Harald Hardrada

by John Marsden

  The most interestingly detailed account of their mission is that preserved in Orkneyinga saga when it tells of Einar and Kalv confronted on arrival at Staraja Ladoga by Rognvald Brusason, who was only dissuaded from taking summary vengeance when he was assured of Kalv’s repentance for ‘his crime of killing King Olaf the Saint’. Learning of the reason for their coming to Russia, Rognvald accompanied the pair to Novgorod and their meeting with Jaroslav, who recalled what had befallen Olaf on his return to Norway and was thus unwilling to place the son at risk of any similar fate. Only when the Norse contingent swore solemn oaths of their good faith was Magnus given leave to return to his homeland – and with the added assurance of the trustworthy Rognvald as his escort.

  Once Magnus was back in Norway and acclaimed as king of the whole country, Orkneyinga saga turns its attention to Rognvald who returned to Orkney around the year 1037 after he had had news of the death of his father, Jarl Brusi. For some eight years, Rognvald shared the jarldom with his uncle, the famously mighty Thorfinn, the two even going together on viking raids west-over-sea until they came into violent contention over Thorfinn’s demands to add a greater share of the islands to his mainland possessions in Caithness. The saga tells of Thorfinn’s victory at sea in the Pentland Firth followed by Rognvald’s flight to Norway to seek assistance from Magnus and his return to Orkney with a force of Norwegian housecarls. Even that formidable reinforcement was unable to protect him when conflict with Thorfinn was renewed in a sequence of reciprocal house-burnings before Rognvald was slain on the isle of Papa Stronsay in the Yuletide season of 1046.

  Throughout that same period, of course, Magnus reigned as king of Norway and, after 1042, of Denmark also. Curiously, some of the most closely contemporary evidence for his reign is to be found in another Orkney-related source, namely the praise-poetry composed by Arnor Jarlaskald on a visit to the Norwegian court, probably made in the spring of 1047. Snorri’s Magnus the Good’s saga quotes Arnor’s verses on more than one occasion and they evidently represent a principal source for his account of Magnus’ war on the Wends. Arnor acclaims Magnus as the ‘scion of heroes, [who] harried the Wendish homeland’, and yet would seem to make no specific reference to his attack on ‘Jomsburg’ (the fortress base of the doubtfully historical ‘Jomsvikings’, whose celebrity rests almost entirely on the fictional Jomsvikinga saga) claimed by the sagas. Adam of Bremen, on the other hand, records Magnus’ laying siege to Jomne, ‘the richest city of the Slavs’ and this apparent confusion among the sources is most convincingly disentangled by Gwyn Jones when he identifies the ‘Jomsburg/Jomne’ stormed and burnt by Magnus in 1043 as Wollin at the mouth of the Oder, ‘whose inhabitants, by now predominantly Wendish, but no doubt still retaining a Danish element more sympathetic to Svein [Estridsson] than to any Norwegian, had thrown off their allegiance [to Magnus]’.2

  Magnus’ most celebrated triumph over the Wends, however, was the battle fought on Lyrskov Heath (called Hlyrskogs Hede in the saga and located northwest of what is now Schleswig) where he was operating in alliance against a common enemy with his sister’s Saxon husband Ordulf when the Wends invaded southern Jutland. He brought his fleet to Hedeby where his forces disembarked to join up with Ordulf’s Saxons for an attack on the rear of the Wendish host and Snorri tells of Magnus inspired by a vision of his father the saint to throw aside his mail and lead the attack ‘wielding the battle-axe Hel which had been Olaf’s own’ (a claim supported by Arnor’s lines: ‘With broad axe burnished and byrnie cast off, for battle eager, with both hands the haft of Hel he grasped’). With or without such supernatural assistance, Magnus’ forces and their allies won a famous victory over superior numbers. Snorri’s saga tells how ‘it was said that there had never been so great a carnage in the northlands in Christian times as that of the Wends on Hlyrskogs Hede’ and Adam of Bremen, who was writing within living memory of the battle, records fifteen thousand Wendish dead.

  There is no reason, then, to doubt Magnus’ record of genuine military achievement – not only against the Wends but also against Svein’s challenge to his sovereignty over Denmark – and yet the enthusiasm for his personal battle-glory expressed across the full range of sympathetic sources might still be read as an attempt to compensate for a shortfall in his warrior reputation, and most especially by comparison with that of his east-faring uncle. Magnus had acquired his kingship of Norway and of Denmark by invitation not conquest, while he had been a mere child sheltering in Russia when his uncle was shedding blood beside Olaf on the battlefield at Stiklestad.

  All of which needs to be borne in mind when Snorri’s Harald’s saga tells of Magnus having returned to Norway after his victory off Helganess and there learning of his uncle’s arrival in Sweden to forge an alliance with the man he thought to have so recently and so decisively defeated. In the following spring Magnus is said by the saga to have raised a levy of troops in Norway and to have mustered a great army even before he had news of his Danish subjects submitting to Harald and Svein’s onslaught on Zealand and Fyn. Snorri once again takes the opportunity to report Harald’s reputation – ‘so much taller and stronger than most men, and so shrewd that he won the victory wherever he fought, and so rich in gold that no-one had ever seen the like of it’ – which was doubtless already well known to Magnus and his court. While a quoted strophe from the skald Thjodolf exults in the prospect of ‘death-dealing Magnus from the northward mustering his roller-horses [warships], whilst from the southward Sigurd’s son makes ready his sea-steeds [ditto]’, wiser counsel in Norway feared grievous consequences throughout the northlands if Olaf’s son and brother were to make war upon each other and proposed instead that emissaries be sent with speed and in utmost secrecy to Denmark where trustworthy friends could be found to open negotiations.

  The proposed terms of reconciliation – a half-share in the kingship of Norway and an equal apportionment of their combined treasury – were probably what Harald was hoping for and certainly the best he could reasonably expect, so word of his inclination to acceptance was brought back, under the same cloak of secrecy, to Norway. Evidently Harald now had what he wanted and so could dispense with Svein, yet it would be hardly seemly for a saga-maker to impute such casual treachery to his hero and so Snorri contrives an anecdote fully typical of northern tradition as his device of justification. While in conversation together one evening with drinking-horns in hand, Svein inquires of Harald which of all his treasures he most greatly values. Harald declares it to be his banner, the famous Land-ravager said to bring victory to the man before whom it is borne in battle and which has been of that same service to him ever since he came by it. Svein professes scepticism and refuses to believe any such tale before Harald has carried the banner to victory in no less than three battles against his nephew. To which Harald counters that he knows full well of his kinship with Magnus and, indeed, of no reason why they might not yet enjoy a more congenial meeting than the current state of contention.

  Not unexpectedly, this exchange engenders mutual suspicion, and on Harald’s part to the extent of leaving a log in his usual bed aboard ship while choosing another sleeping-place for himself. In the dark of night, an unknown man finds his way on to the ship to strike at Harald’s bed with a great axe which is discovered fixed deep in the log before dawn on the following morning. It is clearly time to flee such a treacherous ally and Harald immediately summons his own men to put to sea under cover of darkness and row north along the coast until reaching the place (presumably around the Vik) where Magnus is encamped with his forces. Another strophe quoted from Thjodolf tells of a joyful reunion between the two and confirms Magnus’ offer to share his kingdom with his uncle.

  The saga narrative continues now with two anecdotes seemingly intended to illustrate the agreed division of Magnus’ kingship and Harald’s wealth. In the first of these, Magnus comes to his uncle’s camp and distributes gifts of garments, gold and weaponry to the attendant warriors before inviting Harald to choose between two proffered reed-s
traws. When the choice is made, Magnus gives it into his uncle’s hand and with it ‘half of Norway, together with the dues and duties of all estates within it’, yet retaining the royal precedence in protocol for himself whenever the two are together.

  All of which being gracefully accepted, the new joint-kingship is announced to a public assembly on the following day and celebrated with a banquet which provides the setting for the second of Snorri’s anecdotes. To this lavish feast Harald brings his vast wealth, carried in great chests which are emptied out on to a vast ox-hide on the floor and from this he takes up a piece of gold as large as a man’s head, inviting Magnus to produce gold of his own to compare with it. The best he can offer is the golden ring about his own arm, which Harald considers a meagre token of the wealth of a man who holds two kingdoms and adds the provocative suggestion that there are those who would even question his claim to that small item. When Magnus insists on his undeniable right to an arm-ring given him by his father, Harald counters that Olaf had originally taken the ring from his own father, Sigurd Syr. A strophe from the skald Bolverk celebrating the ‘close accord reached peacefully’ between those kinsmen and predicting strife for ‘the usurper Svein’ is placed as the conclusion to Snorri’s anecdote, yet it cannot disguise the first trace of rancour introduced into the relationship between the two kings of Norway.

  According to Snorri, the two spent the winter on tribute-collecting circuits (an activity long since familiar to Harald) throughout the Upplands and northward to Nidaros and the Trondelag. Some of these were conducted together, others separately and Snorri tells how each also kept his own separate court. Yet they were together in the same hall when they received a visit – recorded in Morkinskinna – from the skald Arnor who had come from Orkney bringing two praise-poems he had composed in their honour. Arnor first recited his Magnusdrápa, obviously one he had prepared earlier since it appears to have been largely concerned with Arnor’s own experiences with the Orkney jarls before celebrating Magnus in its concluding strophes. Even then, when Arnor declares that no king will be so great as he before the sky is rent asunder, his lines seem to be merely recycling closely similar terms of acclaim previously addressed to Jarl Thorfinn – but such must very often have been the way of the working skald on tour. Magnus was sufficiently impressed to express his appreciation with the gift of a gold arm-ring, while Harald, possessed of his own special expertise in the skaldic art, judged the verses addressed to Magnus quite superior to Arnor’s Blágaladrápa (‘Lay of the Black Goose’ and perhaps a kenning for the raven on the battlefield) composed in his own honour. Nonetheless, he similarly rewarded the skald with a gold-inlaid spear on receipt of which Arnor promised to compose a memorial lay if he should outlive him – and, indeed, so he was to do some twenty years hence.

  ‘It was not to be long, though,’ according to Snorri, before the two kings were at odds, as is demonstrated in his saga by an anecdote telling of their two fleets assembled to collect tribute from Denmark and both at sea heading for the same unspecified destination. As it happened, Harald put his ships into harbour before Magnus’ arrival and chose to moor them in the royal berth customarily reserved for his nephew’s vessels. So affronted was the younger king by this disregard for protocol that he ordered his warriors to arms. Feigning alarm – ‘Nephew Magnus is angered!’ – Harald commanded his own ships to be cut loose from their moorings and only afterwards came with a warrior retinue aboard Magnus’ ship where the two engaged in another exchange of taunts. The resemblance to that earlier dispute over choice of camp-site on campaign with Georgios Maniakes is so striking as to suggest the story (interestingly omitted from versions of the saga found in Morkinskinna and Flateyjarbók) as another example of a formulaic device serving to illustrate a relationship between co-rulers which really had begun to founder.

  Indeed, Snorri virtually confirms as much when he suggests this being just one example of many similar disagreements between the two whose difficult relationship was being further aggravated by rival court factions. None of which seems to have greatly hampered the royal progress to Denmark, where Svein Estridsson, who had been collecting tribute from the Danes while the two kings were otherwise engaged through the winter in Norway, made a swift departure to Skaane on learning of the Norwegian fleet’s approach. His absence enabled an apparently uncontended circuit of Denmark for Harald and Magnus who spent the greater part of the summer taking the submission of their Danish subjects before they came to Jutland in the autumn and it was there – ‘at a place called Suderup’ in the last week of October – that Magnus fell sick and died.

  While the vision of his sainted father which attended Magnus’ passing is recorded in full detail with dialogue by the saga, greater historical importance can be attached to the account of the death-bed bequest of his Danish kingdom to Svein and prompt despatch of a kinsman to inform Svein of these last wishes. To Harald, of course, Magnus bequeathed his share of the kingship of Norway, thus tempting suspicion as to the true cause of death and the possibility of his uncle having had some part in it, yet nowhere in the sagas, nor in the more formal histories, is there even the faintest hint of such guilt on Harald’s part. Had there been any such rumour, however doubtfully founded, Adam of Bremen and other sources unrelenting in their hostility to Harald would most certainly have seized upon it and so his succession as sole king of Norway was evidently accomplished in all innocence, even though it would soon bring him into contention with the formidable Einar Tambarskelve.

  Now some sixty-five years of age, Einar ‘Paunch-shaker’ had been prominently engaged on all sides of the struggle for power in Norway through almost half a century. Renowned as the strongest man and finest archer in the northlands, he had fought beside Olaf Tryggvason when the kingdom fell from his hand at the battle of Svold in 1000, and yet was still held in such high regard by the victorious Jarl Erik Hakonsson of Lade as to be given the jarl’s sister Bergljot in marriage. High-born and wealthy in his own right, Einar was endowed by the jarls of Lade with such great landholdings in Orkadal that he was to become the most powerful man in the Trondelag.

  When Jarl Erik followed his brother-in-law Cnut to England in 1012, he appointed Einar as guardian (and effectively regent) for his teenage son Hakon who was to govern western Norway in his stead, while his brother Svein remained jarl of the eastern provinces. Young Hakon was driven out to join his father in England as soon as Olaf Haraldsson returned to make his bid for kingship of Norway in 1015, so it was Einar who stood beside Jarl Svein in resistance to this new King Olaf, and it was Einar’s grappling-hook which pulled Jarl Svein’s ship to safety when Olaf triumphed at the battle of Nesjar in the following year. The two subsequently made their escape to Sweden where Svein died in that same autumn and Einar stayed on for some six years until making his peace with Olaf and returning to the Trondelag where he was restored to his own lands and to those of his wife’s dowry. In about 1023, however, Erik died in Northumbria (where he had been Cnut’s earl since 1016) and news of his death may very well have prompted Einar’s journey to England where he was made welcome not only by his nephew Hakon but also, and with especial generosity, by the great Cnut himself who was probably already planning to move against Olaf in Norway.

  In the event, of course, Olaf played directly into Cnut’s hand when he allied with Onund of Sweden to launch an expedition against Denmark. Probably apprised of Cnut’s intentions and feeling himself under no obligation to his Norwegian king, Einar absented himself from Olaf’s enterprise and stayed at home to await developments. There he was well placed to welcome the arrival of Cnut’s agents who came with gifts and promises to grease the slope of Olaf’s descending fortunes in the aftermath of the battle of Holy River, and so he was to be again in the following year of 1028 when Cnut himself arrived to lay all Norway in his power. The flight of Olaf into exile in Russia and the return of Hakon as Cnut’s jarl in Norway placed Einar firmly in the ascendant with the assurance that he and his son Eindridi were to be the most p
owerful men in the kingdom excepting only Jarl Hakon.

  Thus when Hakon was drowned at sea, Einar had every expectation of succeeding him as jarl over Norway, even travelling to England in high hopes which were to be dashed, of course, when Cnut announced his intention to replace Hakon with his own son by his English wife. Evidently feeling no great urgency to make his own return to Norway, Einar was still out of the country when Olaf returned from Russia to meet his death at Stiklestad and when he did come home he found himself recognised as a great power in the land, a position he was able to further secure by his encouragement of the already burgeoning cult of Olaf the Martyr. Having placed himself in the forefront of the resentment building up against young Svein and his mother Alfifa, Einar was the natural choice of leader for the diplomatic mission which brought Magnus Olafsson back from Russia and, true to the oath he had sworn before Jaroslav in Novgorod, Einar gave his unswerving support to the new king throughout all twelve years of his reign – and, indeed, even after his death.

  Harald’s own response to the sudden demise of his nephew clearly sprang from ambition rather than sentiment. The saga tells how he considered Denmark also to be part of his legacy due from Magnus and so summoned all the warriors together, announcing his intention of going in force to the Vibjorg thing, and of having that great assembly acclaim his kingship of the Danes before proceeding to subjugate the whole country. With the full support of his forces, he intended to ensure Norwegian sovereignty over Denmark for all time, but that support was to be denied him on the instigation of Einar Tambarskelve who makes his first appearance in Harald’s saga with the declaration that his own first duty was to bear King Magnus’ body to its final resting-place before fighting wars in pursuit of another king’s domain. It was better, he believed, to honour Magnus in death than any other king alive and he proceeded to array the body in fine robes and lay it out in clear view from Harald’s ship.