Part 14 (1/2)
[Footnote A: To this family belonged Finn Arnesson, who fought at St.
Olaf's side at Stiklestad, and Kalf Arnesson, whom Magnus the Good exiled.]
[Footnote B: See Munch: ”Det Norske Folks Historie,” ii., p. 180.]
The tendency to subordinate all other considerations to policy, which Harold showed in his marriage, was also visible in his efforts to establish a rival saint to St. Olaf in the south of the country. The presence of the sanctuary of the national saint in Trondelag had tended to increase the natural predominance of that province over the southern districts and to foster jealousies, which, in an imperfectly amalgamated nationality, are always rife. Viken, which had formerly belonged to Denmark, had never become intimately attached to the kingdom and race of Harold the Fairhaired; and Harold Sigurdsson judged rightly that a local saint of his own family would accomplish the double purpose. Such a saint was soon found in the person of Hallvard, the son of Vebjorn, and a cousin of the king. His history was not very remarkable, nor was his martyrdom, even with all its legendary embellishments, sufficient to warrant canonization. But it served the king's purpose well, and the regulation miracles began to manifest themselves in the usual fas.h.i.+on at St. Hallvard's shrine. Without submitting the question to the Pope, ”the people” then proclaimed him a saint, and the king founded the town of Oslo, probably to shelter the new sanctuary (1051 or 1052). The site of the town was chosen with excellent judgment at the end of the Folden Fjord, where Christiania, the capital of Norway, is now situated.
When we consider the restless energy and power with which King Harold carried out his plans, both in internal and in foreign affairs, we cannot but derive a high idea of his ability. Whether, on the other hand, his activity was for the welfare of his subjects, is another question. Certainly, his long-continued war with Denmark was disastrous, both to himself and his people. His annual summer amus.e.m.e.nt consisted, for some time, in surprising the exposed ports on the Danish coast and harrying them with savage cruelty. At last, when both sides grew tired of this aimless destruction, it was agreed that Sweyn Estridsson should meet Harold at the mouth of the Gotha Elv, and that the issue of the battle should decide in regard to the latter's claim to the throne of Denmark. At the time appointed, however, Sweyn failed to make his appearance, and Harold, after having waited for him in vain, sailed southward with his fleet, ravaging the coast of Jutland, burning the great city of Heidaby (Sleswick), and carrying away a number of high-born women, besides an enormous booty (1049). He was far from expecting to be pursued by the Danes, and, accordingly, allowed his s.h.i.+ps to scatter on their homeward way. Head-winds and foggy weather delayed the Nors.e.m.e.n, and one morning when they were laying to under the island of Leso, they saw a sudden flash through the fog which caused alarm. The king was called and asked what he supposed it to be.
”The Danish fleet is upon us,” he said; ”that which s.h.i.+nes is the golden dragon-heads which flash in the morning sun.”
Resistance was not to be thought of, and flight seemed also hopeless.
But the king's presence of mind did not desert him. He ordered the men to the oars, but the s.h.i.+ps, which were heavy and swollen from having been long in the water, made little headway, and, as the fog lifted, the Danish fleet, counting several hundred galleys, was seen bearing down upon them. Harold then commanded his men to nail bright garments and other precious things to logs and throw them overboard. The Danes, who could not resist the temptation to stop and pick them up, thereby lost time, and were rebuked by Sweyn for their folly. Again the pursuit began, and Harold was obliged to throw overboard malt, beer, and pork, in order to lighten his s.h.i.+ps. Nevertheless, Sweyn was still gaining upon him, and Harold's own dragon-s.h.i.+p, which was the hindmost, was in danger of being captured. Then, in sheer desperation, he made rafts out of barrels and boards, put the Danish matrons and maidens upon them, and lowered them into the sea. One after another of these rafts was sent out at intervals, and the pursuers seeing their wives and daughters stretching out their arms to them, crying to be rescued, and some even struggling in the water, could not forbear to pause and save them. Thus Harold escaped, and Sweyn cursed his ill-luck. Nevertheless, when he captured some laggards among the Norse galleys, he refused to take vengeance upon them.
During a later expedition to Denmark (1060) Harold displayed again the same presence of mind, and daring invention. He had just beaten Sweyn in the battle of Djursaa, and felt perfectly safe in entering the long and narrow Lim-Fjord for purposes of plunder. But Sweyn, hearing that his antagonist had gone into such a trap, hastily gathered what forces he could command and laid to at Hals, where the fjord is so narrow that a few s.h.i.+ps could easily engage a much superior number. Harold, perceiving that he was caught, gave orders to sail in through the fjord to the very end. Here a narrow isthmus separates the fjord from the North Sea. With enormous difficulty he now dragged his s.h.i.+ps across the isthmus, and sailed gaily northward while Sweyn lay guarding the empty cage from which he had escaped. To make, however, an end of this wasteful and unprofitable warfare, Harold proposed to Sweyn that they should stake their kingdoms in a decisive battle in the Gotha Elv.
It is not perfectly clear whether Sweyn accepted this challenge, though there is a probability that he did, as Harold would scarcely otherwise have gone to the place appointed for the battle. As on the former occasion, however, he waited in vain for the foe, and, dismissing the greater part of his force, sailed with one hundred and eighty s.h.i.+ps down along the coast of Skaane until he came to Nis-aa, where he was surprised by Sweyn with a fleet of three hundred and sixty s.h.i.+ps. A b.l.o.o.d.y battle was fought, lasting through an entire night (1062), and ending with the complete rout of the Danes. The victory was in a large measure due to the Norse chieftain Haakon Ivarsson, a man whom Harold had treated with harshness, but who, in the king's need, nevertheless, came to his rescue. Sweyn, too, owed his safety to Haakon, on board whose s.h.i.+p he sought refuge, and by whose aid he made his escape.
Great as the victory at Nis-aa was, its results, as far as Harold was concerned, proved insignificant. It was vain to suppose that Sweyn, as long as he had any power of resistance, would renounce his throne; and even if he had been willing to abide by such an agreement, the Nors.e.m.e.n's many plundering expeditions had made them so hated in Denmark that an army of occupation would have been needed to keep the land under their sway. They were, however, no less weary than the Danes of the incessant hostilities, and much against his will, Harold was forced to make peace at Gotha Elv in 1064. He recognized Sweyn as king of Denmark, and promised no more to molest him.
The excessive burdens which Harold had imposed upon his people, in order to obtain the means to carry on this war, had produced great discontent among the peasants, and the important domestic events which preceded the peace will now claim our attention. During the prosecution of the war nothing irritated the king more than the captious criticism and opposition of the chieftains, and particularly of their leader, Einar Thambarskelver. Einar, with his six hundred men-at-arms, following him wherever he went, was the personified defiance of the king's authority; and Harold, when he once saw him land at the pier in Nidaros, flaunting his power in his face, is said to have exclaimed in verse: ”Here I must see the haughty Einar land with a band of _hus-carles_ so large that many an earl would have been satisfied with less. He thinks, perhaps, himself to mount the throne; and he will not stop until he has deprived me of my kingdom, unless he has first to kiss the thin lips of the axe.”
Though this supposition may have been unfounded, it is very sure that Einar shunned no opportunity for manifesting his hostility to the king.
Once he broke up a meeting when Harold was present, and with his armed retinue freed a convicted thief who had once been in his service.
Another time he forced the king, by threatening an attack, to surrender a great treasure which once had been found in the ground, although the law adjudged all property thus acquired to the king. Einar, however, claimed that some runes on the lid of the chest, containing the treasure, showed it to have belonged to his father-in-law, Earl Haakon, whose only surviving heir was his wife Bergljot.
The king could scarcely be blamed for resenting such insolence, but the means he chose to get even with his enemy was unworthy of him. He had, by chance, captured some Danish men who had in their possession King Sweyn's seal. It is not improbable that they were secret emissaries from the Danish king, who was perhaps trying the tactics of his uncle Knut, whose bribes had once alienated the Norse chieftains from Olaf the Saint. It now occurred to Harold that he might use these men to test the disposition of the chieftains toward him and, what was especially important, gain a just reason for destroying those who should prove to be traitors. It was particularly against Einar Thambarskelver that this plot was directed. The men, purporting to come from King Sweyn, brought forged letters full of flattering a.s.surances, and a large sum of money which they offered Einar as a pledge of the king's friends.h.i.+p. But he was equal to the test. ”Every one knows,” he said, ”that King Harold is not my friend, while King Sweyn often speaks kindly of me, and I would fain be his friend. But if he comes to Norway with an army to fight King Harold and harry his kingdom, I will make him all resistance in my power, and I will help King Harold, with all the force at my command, to defend his kingdom.”
When the Danes returned with this message to King Harold, he said:
”It was to be expected that he would answer like a man of honor, though not out of love for me.”
There were other surprises in store for the king on this occasion. His friend and kinsman, Th.o.r.e of Steig, who had first recognized his claim to the kingdom, accepted the bribe, and when informed that Harold was coming to punish him, he went cheerfully to meet him, and handed him the money, saying: ”A short while ago, there were some Danish men at my house who brought me friendly letters and money from King Sweyn. I accepted the money, because I found it proper that you should receive what foreign kings were using to steal your country from you.”
This was so shrewd an act that it extorted from Harold, even if he did see through it, a reluctant admiration.
A third man,--a peasant, named Hogne Langbjornsson--to whom the emissaries came, made them this answer:
”I did not think King Sweyn had heard of me, who am only a common peasant, but my answer to him is this: that if he comes to Norway with war-s.h.i.+eld, no peasant's son shall do him more harm than I.”
When this reply was reported to Harold he was greatly pleased, and presently offered Hogne, as a reward for his fidelity, the t.i.tle of liegeman, which was the highest dignity next to that of earl. But Hogne was also proof against this temptation.
”All the friends.h.i.+p which you show me, my lord,” he said, ”I accept with thanks. But the t.i.tle of liegeman I will not have, for I well know how things will go. When the liegemen came together they would say: 'Hogne shall have the lowest seat, for he is only of peasant race, and thus the lowest of the liegemen.' My dignity would then not bring me honor, but shame. Far greater honor it is to be called a peasant and have the peasants say when they come together, that Hogne is the foremost among them.”
It is this st.u.r.dy sense of independence among peasants which makes Norwegian history unlike the history of any other country, and Norway the fountain-head of const.i.tutional liberty in Europe. It was upon this rock that feudalism was wrecked in Norway, while it sailed triumphant down the current of history in Sweden, in Denmark, and all other European lands.
King Harold could not help recognizing this proud integrity, even when found in his enemies. He was more kindly disposed even toward Einar Thambarskelver after having become a.s.sured of his loyalty. In order to put an end to all differences between them, he invited the old man to a feast at the royal mansion in Nidaros, gave him the seat of honor next to himself, and entertained him in princely fas.h.i.+on. The horns were industriously drained, and Einar, who was nearly eighty years old, grew sleepy. As ill-luck would have it, the king was just then telling of his adventures in Constantinople, and he regarded the sleepiness of his guest as a mark of disrespect. He directed one of his men to play a rough trick on the sleeper, in return for which Einar, the next day, had the man slain. The old enmity then broke out afresh; and Harold, weary of the humiliations he had had to suffer, determined to rid himself of his foe. Under pretence of wis.h.i.+ng to make peace with him, he invited him to a meeting. Einar came with his son Eindride and a large crowd of followers. The king, having concealed a.s.sa.s.sins in the hall, had covered up the smoke-hole so as to exclude the light. As Einar entered, leaving his son at the door outside, he expressed his astonishment at the darkness.
”Dark it is in the king's hall,” he said.
The murderers immediately fell upon him and cut him down.
”Sharp are the fangs of the king's hounds,” he cried.