The Sea Wolves: A History of the Vikings

by Lars Brownworth

  Almost as profound was the political change. Once, the Vikings prided themselves on their independence. Now, the same people who had proudly informed a French ambassador that they recognized no king, faithfully paid taxes to a monarch and served in his army. As the kings consolidated their power, the old spirit of exploration began to wane. Vinland was abandoned, contact with Greenland lapsed, and Scandinavia began to loose its dominance at sea.190 Only in the half-tamed west of Norway did a flicker of the old Viking spirit remain.

  Chapter 23

  The End of an Age

  “Mighty Harald is fallen, And we are all imperiled…”

  - King Harald’s Saga

  No family better symbolized the changing world than the pair of half-brothers Olaf the Stout and Harald Hardråda. They were the sons of a remarkable woman named Åsta Gudbrandsdatter who married, in quick succession, two petty kings in the southeast of Norway.

  Olaf was a product of the more distinguished marriage, and could claim descent on his father’s side from Harald Fairhair, the first Norwegian king. Harald Hardråda, on the other hand, was the youngest son of Åsta’s second marriage to a mild, non-entity named Sigurd the Sow. Harald was rebellious and ambitious – qualities he inherited from his mother – but looked up to his older brother.191

  At age thirteen, Olaf left home to go raiding in the Baltic, proving himself to be a gifted soldier. In 1014 he led an attack on London, helping to destabilize Cnut’s early reign and force his precipitous flight.192 The young Viking crossed the Chanel and wintered at the court of Duke Richard the Good of Normandy where he accepted Christianity and was baptized at Rouen with the Duke serving as his godfather.

  The newly Christian Olaf returned home with a vision of uniting Norway under the new faith much as his ancestor Harald Fairhair had done politically. At first all went well. Olaf crushed a collection of his enemies and within a year had established himself over a larger area than any previous Norwegian king. He brought the Orkneys firmly under his control, drove the Danish nobles out of Norway, and married one of the Swedish king’s illegitimate daughters. At the same time he established a competent administrative network that made it possible to govern the entire country.

  King Olaf, however, was not especially popular. Although a highly intelligent man who was an accomplished poet and a gifted strategist, he was fiercely protective of his authority and at times bordered on arrogant. His relationship with his nobles, who were unused to a king that actually ruled, was never good, and his attempts to Christianize his peasants led to a smoldering discontent. On one occasion he cut out the tongue of a man who refused to convert, and on another blinded a noble who proved intractable. There was a vague suspicion that it was more than piety that drove him. As the Saga of Olaf Haraldsson put it, Olaf was ‘of little speech… but greedy of money.’ All that was needed was a spark to turn dissent into rebellion.

  It was provided by Cnut, who had been annoyed by Olaf’s success at reducing Danish influence in Norway. In 1028, the English king’s money fanned the growing hostility into an insurrection that toppled Olaf from his throne.

  The exiled king fled to the court of his brother-in-law, the Grand Duke of Kiev, Jaroslav the Wise. He spent a year gathering mercenaries, and in 1030 he attempted to regain his throne. Leading a motley group of Danish, Swedish, and some Norwegian Vikings, he crossed into Sweden where he was met by his fifteen-year old half-brother Harald Hardråda with six hundred more men.

  If Olaf expected to be welcomed back by his former subjects – or at least to overawe them with his military strength – he was disappointed. On July 29, a collection of Norwegian farmers and nobles met his army as he attempted to enter the country near a northern farm called Stiklestad, and barred his way.

  The most famous battle in Norwegian history was fought – at least according to Snorri’s red-blooded account – in the darkness of a solar eclipse. The king’s army gave a good account of itself, but was probably heavily outnumbered. Olaf, leading from the center of his line where the fighting was heaviest, was wounded in the knee and as he stumbled back, suffered a ghastly wound in the neck. He slumped over a stone and was felled by a third and fatal blow to the stomach.

  With the king’s death, his army disintegrated, scrambling to escape the carnage. The victorious nobles pursued, halting only when the setting sun made killing difficult. Olaf’s body was quietly buried in the bank of a nearby river, and those members of his army that escaped discreetly returned to other occupations.

  The defeated Olaf’s influence, however, had only just began with his death. As the country languished under foreign domination, the Norwegians began to rehabilitate their native king. Within a year his body was exhumed and found to be miraculously preserved. His death, fought auspiciously under darkness similar to that of Calvary, served as proof of his sanctity and that year he was canonized with the blessing of the Pope.193 A magnificent cathedral was built over the site of his burial, with its high altar enclosing the stone he had died against.

  In death Olaf was much more potent than he had been in life. He became the champion of the poor and oppressed, the great defender of merchants and sailors, a lion of the faith. The inconvenient details – that the army he commanded at Stiklestad was made up largely of foreign pagans, that the Norwegians themselves had killed him, and that he was at times a divisive, grasping ruler “slightly addicted to concubines” – were quietly dropped. The rejected monarch became rex perpetuus Norvegiae, the eternal king of Norway, patron saint and national icon.

  Olaf’s half-brother Harald Hardråda, cuts an altogether different figure. A giant of a man – supposedly seven and a half feet tall – he had a personality that was as large as his frame. From his mother he had absorbed a precocious ambition as well as a cunning mind, both traits that were already on display at the battle of Stiklestad. The fifteen year-old Harald had fought bravely, but had been seriously wounded, surviving only by hiding under some corpses under a ditch until darkness made escape possible.

  He fled to a remote part of eastern Norway where he managed to hide in a farm until his wounds had healed enough to travel. Rumors of his survival had undoubtedly begun to be whispered, so as soon as he was able he headed east to the welcoming court of Jaroslav the Wise. It was a dangerous journey, and the chances of restoring his position in Norway were slim, but Harald’s confidence characteristically didn’t slip. As he traveled, the teenager composed a poem, glorifying both his past and future. “My wounds were bleeding as I rode; From wood to wood I crept along; And down below the (nobles) strode, killing the wounded with the sword. Who knows, I thought, a day may come when they follow their rightful lord. My name will yet be great at home.”

  Harald spent several years in Kiev, providing valuable service to the Grand Prince. Jaroslav who was in need of an experienced commander – as well as the five hundred Vikings Harald had brought with him – and the Norwegian became a respected captain, leading several assaults on the neighboring Poles and various steppe nomads. Wanting to elevate his position further, Harald asked Jaroslav’s permission to marry his daughter, but was coldly rebuffed. He may have scored some victories against Kiev’s enemies, but he had hardly won enough renown to court the Grand Prince’s daughter.

  If Harald wanted a reputation to match his ambitions, there was only one place large enough to win it. So, after three years among the Rus, Harald and his men braved the rapids of the Dneiper and headed for Constantinople.

  The Vikings called it ‘the great city’, and in 1034 when Harald arrived, it fully justified its lofty reputation. The city had just witnessed the coronation of a new emperor, Michael IV, with all of the attending pomp and public ceremonies. The rumor in every corner of the city was that a fresh military campaign was being planned, and the addition of five hundred Viking warriors to the celebrated Varangian Guard was an unexpected boost.

  If the two men ever saw each other face to face, Harald would not likely have been impressed by the emperor. Michael IV was th
e son of a peasant from the southern coast of the Black Sea, and before being crowned had made a tidy career as a money-changer, and – some said – as a particularly talented forger. He owed his elevation completely to his looks and his older brother, a powerful eunuch who had introduced him to the recently widowed Empress Zoë. She had fallen madly in love with Michael, and despite being more than three decades older, had married and raised him to the throne. As thanks, Michael had immediately confined her to the women’s quarters of the palace, completely excluding her from any share in power.

  He may have been an ungrateful boor, but Michael proved to be a competent administrator who guided the empire to a minor economic boom. Unfortunately, he also suffered from epilepsy and his incapacitating fits made it impossible for him to lead his armies in battle. This was a serious concern because the empire was hard pressed on every side. In the Balkans, the Serbs broke free from imperial control and northern Greece was raided, and in Asia Minor marauding Arabs sacked several important cities. Michael desperately needed competent military men to staunch the bleeding, so the arrival of Harald must have seemed like a godsend.

  Harald’s days in Constantinople would prove among the most fruitful of his life. He had found an employer with both the need for his services and seemingly unlimited funds. There was the small matter of his noble status since the Byzantines were reluctant to allow Scandinavian royalty to join the Guard, but it was fairly easy to conceal, and in any case, Michael was hardly in a position to be picky.

  Fittingly for the man who is considered the last of the Vikings, Harald first saw action at sea. The Byzantine navy was tasked with clearing the eastern Mediterranean of Arab pirates, and Harald led many of the assaults from his longship. He was then sent into Asia Minor to push the Arabs out of Byzantine territory.

  In these campaigns, Harald’s bravery won him the loyalty of most of the Varangian Guard, and he was soon appointed as its commander. His standard, a raven banner that he had named ‘Land-Waster’, fluttered at the center of the imperial line, a rallying point where the fighting was thickest.

  Imperial service took Harald to the far ends of the medieval earth. The Land-Waster flew in every corner of the empire, and in some cases a good deal beyond. In five short years, he fought from Syria to the Caucuses, crushed a Bulgarian uprising, raided in North Africa and the Cyclades, and even took part in a delegation to Jerusalem where he bathed in the Jordan River.194 In one remarkable series of raids, he supposedly captured eighty Arab strongholds, only stopping when he reached the Euphrates.

  Triumphs like these were noticed by the emperor, who rewarded the commander of his guard by raising him to a noble rank and minting a coin in his honor. That same year, Michael IV launched his most ambitious campaign, an invasion of Sicily, which would hopefully oust the Arabs and return the island to imperial control. The Byzantine general appointed to oversee the operation, a giant of a man named George Maniaces, was taking no chances.195 In addition to the Varangian Guards, he collected a huge army of mercenaries, including a contingent of Normans led by William Iron-Arm.196

  Even among the large army, Harald Hardråda soon distinguished himself. Maniaces used the Varangians as the tip of the spear, sending them crashing into the center of the enemy lines. He also sent them on repeated raids, hoping to break the will of the Sicilian Arabs. This allowed Harald to personally capture several cities, both by force and trickery. On one occasion, after surrounding a particularly well-defended town, he realized that his soldiers were unlikely to be able to storm their way inside. He had noticed, however, that several species of birds were using the thatched roofs to construct their nests. Each morning they would fly out into the surrounding countryside to forage, and return in the evening. He decided to copy Olga’s trick and instructed his men to capture as many of them as they could, treating the townspeople to the unusual – and presumably amusing – sight of hundreds of Vikings scurrying around trying to trap birds.

  Their laughter, however, was soon muted by horror. Harald attached shavings of wood smeared with wax to the backs of the birds and lit them on fire. When the panicked animals were released they flew straight to their nests, starting a blaze in nearly every building in the town.

  Although he covered himself in glory, the Sicilian campaign was not a success. After alienating his Norman mercenaries in a petty argument about a campsite, the volatile Maniaces struck one of his inept commanders – a man who happened to be the emperor’s brother-in-law – in the face. Maniaces was recalled in disgrace and the entire campaign collapsed.

  Harald Hardråda escaped any blame for the fiasco, but his career abruptly stalled as well. Michael IV’s epilepsy was growing worse, and by the time Harald returned from Sicily it was apparent to everyone that the emperor was dying. Swollen from dropsy, he exhausted himself searching for both divine and secular cures until December of 1041 when he finally expired. He had characteristically refused his wife’s repeated requests to see him, forcing her to remain in her gilded prison, and bullied her into adopting his nephew Michael V as her heir.

  The new emperor proved a more reluctant patron for Harald, whose own appetites had begun to get him into trouble. He was arrested at least twice, although both accounts of his punishments are somewhat fanciful. The first time, on the emperor’s command, he was “exposed to a lion for debauching a woman of quality“. As befitted a Viking hero, Harald responded by strangling the beast, and was released by his astonished guards. The second arrest, was more serious. He was accused of keeping a larger share of booty than he was entitled too, a serious – and quite believable – charge.197

  Fortunately for Harald, the weak Michael V only lasted four months before being overthrown in a bloody coup. In the confusion, Harald managed to escape his prison, and join in the fighting, supposedly personally blinding the emperor as revenge for his incarceration.

  By this time Harald Hardråda had had enough of Byzantium, and, with burnished reputation in tow, he returned to Kiev to claim his bride.198 Waiting for him was a decade worth of accumulated loot that he had been sending back to Jaroslav for safekeeping. The fact that the Grand Prince handed over his daughter without further protest was a dramatic confirmation of Harald’s elevated status. Jaroslav’s other daughters were married to the kings of France and Hungary, and his son was married to the Byzantine Emperor’s daughter.

  Part of this newfound acceptance was wealth. His time in the east had netted Harald so much plunder that when he loaded it into his longship Dragon, it nearly sank. According to the Vikings themselves, his riches were almost as legendary as his martial skills. “Nobody“, they claimed, “had ever seen anything like it in the possession of a single man.”199 But the marriage was also recognition of his abilities as a commander and a reputation that had spread throughout the north. He was now an equal to the most elevated monarchs of his day; all he needed was a crown.

  To correct that final omission, Harald sailed with his new wife to Norway, where his nephew Magnus had been crowned king. In typical fashion, he reintroduced himself to his kinsman by demanding half of the king’s treasury and land. When Magnus refused, Harald cheerfully unfurled the Land-Waster and set about imposing his authority.200

  The desperate Magnus tried everything he could think of to stop his uncle, including sending assassins to kill him in his sleep. Harald dodged this by keeping a log in his bed while he slept on the floor, easily dispatching the confused assassins who hacked uselessly at the blankets. The civil war was mercifully ended after only two years when Magnus abruptly died without an heir, charitably naming Harald as his successor.201

  It was this nineteen-year reign that won Harald the name ‘Hardråda‘ or ‘Hard Ruler’ by which he is known to posterity. He had gained more than wealth during his time in the south – Byzantium had shown him what pure autocratic rule looked like, and he intended to copy it in the north. His half-brother, Olaf, had lost the throne to rebellious nobles, but Hardråda would show them no mercy. Quite a few of the stubbor
n jarls was forced “to kiss the thin-lipped axe”, as the dreaded Land-Waster lived up to its name. Those who defied him, or moved too slowly obeying him had their lands harried and destroyed. The important trading center of Hedeby was sacked, and frightened merchants began calling him the “Thunderbolt of the North.”

  Hardråda may have been a pitiless king, but there was more to his reign than destruction. Byzantium had given him a taste for autocracy, but it had also made him appreciate the influence of royal patronage, and of grand gestures. When Iceland suffered a terrible famine, Harald sent several ships loaded with food for its relief, securing both a short-term surge in popularity and the lasting admiration of the skalds. Charity, however, was not to be confused with softness. The same year he aided Iceland, a revolt in the uplands of Norway was brutally suppressed, and in 1050, as a symbol of his power, he built a new city at the head of the Oslo fjord to intimidate the south.202

  Most of Harald’s private activity, however, was ironically, the construction of churches. Although his own grasp of Christianity might have been tenuous, his wife was thoroughly Orthodox, and she brought priests and missionaries with her. Harald supported these efforts, and the man who had made much of his money looting religious houses, became a patron of the church.

  The one thing that Harald never outgrew was his love for adventure. Usually this was in the form of battle, but occasionally he combined it with trips of exploration. Over the course of two decades he brought the Orkneys, Hebrides, and the Shetlands under his control, and attempted at least one expedition to the far west. Years after his death, Icelandic skalds sang how he had “explored the expanse of the Northern Ocean and… seen at length the darksome bounds of a failing world…”