o This compilation © Phoenix E-Books UK HARALD FIRST OF THE VIKINGS Harald slays King Arnviil. (Page 86) Fr. HARALD FIRST OF THE VIKINGS BT CAPTAIN CHARLES YOUNG " " AUTHOR OF " THE LAST OF THE VIKINGS " THE SHARK HUNTER " " TALES OF A RED-JACKET ETC. WITH SIXTEEN FULL- PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS BY GERTRUDE DEMAIN HAMMOND R.I. *..>>* NEW YORK THOMAS Y. CROWELL COMPANY PUBLISHERS c Contents PAGE PROLOGUE ..... .11 CHAP. I. OF HARALD'S BIRTH, AND VARIOUS PREDICTIONS THERE- ANENT . ... 15 II. OF SOME EARLY ADVENTURES . 22 III. OF HARALD'S FIRST SEA-FIGHT . .34 IV. OF HARALD'S CELEBRATED OATH ... 47 V. OF HARALD'S FIRST CAMPAIGN . .57 VI. OF THE BURNING OF THE UPDALE WOODS . 66 VII. OF THE Two BATTLES OF SOLSKIEL . 79 VIII. OF THE BURNING OF KING VEMUND . 88 IX. OF THE MURDER OF AKI . 97 X. OF METHODS OF PEACEFUL PERSUASION . 107 XI. OF THE FfA'i'ia.,E C7 THE ^TAKEP RlVER . 116 " XII. OF A GREAT DpewxiKG. 125 ] XIII. OF A VISIT TO ASEA-ROVEP/S STRONGHOLD . 133 XIV. OF THE BATTLE "OF HAFUR'S FJORD . 144 XV. OF THE SWEEPING OF THE WESTERN ISLES . 153 XVI. OF THE BATTLE IN CAITHNESS . 165 6 Harald First of the Vikings CHAP. I'AGK XVII. OF HARALD'S NEW NAME . .174 XVIII. OF ROLF THE GANGER . .178 XIX. OF THE MURDER OF THOROLF .... 183 XX. OF SNAEFRID THE FINN ..... 190 XXI. OF THE DOINGS OF TURF EINAH . 196 XXII. OF THE DOINGS OF ERIC BLOODY-AXE . 204 XXIII. OF THE SHARING OUT OF THE REALM . 214 XXIV. OF HARALD'S DEATH AND MOUNDING . 221 APPENDIX I. THE POLICY OF KING HARALD FAIRHAIR 227 APPENDIX II. THE EARLY VIKINGS . 233 LIST OF AUTHORITIES CONSULTED . 239 INDEX OF PROPER NAMES 241 .. -, ". ; ",; ; . , Illustrations HARALD SLAYS KING ABNVID .... Frontispiece PAGE " " REJOICED O KING AND QUEEN ! . .18 " " IT IS ! . GOOD TO BE A VlKING . .28 1 ' " Now TELL TO KING HARALD THESE MY WORDS . 54 THE SPY SHIFTED HIS FEET, AND LOOKED UNCOMFORTABLE . 88 " " I GIVE HIM TO YOU TO BE YOUR LOYAL SERVANT . 104 "WHAT is HARALD TO YOU?" ..... 110 "WHAT MAKE YOU OF HER, ULF?" .... 138 s ' "To THE FAITHFUL AND GALLANT SERVANT THE REWARD I . 162 " HENCEFORTH AND FOR ALL TIME YOU SHALL BE KNOWN AS '' HARALD FAIRHAIR ! . 176 ROLF AND THE KING'S DAUGHTER, GISLA . 180 He FORGAT HIS KINGDOM AND ALL THAT BELONGED TO HIS KINGLY HONOUR ...... 192 " BUT 1 WANT TO GO A-VlKING I" . 204 THEY BROUGHT GUNNHILD TO ERIC . .212 "WHAT is THIS CHILD?" ..... 218 HARALD BROUGHT ERIC TO THE HIGH-SEAT 224 I^SS^V <r^'1\ ^ i"u'n ^ S^S*2^t*O **5 \*a V. '% || \ S _ iy | ^w1^- ROA- ^%M\H|W \^^= L ? K M --Be^K 1 p ,. -* N o ^>%^Wi <>3*V$!i X ^ -'^fK J^JW - SS btOat^lT^V ^, .ne'^rtSS* JvC*- \ >^ J^%^ ^ SDak M) :_^fc r *i**-^?iu^*\1 / \ ^v SI \\ y^^z^^ri^ TX LEM(lBK - E f TCY) ^-HT ^jf%5=^ ] ljj=t^~i!f$ VE ND ^^% ^| X cf%fc ^^ _^^SL^i NORWAY IN THK TIME OF HARAU) The hardy Norseman's home of yore Was on the foaming wave ; And there he gained great renown, The bravest of the brave. Ah, ne'er should we forget our sires, Wherever we may be ; For they did win a deathless name, And ruled the .stormy sea. Harald First of the Vikings Prologue " The hollow oak our palace is. '' Our heritage the Sea ! a fascination lies in the very name ' "Viking ! And why ? Well, personally I WHATsuppose, because all Englishmen are Vikings inclination by blood, by circumstance, by ; and we look to the sea-kings of old for the prototype we would fain picture ourselves as Sons of the Sea. Breathes there a boy, who has once either read a stirring tale of deep waters, listened to the details of a gallant rescue from shipwreck, or dwelt beside and tasted the breath of the Great Mother and Guardian of us all, and who has not felt his pulses bound and his very " " * being yearn after the Sea ? Thalatta ! Thalatta ! did Xenophon's ten thousand cry in rapture when, after many perils and difficulties surmounted, they at last caught sight of its blue waters from afar. We read of Columbus discovering America : not he ! Five hundred years before his time Vikings had seen it, coasted along its shores, landed thereon. Just think for one moment what these hardy adventurers dared, when 1 "The sea! The sea!" Stories from Xenophon, by H. L. Havell, p. 193. 11 1 2 Harald First of the Vikings they launched out in their comparatively tiny vessels on Mother Ocean ! In the ninth century their marauding and conquering expeditions filled the whole world with terror of their name. They subdued England, seized on Normandy, laid siege to Paris, conquered a considerable portion of Belgium, made extensive inroads into Spain. In 861 A.D. they discovered Iceland, and soon after peopled it. Thence they penetrated still farther West and discovered Greenland, to which they originally gave the name of Gunbiornskar (from Gunbiorn, the dis- coverer), and colonised it. Proceeding southward, they struck upon the coast of North America, about the State (it would seem) of Massachusetts : this was towards the end of the tenth century. They called it Vinland hin Goda, or Vineland the Good, and this coast was still visited by them in the twelfth century. They made expeditions to the shores of the White Sea, which they named Biarmaland, and one of their leaders, Ruric, seized on Novgorod in 862 A.D., and thus became the founder of Russia and of a line of Czars. From Russia they made their way to the Black Sea, and in A.D. before in which 866 appeared Constantinople ; metropolis, from the year 902 until the fall of the Empire, they formed a bodyguard to the Eastern Caesars the celebrated Varangian Guard. If ever the child is father of the man, the Scandinavians were the fathers of the English. They have bequeathed to them their love of war, their pioneering instincts, their passion for the sea. The Englishman has the same love as they for martial daring and fame, for the Ocean that his island home, for for for girdles "discovery, colonising, subduing savage peoples. And these tall, blonde men, with their defiant blue eyes, who obeyed their kings while they had confidence in them, and slew them when they had forfeited their respect, were the ancestors, too, of the Normans who, under William the Conqueror, invaded England and founded the only European State which has since reached the highest civilisation, combined with Prologue 1 3 the widest liberty, through slow and even stages of orderly development." ] Well they are legendary now, those old-time Vikings. We tell of them, now and again, either in pride, as ancestors, whose actual patronymics remain in our land to this day, or with curious admiration as an old, old since fallen from its estate were race, long high ; men who kings of the Ocean, and who loved to live thereon and to die thereon. In examining the lives and weighing the deeds of those old Vikings we must remember the spirit of the age in which they were born, lived, and died. We cannot judge them from our twentieth-century standpoint. They lived in rude, barbarous times, when might was right, when a strong arm triumphed over what little law there might be beyond the force of public opinion. When beauty of person, strength of body, and wit of mind, combined, were the essential requisites demanded for its leader, what wonder that this was a nation of heroes ? And to be the leader of such heroes, to be the acknowledged superior of such men, to excel in each and all of those attributes, what sort of man, think you, must he have been who was acknowledged by them as chief and king ? calls for the Time the man, and God appoints him ; man for his time was the of book, Harald " subject my Fairhair Harfager," as his countrymen called him a man who dominated the age in which he lived by the sheer force of his personality and will. He was, to put it in one epithet, the First Great Viking or King of the Sea. Sea-born Englishmen should be proud of such an ancestor. How many have ever heard his name ? And yet, on the foundation of his deeds, and the deeds of such as he, England has built her Empire of the Sea. 1 Hoyesen. Chapter I Of Harald's Birth, and Various Predictions thereanent Ringerike, of Norway, once lived a king named Sigurd Hiort. The kings, so-called, of those days, INoccupied a position, with regard to rank and power, somewhat similar to the petty potentates of the German Empire if so high. They were constantly at war with their neighbours, by sea and by land, murder and rapine were so prevalent as ordinarily to excite little beyond a passing local interest, and men held their property and lives by virtue only of the strength of their own right hands and the uncertain tenure of the loyalty of greedy relations and jealous friends. Sigurd was a tall, strong man, true to his word and just in his dealings, and consequently held in respect by most of those who came in contact with him. He was married, and had one son, a youth named Guttorm, who gave promise of growing up to be like his father, and one daughter, Ragnhild, now in early womanhood and celebrated all the country round for her grace and beauty.