beard him, he is said to have lamented for the fate of the empire and for his descendants (Pertz, ii. 757, 758).

It is convenient at this point to refer to a mythical story which has deceived many people, (including myself, in former days), about a supposed paladin of Charlemagne known as Olger the Dane, the alleged hero of many adventures. A certain Otger, who was one of Charles' jnarrJiione^^ is mentioned by the Monk of St. Gallen, in his life of Charles ; also in the Ann. Lob., 771, and the Chron. Moiss. in 773), but he is not call a Dane by any of

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them. The first reference I can find to an Olger "the Dane" at this date attributes to him the rebuilding of Saint Martin's Church at Cologne after it had been burnt by the Saxons in the 778, and is contained in the so-called Chronicle of St. Martin, a forgery of the Monk Legepont, and dating from the 18th century.

Between the years 814 — 19 the monastery of St. Filibert on the island of Noirmouttier was sacked by the Norsemen. (The island was also called Hermutier = Heri Monasterium ; Herio or Heri being the name of the island on which it stood.) ; it was south of the Loire. Depping (i. 67, 68) tells an anecdote referring to a fresh prevision of calamity at this time : Liudger, a scholar of Alcuin's, had been a youthful missionary among the Westphalians and Friesians. He also wished to go among the Northmen to reclaim them to Christianity, but the Emperor, who had made him Bishop of Munster, would not permit him. His influence among the Friesians was too valuable for his life to be risked on such a dangerous errand. Liudger, too, saw the dangei* that loomed in the future. Depping tells how he one night dreamed that clouds came from the north, covered the face of the sun, and threw a gloom over the earth. " I shall not see it," he said to his sister, " but you will ; " and truly, as his biographer says, they came frequently after he was dead, and ravished the land mercilessly [Altfridus vita sancti Liudgeri, lib. ch. 2, &c., Depping, 68, note). These calamities did not come at once. The first suc- cessor of Charlemagne was quite equal to defending his frontiers, how^ever incapable he was of man- aging his household. He was a soldier as well as a scholar. The Avars and the Saracens had both tested his prowess before his father's death and

'''' Harald Fairhair'^ and his Ancestors. 89

alter he was crowned at Kheims by Pope Stephen himself, the Emperor Louis received lordly em- bassies from Nicephoros, Emperor of Byzantium, and the Khalif Abdurrahman, the rulers of the two strongest empires of his day. It is not strange, therefore, that the Northmen respected his borders. Their intestine quarrels continued, however. In 814 the two kings Harald and Keginfred who had been expelled by the sons of Godfred, and had sought shelter among the Obotriti, collected an army and returned the next year to the attack. In the fight that ensued, lleginfred and the eldest son of Godfred are said by one authority to have been killed (Chron. Moiss, an., 813). The report about Keginfred is doubtful however, since Adam of Bremen says distinctly thai he took to pii^acy (Gest. Hamb. Ecc. Pont, i. 17; see\\\. 291, note 54). The Ynglinga Saga says the same of Olaf, the elder son of Gudrod. The invadei'S were evidently defeated, for we are told by Eginhardt that Harald repaired to the Emperor and acknowledged his su- premacy {se in manus illius commendavit—¥jgm\\SiV&t, Pei'tz,i. 201 ; Kruse, 72, 73). He apparently asked for help in recovering Jutland. He was told to return to Saxony (Saxony beyond the Elbe is doubt- less meant) and to wait awhile, when he might hope for assistance. The Emperor gave orders that the Saxons and Obotriti should prepare to assist him. It was proposed to advance while the rivers were still frozen, but a sudden thaw broke them up, and the expedition was postponed till May 815. The combined ti'oops, led by the Imperial legate Baldric, then crossed the Eider and advanced seven days' journey into the Danish district called Sinlendi, i.e., the Sillende of Other (Kruse, 73 ; Simson says Sinlendi, east of Schleswig, Jahr- bucher III., i. 52, note 6), without douV)t the later

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Sclileswig. They went as far as the coast, where they entrenched themselves. Godfred's sons meanwhile retired to an island three miles off the mainland (Kruse suggests the island of Alsen, op. cit. 74 ; he follows Leibnitz, but Simson, Dummler, etc., suggest more probably, Funen). There they as- sembled a large army and a fleet of 200 ships. The Franks dared not cross arms with them, and contented themselves with ravaging the districts around, carried ofl" forty hostages, and then returned to the Emperor, who was at Paderborn. Dahlmann makes out that the camp of the invaders was at Snogoi, opposite the town of Middlefart, in Funen, where the Belt is very narrow (op. cit., i. 27.)'^^ The Convention at Paderborn wished to settle the question of the eastern frontiers of the Slavs and Danes, and also the affairs of Harald (Simson, 53, vide Theganus, Pertz ii, 523, Einh. Ann. ; Pertz. i. 202).

This expedition of the Frank Emperor seems utterly indefensible. To take the part of a fugitive chief who has been driven out of his country, and to invade and ravage that country with no substantive quari'el of one's own, is surely to attempt severe reprisals when opportunity arrives, and we need not travel far, when we find such policy in vogue, to excuse and palliate the cruel ravages of the pirates a few years later. Louis had no more right to intervene in the domestic quarrels of his neigh- bours than Napoleon in those of Spain. If it was then deemed good policy to sow discord among the frontagers of the empire by taking the side of fugitives and pretenders (a policy carried out with the Obotriti as well as the Danes), we need not

* It would seem from the confused account in the Icelandic annals that Ragnar Lodbrog was thought to have been opposed to Harald on this occasion (Kruse, 75).

" Humid Faifhair'" and his Ancestors, 91

wonder that such sowing should have led to a plenti- ful growth of ill-feeling on the part of the victims. To the diet at Paderborn in 815, went envovs from the Danes asking for peace (Theganus, Vit. Lud., Pertz, ii. 593). Louis was too strong to be attacked, nor was his strength tempered with overmuch courtesy, for we are told that in 817 the sons of Godfred sent envoys to him to complain of the continual attacks of his protege Ha raid, and offered their own master's submission. In the Vita. Ludovisi (Pertz, ii. 621, (322), these messages are described as simulata^ i e., dishonest and they were therefore rejected. Dahlmann suggests that the negotiations with the Slavs had reached Louis' ears (Gesch. von Dan, i. 2). It was deemed politic to neglect the news but further assistance was offered to Harald. About the same time, i.e., in 817, Sclaomir, who, on the murder of Thrasco, had been made chief of the Obotriti, was ordered to share his realm with Ceadrig, the son of his pre- decessor. This he resented, swore he would neither cross the Elbe again, nor attend the Imperial palace. He also sent envoys to God- fred's sons and invited them to invade Saxony beyond the Elbe (which had been gi'anted to his people by Charlemagne). TJie Obotriti had hitherto been most faithful allies of the Franks, who styled them Slavi nostri qui dicMntiir Obotriti, (Chron. Moiss., sub an. 798, etc., etc., ; see Simson, i. 110-111, note i.) They accordingly set out with their fleet, mounted the Elbe to Esesfeld, now called Itzehoe, and ravaged the borders of the river Stur. At the same time Gluomi, the custodian of the Norman frontier — (" Castas Nord- mannicA limitis" as he is called in the annals of Eginhardt Pertz, i. 203, 204), advanced over- land to the same place, but retired before the

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determined attitude of the Franks. This was the first time, so far as we know, in which the North- men openly dared to attack aij imperial outpost, Fi-iesia being only an appanage at the most, and almost independent.

We now read of a revolution in Denmark, which is not quite explicable. This was in 819, and therefore two years after the previous mention of the Danes. Doubtless, as Simson savs, Harald had meanwhile kept up his attacks, assidua in- fe'itatio Herioldi says Eginhardt. In 817, we are told that Harald, having led his ships by the Emperor's orders through the land of the Obo- triti,"^ returned to his own country, where he was well received by two of Godfred's sons, who agreed to share the kingdom with him. Other two sons, however, were expelled from the kingdom, Eginhardt adds, '' sed hoc dolo factum putatm\'' that is by fraud (Eginhardt, Pertz, i. 208 ; Kruse, 78, 819). The meaning of this revolution, I presume, is that Harald, backed by the influence of the Frank Emperor, succeeded in planting his foot once more in his native land, not as a welcome guest, but as a traitor, whose presence was a daily insult to his neighbours. The question arises, who were these sons of Godfred ? About one of them there is no difficulty, the one who probably supplanted the rest, Eric, known as Eric the First. The other brother who shared his realm with him was doubtless Reginfred. The brothers, who were excluded from Jutland,

* It is not actually said that Harald led his ships, as the words have been translated, but rather that he conducted them through the land of the Obotriti, " reductus ad naves " is the phrase used. — Eginhardt Ann., Pertz, i. 208. How could he lead them overland ? Messrs. Warn, Koenig & Gerard say he was conducted to his ships and then went by sea towards his own country (op. cit., ii. 214).

'* Harald Fairhair'^ and his Ancestors. 93

who had probably remained behind in Norway, and who shared the kingdom of Westfold, wei'e not improbably Olaf and Halfdane, kings who were certainly sons of Gudrod.

In 820, thirteen piratical ships made a descent upon the coast of Flanders (Eginhardt, .s?//>. a;///.). They committed some damage and captured some cattle, when they were driven away by the coastguards ; aliquot casae viles iucensae^ et par- vus pecoris numerui^ abactus est. They then repaired to the open low^-banked estuary of the Seine. There they were attacked, and lost five of their number. Sailing on again, they once more landed on the coast of Aquitaine, at a place called Bundium by Eginhardt, and Buin in the Vita Ludovici, Ch. 33. Bonin, say Messrs. Warn & Ger, ii. 214, was on the island of the same name. Where this island really was is doubtful. Valesius & Leibnitz suggest St. Paul de Born, south of the Garonne, but this is contested by Pertz. Noirmontier or some island close by is perhaps meant. There they plundered effectively (vico qiiodam qui vocatur Bundium ad integrum, depopulato^ Eginhardt Annales, Pertz, i. 207), and returned home laden with an im- mense booty (Eginhardt, Pertz, i. 207 ; Kruse, 79), and with abundant temptation to their hardy, poor, and adventurous countrymen to try the trade of buccaneering. As Kruse suggests, it is exceed- ingly probable that this expedition was led b}- the two sons of Godfred, who were driven away from home in the preceeding year (Kruse, op. 80). Simson (Ludwig der Frommen, 161, note 4), seems to suggest that it was on this occasion the Brotherhood of St. Filibert of Noirmoutier, wliich had often suffered from the pirates, built themselves a new monastry on the mainland, whither they

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returned in the summer when the sea was free from the pirates. But this was surely later ? Prevost (Ord. Yit. Vol., i. 158, note) says the monks passed the good season in the monastery of Dee, 10 miles from Nantes.

During 821 the empire was not molested by the Danes, and Harald, we are told, lived peaceably with the sons of Godfred. H. Martin, Hist, de France, suggests they had ceded him a part of Jutland (op. cit. ii. 381, ed. of 1861 Warn & Ger., ii. 214). They were, however, only considered to be fair- weather friends to the empire, and Ceadrag, the chief of the Obotriti, was suspected of holding secret intercourse with them. Sclaomir, who had been de- tained at the Frankish court, was allowed to return home, probably with the intention of displacing him ; but on his arrival in Saxony he fell ill, and having been baptized, died (Eginhardt, Pertz, i. 207; Kruse, 80). In this year a Capitulary was issued, which provided in several clauses for the uniting of the slaves or villeins into Guilds for mutual protection against the Norman pirates, especiall}^ on the coast of Flanders ; See Sickel, 170.

It was the custom of the Emperor to spend several months of each year in a tour of inspection of his dominions. As Palgrave well observes, the Carlovingian sovereigns knew their country well from constantly traversing it. " Travel and tramp are good teachers both of statistics and geography." In the Chron. Moissense, 814, we have a notable entry about the Emperor Louis at this time. We read, that he planted garrisons on the seaboard where they were required — yrcesidia ponit in litore maris ubi necesse fuit (see also Nigellus II., V. 157). On returning from his tour the Kaiser generally settled down at one of his palaces —

" Harald Fairhair'' and his Ancestors, 95

Aachen or Niuivegen, Conipiegne, Ingelheim, or Frankfort. There he received envoys from the dependent nations, and controlled the adminis- tration of his vast dominions. At the council held at Frankfort, in November, 822, envoys bringing gifts came from all the Eastern Slavs — from the Obotriti, Sorabi, Wiltzi, Bohemians, Marvani, {i.e., the Moravians), the Pnedenecenti (i.e.., the Obodriti, who lived near the Danube, close to the Bul- garians— Kruse, 83, note), and from the Avars, (Eginhardt, Pertz, ii. 209 ; Kruse, 83). The monk of St. Gallen adds that they took gold and silver as proofs of devotion, and their masters' swords as symbols of subjection ; but this is probably a rhetorical flourish. Among the rest we are told that Harald and the sons of Clodfred also sent envoys to this conventum (Einhardt, op. cit.). Simson suggests that the peace between them was then at an end.

We now arrive at a period when the Franks were seriously preparing to evangelize the country beyond the Elbe, a policy which, perhaps, more than any other brought upon them those flights of gad- flies, the Danish rovers, in the next age. We are told in Rembert's " Life of St. Anscarius " that about the years 817 — 819, Ebbo, the Archbishop of Rheims, fourth brother of the Emperor Louis, burned to call the heathen, and especially the Danes, whom he had frequently seen at the palace, within the Christian fold (vit. St. Ansch., Pertz, II., 2,699; Kruse, 79). His first efforts in this direction apparently took place in 822, when w^e read in the Fuldensian annals that he evan- gelized the race of the Norsemen (Pertz, i. 357 ; Kruse, 81) — that is, he probably had the gospel preached to such of Harald's people as had come

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within or near the Frankish frontier, or were Kving in Harald's part of Jutland."^

The next year Harald attended in person at Compiegne, and complained that Godfred's sons threatened to expel him from the country. The Emperor determined bo send the Comits Theothar and Hruodmund as envoys to them, to make inquiries on the spot, and report to him. With them went Ebbo, Archbishop of Eheims, who on his return claimed to have baptized many (Enhardus, Fuldensian Annals, Pertz. i. 211 ; Kruse, 84). According to the monk Ermoldus Nigellus, he also converted King Harald, and persuaded him to become a Christian. This is, doubtless, an exaggeration,, but he probably urged upon him the good policy of doing so. The Emperor seems to have been satisfied with his inquiries, for in 825 the envoys of Godfred's sons went and renewed their pact with the Empire, at a conventum held at Aachen. We are told that peace was rati- fied with them in October of 825, and that it was signed ''^ in marca eorum'' {i.e., on their m.ardh or frontier). It was this march or mark w^hich probably gave its name to Denmark, which merely means the march or mark of the Danes. The absence of perpetual attacks at this time shews, as Messrs. Warnkoenig & Gerard say, that these acts had really been acts of war (op. cit., ii. 296). Ebbo seems to have renewed his mission (see Eem-

• Ebbo had gone to Rome in 822 and obtained a commission for this work from Pope Paschal. He was accompanied on his journey by Wilde- rich, Bishop of Bremen. Halfgar of Kammerich, whom the Pope had designed as his companion, did not apparently go with him. Dummler, op. cit , i. 259, notes 37 and 38. For his support while he stayed in Denmark the Emperor gave Ebbo the " Cell " of Welanao, the modern Munsterburg on the Stur, near Itzeoe {id.). He used it as a base of operations and a recruiting place, and we are told he often went there and prosecuted his labours in the Northern parts successfully (vit. Ansk, 13, 14, p. 697).

^^ Harald Fair hair '^ and his Ancestors. 97

bert, ch. 13 ; Dummler, Ost Franken, i. 259, note 47). Up to this point Harald and Godfred's sons seem to have lived on fair terms. The next year the annual " conventum " was held in Charlemagne's palace at Ingelheim, where envoys went from the Obotriti and from Godfred's sons (Eginhardt, Pertz, i. 214 ; Kruse. 88). It was, however, famous for a much more important event. Harald, who had been driven out again by the latter, and was now a fugitive, deemed it prudent to adopt a new policy. He determined to be baptized, and to become a dependent of the empire. The story of the ceremony has been told in detail by the panegyrist of Louis, the monk Ermoldus, who was doubtless an eye-witness ; and a very graphic picture it is of the Imperial court of the early part of the ninth century.

Eginhardt tells us how Charlemagne had built himself a palace at Ingelheim, a suburb of Mainz, close by the church of St. Alban, then outside the city walls. The palace overlooked the grand old river, the Rhine. The poet Saxo speaks of its hundred pillars — doubtless such as can still be seen in Charlemagne's Dom at Aachen ; some were spoils of old Rome, and some of home-got granite. These shafts still survive (scattered however) at Ingelheim, Mainz, the monastery of Eberbach and at Heidelberg (Simson, Vit. Lud. 257), while some of the capitals of the pillara are in the museum at Mainz. Ermoldus describes the palace as ornamented with has-reliefs^ or paintings. He speaks in one place of the Begia domus late "per sculpta ; in another, however, he uses the word pingittcr as if they were painted, which is more pro- bable, Simson so understands it. In these paintings, or reliefs, the deeds of the great conquerors and legislators of old were represented — of Alexander

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and Hannibal, Constantine and Theodosius, etc. They were apparently based on Orosius, and in- cluded on one side Ninus ; Cyrus, whose head the Scythian queen was putting in a bowl of blood ; Hannibal, as he lost an eye in the marshes of Etruria, Alexander's great deeds and the foundation of Rome. On the other side were scenes from later history ; the founding of Constantinople. Theodosius the Great, Charles Martel receiving the submission of the Friesians ; and Pepin of the Aquitanians : while on other slabs were represented the dealings of the mighty Karl himself (Karl with the sage front, as he is styled) and his conflict with the Saxons, — all rude enough, no doubt ; copies of crude w^orks of the later days of the Western Empire, but (when hung about with the florid tapestries and hangings that came from the Saracen looms) impressive enough to the warriors of the Slavic and Northern marches (Simson, 257.) Many small temporary dwellings were erected to accommodate the visitors. There in his Aula Louis received the many-tongued and variedly dressed deputations of his friends and satellites. It was there also that in 826 Harald went with his wife and his son (one late waiter, Hermann von Reichenau says sons, and Harald had certainly two sons, Godfred and Rodulf). He also took his nephew, or brother Rurik (probably his nephew) and a large body of retainers. The monk describes how when the fleet appoached, the Kaiser, who watched it from the battlements, sent Matfred, Count of Orleans, with a body of young courtiers to meet the Danes ; and with them some richly capari- soned horses. Haraldapproachedthehall of audience mounted on a Frank horse. The poet also gives at length what he claims to be Harald's address to the great Emperor, inter alia., stating how he had been converted by the Archbishop Ebbo, and now

'' Harald Fntrhair'* and his Aitceslors. 99

wished to be baptized. The ceremony was per- formed in St. Alban's Chapel (Simson, i. 258, note). Louis was god-father to Harald, and decked him with his white chrismal robe; the Empress Judith did the same for the great Dane's consort ; while the young Lothaire, the Emperor's heir, was sponsor to Harald'sson. With them were baptised four hundred Northmen of both sexes — promiscui sexus (" Annales Xantenses," sub anno 826). The Monk of St. Gallen does not directly refer to this ceremony in his notice. He says that not a year passed without some of the Danes being baptised, and declaring themselves vassals. On one occasion 50 came, and there not being sufficient white robes for them, they had to be made quickly and rudely ; and our author reports how one of the northern warriors rejected his robe, saying. " Keep your dress for women ; this is the twentieth time I have been baptized, and never before had I such a costume. If I were not ashamed to go naked I would leave your Christ and your garment to- gether" (Simson). This, as Dapping says, was probably a tale invented to amuse the courtiers at Ingelheim. After the ceremony the Emperor gave his 'protege some lordly presents, a purple robe fringed with gold, the sword that hung by his side, a golden girdle, golden bracelets for his arms, and a jewelled sash for his sword, a coronal for his head, his own socks of golden tissue and his white gloves. His wife was also duly decked by the Empress Judith with a tunic stiff with gold and jewels, a golden band to entwine her flaxen curls, a twisted golden collar about her neck, bracelets on her arms, a gold jewelled sash, about her waist, and a cape of golden tissue upon her shoulders ; while Lothaire presented his godson w4th garments of golden material. Their four hundred followers were also rewarded with pre-

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sents of Frank robes (see line 397). When thus decked out they proceeded to the Dom, where priests and attendants were assembled, a ^picture of glorious colour. We are told that among the grandees present were Clement, the head of the school ; Theuto, the precentor, who ordered the pinging of the choir of clerics ; while Adhalewd acted as Chamberlain and arranged the throng with his ferule in his hand, as they raised the alleluia. First came the young Prince Charles, and then amidst stirring strains the great Kaiser and his company paced up the church to the apse, the Abbot and Arch-Chaplain Hilduin on his right, the Imperial Chancellor, the Abbott Helisachar, on his left. Then came Gerung the chief door- keeper, with a staff in his hand and a golden crown on his head, then prince Lothaire, then the Danish king in chrismal robes, and the Empress Judith, conducted by Matfred, Count of Orleans and Hugo, of Tours, also w^earing crowns and gold embroidered garments, then follow^ed Harald's wife, and the Chancellor Fridugis, with a crowd of his scholars in white garments, lastly the rest of the people including the Danes, followed by the great nobles of the Empire clad in their state robes.

Most imposing must such pageantry have been to ordinary eyes, but how much more to the homely experience of the Danish exiles ! We are told how the preacher raised his voice, and bade Harald convert the Danish swords and spears into ploughs and reaping-hooks — surely a cynical address in the presence of the war- loving Franks. It must have been a solemn sight when, placing his hands in those of the Em- peror, Harald commended himself and the realms over which he had such a shadowy hold into the

^^^'^^'^^

" Ham Id Fairhair'" and his Aiicesiors. lOi

hands of bis suzerain. South Jutland was formally at least added to the appanages of the empire. Once more the Frankish sovereign might claim the much honoured style of Melirer des Beichs, increaser of the empire (Palgrave, i. 258).

After the state cereujonial came the feast, over which Petrus, the chief baker, andGunto, the chief cook, and Otho, the chief butler (no doubt honorary officers), presided, spreading out the napkins with their snowy fringes, and laying the victuals on the marble discs. Golden cups were used for drinking. By Louis' side sat his wife Judith, the hated step- mother of his sons.

After the feast the Danes were entertained at a royal hunt on one of the wooded islands of the Khine, and the spoil of bears, stags, wild boars, and roes was afterwards borne in, in state and divided among the courtiers and others, the clergy, as the old poet remarks, getting their due share. The Emperor, Empress, Lothaire, and Charles, Count Wido, and others were all there, and thus did the first Scandinavian chieftain of high rank formally forsake the faith of his forefathers and become a Christian.

When Harald had declared himself '' the man " of the Kaiser, we read that after the manner of the Franks he was presented with a steed and a set of arms. He also receive(^ more valuable gifts, for we are told that the Emperor granted him the district of Bustri, a rich and extensive gau or Pagus, in Friesia, still called Rustringen or Butya- dingerland, in the Grand Duchy of Oldenburgh, at the mouths of the Weser and the Yahde (Yogel, Die Normannen, op. cit., 60).. To this was added a vine-growing district, (" loca vinifera," as Ermoldus calls it), probably the district near Coblenz, Andernach, and Sinzig, which was after-

102 Saga-Book of the Viking Society.

wards (namely in 885), clahiied by Harald's son Godfred (Kruse, 95). Palgrave has a note on Charlemagne's cultivation of the vine in the Rhine Valley. These grants probably had attached to them the condition that attached to other mar- graviates, namely, that of defending the borders of the empire against the Danes. At length Harald departed, accompanied by the monk Anscharius, with appropriate store of sacred vessels, vestments, and priests' books to convert the Danes to Christianity, and to subservience to the Empire (Palgrave, 1,257 ; see also a long note in Langebek's life of St. Anscharius, Langebek, Rer. Dan. Scrip., 1,439). Ermoldus says that Harald's son and nephew remained behind as hostages (v. 629, 630).

On Harald's return he was accompanied as I have said, by the monk AnscJiar, the famous apostle of the North, and his companion Autbert. Their venture and that of Archbishop Ebbo, to which I have referred, were not the first missionary efforts in this direction. As far back as the year 699 the Enghsh bishop St. Willibrord had made an ineffectual attempt to introduce Christianity into Jutland, but was repelled by the then king of the country, who was called Augandeo (Dahlmann, i. 30, note). He baptized thirty Danish boys, who he hoped would form the nucleus of a Christian community. Among these, tradition makes out was St. Sebald, who in the legend is called a son of a Danish king (Dahlmann, i. 30, note). These earlier efforts, however, seem to have left no fruit behind them, and Anschar may claim the honour of having been the proto-apostle of Scandinavia. He was born on the 9th of September, 801. Having lost his mother when he was five years old he became an inmate of the school attached to the Abbey of Corbey, on the

*' Harald Fairhair^^ and his Ancestors. 103

Somme, in Picard}^ and was there ten years ; later he adopted the monkish habit, and when he was twent}^ was at the head of the school. In 823 he set out with other monks from the same abbey to work in Westphalia, where on the river Weser the Emperor Louis had built several churches and monasteries, and there he founded a " New Corbey " as a focus of missionary light. He had worked in Westphalia for three years, when he re- ceived orders from the mother monasteiy at Corbey to accompany Harald homewards. He declared his willingness to go, and was introduced to the Emperor, and supplied with the necessary articles — vessels, vestments, and books, together with tents and other necessaries, but with no servants, as none volunteered, and he did not wish to constrain any ; another monk named Autbert (as I have said), was his only companion (see for all this Simson, i. 256, 266). They were commissioned to take care the converted king did not relapse into his old ways, to instruct him further in the Christian faith, and also to preach to the heathen in Denmark. They had a wretched journey down the Rhine, past the lovely Rheingau and the Drachenfels, and suffered a good deal from the coarse, rude manners of Harald and his com- panions. Their condition was improved, when they were supplied with a separate vessel in which they could stow away their goods, by Hadebald, the Archbishop of Cologne. It con- tained two small cabins, a luxury unknown to the Danes. These took the king's fancy, and he transported himself into the Frankish ship, and took possession of one cabin ; but considerately left the other to the two monks. They afterwards gained his confidence and the respect of his people. They went by way of Dorestadt, ^.6., Wyk te Doorestede, which was an appanage of Harald

104 Sag a- Book of the Viking Society.

(Fulda Annals, suh ann^ 850), and then by the Lech and the Maas into the North Sea. Coasting along the Friesic shore they arrived at the mouth of the Weser, where Harald's newly granted appanage of Kustringen lay, and then onwards to Harald's frontiers in the south of Schlesvig (Dahlmann, i. 38, 39). There Anschar began his evangelistic work.

Let us now turn from the gorgeous ceremonial at Ingelheim, and its sequel (in which the exile Harald had so freely laid himself and his country at the feet of the Frank Kaiser), to Jutland and its then rulers. Jutland was a rugged, dreary land. Adam of Bremen describes it in the eleventh century as a huge waste of marsh and sterile land (" Porro cum omnes tractus Germanice liorreant saltibus^ sola est Jutland ceteris liorridior''). Cultivation was confined to the river banks, and its farms were wide asunder ; the population were a rough, hardy and persevering folk, such as the Danes are still — fishermen and sailors, much attached to their old creed and customs, and ruled over in great part at this time, as we have seen, by the sons of Godfred. On its borders Anschar now started a school of about twelve boys, partially consisting of those redeemed from Slavery, and partly of those handed over to him by Harald to be educated (Dummler i. 261). One can well believe how unwelcome Harald and his Christian proteges would be to this free folk, for he was coming to tie their necks, impatient of restraint, to the triumphal car of the great Emperor, whose renown had reached their ears but whose yoke they had not felt about their necks. Nor can we wonder that Christianity coming under Imperial auspices — coming, in fact, as the pendent to the chains of subservience to

" Ha aid Fairhair^' and his Ancestors. 105

the Frank throne — should have been received with scorn by the bulk of the people, and that their old faith, which thus became a symbol of their freedom, should have been clung to with the long- enduring affection which it was by their neighbours the Saxons.

In 827 we read that the Emperor held two general assemblies, one at Nimwegen, the grand fortress w^hose fragments still remain and command the course of the Lower Rhine, and the other at Compiegne. The former was held to meet the washes of Eric the son of Godfred, w^ho had promised to attend it in person (Eginhardt, Pertz, i. 216 ; Kruse, 104). These promises are styled ^' falsas pollicitationes,'' which show that he did not go. The sons of Godfred (no doubt including Eric), in fact, expelled Harald once more from their borders ; (" de consortio regni " is the phrase in Eginhardt meaning, no doubt, from the joint kingship), so that he must have gone back to Friesia. This doubtless stopped evangelistic work in Denmark itself, but Anschar continued to teach at his school ; two years later he was abandoned by Autbert, who, no doubt, grew weary of his wretched life of suspense, and returned to Corbey, where he died after a long illness, appar- ently at Easter, 830 (id). We are told that in 828 negotiations had been opened for mutual peace between the Danes and Franks and to arrange the affairs of Harald. A more likely story is told in the Vita. Ludovici, namely, that the Emperor wished to help Harald, and to make a treaty of peace with Godfred's sons, and sent the Saxon counts with him to open negotiations for the return of the latter to South Jutland (Pertz., ii. 621, 632). At this confer- ence nearly all the Saxon counts and the marquises or march guardians were present. But while the

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Saxon and Danish lords were treating, Harald, who was doubtless jealous of the peacemaking (which it was apparently arranged should involve the giving of hostages — Eginhardt, i. 217), went into and burnt some Danish hamlets. Godfred's sons thereupon naturally collected an army, crossed the Eider and attacked the camp planted on the other side, plundered it and drove the garrison away (Eginhardt, ih.^ Kruse, 106). This was in 828. Such was the treacherous dealing which sharpened the spears of the Danes when they revenged themselves upon the cities of the Frankish empire some years later. They behaved meekly enough on this occasion, however, for we are told by Eginhardt that they sent envoys to the Emperor to explain how they had been driven to the course they took, and were now ready to make amends. The Emperor was satisfied and peace was renewed with them. This account of the transactions, for which we depend entirely on the Frank Chronicles, seems to point to a rebuff and a distinct blow to the prestige of the Empire, and so Simson reads it. A good proof of this is the panic which followed the rumour which was spread in June the next year, i.e. 829, that the Danes were about to invade Saxony and were approaching the frontier. Louis sum- moned the Franks from all parts to a general levy, and announced that he intended crossing the Rhine at Neus in the middle of July. It was however, a false report. No envoys, came from the Danes to the conventum this year. (See Eginhardt, Pertz, i. 218). This is the last notice of the Norsemen by the great chronicler and biographer, Eginhardt. Their invasions at this time were clearly not piratical but legitimate warfare, and meant to create terror in the Empire and prevent its extending northward. They after- wards degenerated into piracy in consequence of

^^ It lira Id Fatrhair" and his Aiicestors. 107

the successes of the Norsemen. Depping asserts that they agreed to admit Harald into their land, probably to share its government, but I have not traced his authority, nor does this seem probable from other considerations. It is singular that in 829 and 830 there should be no mention of trouble with the Danes by the Frankish writers ; Harald apparently continued at peace in his holding, and there is no hostile mention in the Frank annals till 834. They may have been raiding elsewhere, for we read that in 830 — the island of Herio in Brittany was placed under the special protection of Louis and Lothaire on account of the invasions of the Northmen (Kruse, 122).

We now come to an incident which shows how Anschar's mission was more suspected politically than otherwise. While he had to do his missionary work from outside Denmark, envoys came to the Emperor from the Swedes, begging him to send some missionaries to their country. Sweden probably felt itself out of reach of the grasping Frankish empire, and could afford to trust the missionaries. Anschar volunteered to go. On his return thence in 831 it was determined to found a See on the pagan marches by the Elbe, whence the North might be evangelized ; and he was accordingly appointed Archbishop of Hamburgh. He journeyed to Rome to receive the pallium, and was duly invested wdth the commission of apos- tolical legate to the Swedes, Danes, and Slavs. He busied himself with his work, and we are told how he redeemed boys from slavery among the Danes and Slavs, and educated them for the service of God — native presbyters such as our missionaries still find so useful in Africa and elsewhere. It is probable that few of the Danes, save exiles and their like, were much influenced by

io8 Saga-Book of the Vikwg Society.

his teaching. The converts were no doubt looked upon as political traitors and renegades, and their new faith was treated as a badge of their disloyalty as well as their apostasy. This nest of Christians on the borders of the Eider was a constant menace to the independence of the Danes, a mere imperial outpost at their very threshold. It was doubtless the feeling nursed by these circumstances that caused Christianity and its professors to be so bitterly hated by the corsairs of a few years later, and made so many ruins of monasteries and churches. In our own day the same feeling led to similar cruel persecutions in Japan and China, where indifferentism and toleration in religious matters are tempered by a fierce jealousy of political propagandism.

In 831 the Emperor held his thu^d general placitum at Thionville [Theodonis villa, called Diedenhofen by the Germans). Envoys went there to him from Persia (which seems a long way off), seeking peace. There also went others from the Danes (no doubt from Eric's subjects), who, having renewed their pact with the empire, returned home (Annales Bert. Pertz, i, 424 ; Kruse, 113). I have already remarked how the early Danish attacks upon the coasts of the empire were far from being mere individual acts of piracy, and were deliberate acts of war, differing from the contemporary wars of the Franks only in being sea fights and not land fights. This is clear when we consider that whenever there was peace between the Imperial ruler and the Danish king ; and envoys were exchanged, w^e read of no attacks on the coasts, but these onlv occur when there Avas a feud between the two powers. In England and Ireland matters were very different, as we shall presently show. The view here urged is

'■'■ Harald Fait hair ^^ and his Ancestors. loq

supported by the further fact that the assaults upon the coasts of the mainland of Europe, when they recommenced, were directed not against the empire itself, but against the fief granted to Harald and his family. They continued, in fact, the long strife between the sons of Godfred and their rivals which we have traced out.

There is good reason for believing that besides the gaic of Kustringen, the greater part of Friesia and of modern Holland were under the immediate authority of Harald and his relatives {Theganus vita Hludovic Imp, Pertz, ii, 597 ; Kruse, 89) ; and we accordingly read that in the year 834 the Danes, {i.e., the Danes of Jutland), devasted a portion of Friesia* and having doubtless mounted the old course of the Rhine, now called the '' Oude Rhyn," they reached Vetus Trajectum, i.e., Utrecht, and then passed on to the great mart of those parts, which gave its name to the district — namely, Dorestadt. This was a famous trading centre where the Carlovingians had a mint, of which many coins are extant, and, according to the life of Anscharius, there were fifty-five churches and a crowd of clergy there. So famous was it as a religious centre that pilgrims visited it like they did the most holy places elsewhere, and a church was placed as its emblem on its coins (Depping,

* Friesland says Vogel, especially that part of it extending from the Vlie to Sinkfal near Sluis, in regard to trade and industry, was cer- tainly one of the most prosperous and progressive parts of the Empire, as well as one of the most fertile. With the exception of the Jews, the Friesians were the principal traders in Europe. We are told that the fairest portion of Mainz, then the great Mart where the trade routes from the Danube and Italy met, was inhabited by Friesians (A. Fuld, 887). There were Friesian traders at St. Denis (Bouquet, v. 699 and vi. 466) ; Muhlbach 75 ; also at York (Altfridus Vit. Luidgeri i. 11 ; S. S. ii. 40). Friesic fabrics were well known as far as the East. Thence there came too weapons and other kinds of smiths' work from the Rhine and the Belgian towns, so especially did wine, not only for drinking but for the ritual of the church. Thither also came wool from England, furs from the far north, and spices from the Levant (Vogel, 66).

iio Saga- Book of the Viking Society.

81, 82). It was situated at the point where the Lech and the old Rhine diverge, and is now represented by the village of Wyk te Doorestede, the Vicus Batavorum of Tacitus (Depping, loc. ciL). It was doubtless the metropolis of Harald's dominions, and the great focus of light, learning, and wealth for all Friesia. t Here the Danes now committed great ravages, pillaging the town and slaughtering its inhabitants. They then passed to Kynemarca, i.e., the Dutch province of Kennemer- land, where they destroyed the church of St. Adelbert the Confessor ; cut off the head, as it is said, of the holy Jero at Niortich, i.e., Noortwyk op Zee, and ruined the very strong castle of Aurundel, near Varenburg, i.e., the rude old castle at Voorburg, formerly called Hadriani Forum, near Leyden. They slaughtered a great number of the inhabitants, including Theobald and Gerald (doubtless two of the chief inhabitants), and

t its fame as a trading mart was wide spread. The annals of Xanten, under the year 834, call it Nominatissitnutn Vicum, Liudger, Vita. Gregorii abb Traject, C 5, S. S., xv. 71 speaks of it as vicum faniosum Dorstad, see Urk., Karls d Gr. 8 June, 777, Muhlbach 21. Three great trade routes met at Dorstadt : — First that along the Rhine which connected Mainz with the outer world, and which also tapped the valley of the Danube and that which traversed Mont Cenis into Italy ; secondly, the English trade by way of the Maas and the Lech ; thirdly, the Scandinavian and Baltic trade which went along the Krum- man Rhine by Utrecht, through the Vecht, the Zuyder Sea and between the Friesian Islands and the mainland to Schleswig. It is unlikely there was in old times an opening from the Rhine for ships at Katwyk. The traders went to the North by the Vecht (See Berg. Geogr. Ned., 62, 63) Dorstadt was one of the important stations where the excise dues were collected. In a document of the Emperor Louis dated June 831 ; (Muhlbach, 890) — relating to the City of Strasburg it is stated that its goods were toll-free except at Quentovic Dorestadt and Sclusae. Sclusae says Vogel does not mean Sluys but a place on the Mont Cenis route. This is a proof that the people of Strasburgh at that time traded between Lombardy, England, and Denmark (Op. cit., 66 and 67; for other references (see especially Passio. S. Frederici Episc. Tree, c. 19, A. SS., XV. 354).

See also acts of St. Frederick, bishop of Utrecht and martyr (Dom Bouq., i, 339). These annals call them Danes ; the Annals of Xanten pagans ; while the Fuldea Annals call them Normanni.

'■'' Harald Fairhair'' aiid his Ancestors. iii

carried off many of the women and children into captivity (Magnum Chron. Belgicum, ap. Fist. 65 ; Kruse, 119). Kruse says he does not know whence these details were derived, but does not doubt they are trustworthy.

This attack was doubtless directed against what Eric and his people must have deemed the traitorous colony on his frontier, the pestilent pre- tenders to his throne, and the servile creatures of the Empire. It was repeated the next year when they again ravaged Dorestadt, whereupon the Emperor Louis, who