Harald Hardrada (25 page)

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 powerful 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.

All the men of the Trondelag followed Einar and most of the other Norwegians followed them to make ready the fleet for the solemn journey home. Finding himself now with no army at his command, Harald had no option but to return with them to Norway, yet no sooner had he put into the Vik than he set out westward on a royal progress, summoning assemblies in every province to acclaim his kingship over all the land, while Einar led the Trondelag contingent home to bury Magnus in St Clement's church where his father Olaf already lay enshrined. At which point in the saga narrative, Snorri pauses to enter his own obituary expressing full agreement with those of all the earlier sources in commemorating the nobility, courage and generosity of ‘the most popular of kings, praised by friend and foe alike'. Presumably those former foes included Svein Estridsson who had been about to abandon his claim to kingship of Denmark when he was brought news of Magnus' dying wish that he should inherit the kingdom and also of the entire Norwegian host having now left the country. Vowing that so long as he should live he would never again flee the kingdom, Svein raised a force in Skaane to accompany his own royal progress accepting submission of his people.

By the following spring, then, there were two claimants convinced of their right to kingship of Denmark, and one of them already assembling the forces with which to assert his claim because Harald is said by the saga to have called a levy throughout Norway, mustering half those ships and men to sail south and spend the summer plundering and burning Jutland. Snorri quotes a half-strophe of Harald's own composition, telling of his ships lying in
Gothnafjord
(now Randersfjord) while night-linened ladies lulled their husbands with song, and completes it with a half-strophe by Thjodolf promising to cast anchor further southward the following year. A further quotation, this one from the skald Bolverk describing ‘the sea-steed, plunder-laden . . . on the darkling deep', apparently celebrates the same expedition, and lines ascribed to a lesser-known Icelandic skald called Grani exult in vengeance taken on the daughters of one Thorkel Geysa. These women, who had earlier mocked Harald's threat to Denmark, were carried off from their father's burning farmstead to the ships and returned only on Thorkel's payment of a huge ransom.

Thjodolf's lines foretelling repeat performances ‘further southward next summer' are borne out by the saga when it goes on to record Harald's leading another such expedition against Denmark in the following raiding season and in every subsequent summer for almost a decade and a half. ‘Each year the Danes trembled' according to the skald Stúf, and yet Svein had sworn that he would never relinquish his rightful claim and neither were his people ever to accept Harald as their king. After the raid of 1048, Svein threatened to launch his own fleet against Norway and there wreak the same havoc Harald had been inflicting on Denmark, unless he would agree either to a peace treaty or to a battle which would finally decide the dispute.

The challenge was to meet in battle on the Gaut Elf river (which marked the borderline between Norway and Danish territory on the Scandinavian mainland) in the following summer and both kings spent the winter preparing their ships and men for the contest. In the event, Harald brought his forces to the appointed place only to find Svein's fleet lying away to the south off Zealand. Perhaps suspecting that Svein had lured all the Norwegian forces into the Kattegat so as to leave Norway itself defenceless against his own fleet, Harald sent the greater part of his bonder levy home, while leading a select force made up of his own hird, his lendermen and the bonders with homes nearest to the Danish border on a raiding foray south of the Skagen headland to Thy province and across Jutland to plunder the great trading township of Hedeby. All of this is confirmed by the saga's quotation of verses attributed to the skald Stúf and Thorleik the Fair, an Icelandic skald visiting Svein Estridsson's court, but perhaps most vividly and certainly most immediately by lines attributed to an anonymous Norse warrior who tells of standing on the northern extremity of the town's rampart before dawn and watching ‘high flames up out of houses whirling'.

Gwyn Jones suggests that destruction of Denmark's principal marketplace ‘may appear a self-strangling exercise for a man ambitious for the Danish throne', before adding that ‘burning towns came naturally to Harald . . . and if we can trust to Snorri the expedition of 1049 had terror and loot as its primary objectives'.
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Having plundered Hedeby and left it aflame, Harald's fleet of sixty ships was sailing northwards laden with booty when Svein appeared on the coast of Thy with a large force and a challenge to do battle onshore. Realising his own crews were hopelessly outnumbered, Harald replied with a counter-challenge to a sea-fight (this exchange confirmed by a strophe from Thorleik quoted in the saga). By now it would seem to have been getting late in the day and a change in the wind left Harald's ships lying off the island of Læso where thick sea-fog came down as night fell.

As the sun rose on the following morning, however, its light picked out the approaching dragon prows of a huge Danish fleet and Harald ordered his men to take to the oars and put out to sea, but their ships were waterlogged and heavy with the plunder from Hedeby while the enemy fleet was already threatening to overtake the best efforts of their oarsmen. So a new order was given to throw some plunder overboard to hinder the enemy's progress by tempting them to retrieve abandoned booty from the water. Determined not to be cheated of his advantage by such a ruse, Svein urged his ships on in pursuit and Harald ordered heavier items of cargo thrown overboard to lighten the load and increase the speed of flight, but the enemy fleet was still gaining on them and it was then that Harald came up with his master-stroke of throwing Danish captives overboard. When he saw his own people floundering in the waves, Svein could do no other than break off the chase to let his crews rescue as many as possible of their countrymen from the water – and allow most of the Norwegian fleet to make their escape. Thus deprived of what might have been a decisive victory, Svein saved at least some face when he came upon just seven enemy vessels, manned by levied bonders and lagging behind the main fleet off Læso. Snorri's story concludes with a quoted strophe from the skald Thorleik (in Svein's service, of course) mocking the bonders as they begged for quarter and offered ransom, presumably to be paid out of plunder taken on the raiding, in exchange for their lives.

While there is no doubt as to the historicity of Harald's onslaught against Hedeby in 1049 – and especially when archaeological evidence confirms the burning of the town – the account of his fleet's escape as preserved in the sagas depends largely on two strophes of Thorleik's verse. It is curious, then, that Saxo Grammaticus records a suspiciously similar encounter, also dated to 1049 but located on the Djurså river, where Svein had managed to muster an army against the raiders, but one scarcely adequate either in numbers or experience to face a battle-hardened enemy. So terrified were they of the approaching Norwegians that the Danes jumped into the river rather than face the oncoming foe and, indeed, many of them were drowned. Saxo was the son of a distinguished Danish military family, so there is reason to respect his authority in this instance and yet it is possible that his account refers to a quite different incident, even though it seems unlikely that such an extraordinary encounter would have passed unnoticed by Harald's skalds and thus escaped the attention of the saga-makers.

This regular raiding of Denmark apparently continued, presumably on an annual basis, for another thirteen years and yet it takes up very little further space in the saga record. In terms of strictly military history, the 1050s might even be considered the least interesting decade of Harald's warrior's way if his transition from Varangian mercenary to Scandinavian warlord resulted in little more than a reversion to the piratical custom of his viking forebears.

In which case, his years of experience in Russia and throughout the Byzantine Empire would seem to have made the least impression on his early performance as a warrior king and yet their influence is rather more evident in other spheres of his governance. His fiscal policy – assuredly inspired by the Byzantine example – is credited with developing a true coin economy in Norway and archaeological evidence from coin-hoards attests the numerous mints established during his reign. The famous wealth he had brought back from the east was quite certainly the source of the Byzantine coins struck for emperors from Basil II through to Constantine IX and imitated on Danish currency of the eleventh century. Of which the outstanding example is a Danish silver penny of Svein Estridsson dated to
c
. 1047 and carefully copied from a rare gold
histamenon
of Michael IV, part of a limited issue and thought to have reached Scandinavia in Harald's treasury where it was probably a part of his reward for services rendered on the Bulgarian campaign of 1041.
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Similarly also, his network of contacts in Russia must have facilitated the expansion of Norway's trade along the east way in his reign and the example of the Russian traders he had known in Novgorod and Kiev may well have inspired the expansion of Norwegian trading around the North Atlantic. Into that context must be placed a curious remark made by Adam of Bremen in his
Description of the Islands of the North
. Describing the frozen sea ‘beyond Thule [Iceland]', he writes of ‘Harald, the well-informed prince of the Norwegians, [having] lately attempted this sea. After he had explored the expanse of the Northern Ocean in his ships, at length there lay before his eyes the darksome bounds of the world's edge and by retracing his course he barely escaped the vast pit of the abyss in safety.'

The skaldic verses which represent immediately contemporary evidence for Norsemen reaching the North American continent have been dated to the early eleventh century and Harald's contact with Iceland would assuredly have kept him informed of exploration to Greenland and beyond, so it is not impossible that he might have been tempted to follow in the wake of the Vinland voyagers. Had he actually done so, of course, his skalds would have surely celebrated the adventure and yet no such verses have survived even long enough to reach the attention of the saga-makers. Thus Adam of Bremen's claim for Harald's North Atlantic venturing rests entirely upon his own authority and yet his writings demonstrate a well-informed interest in the subject and so cannot be dismissed entirely out of hand.

It is in the ecclesiastical orbit, however, that the eastern influence is best recorded and here the saga account of Harald's church-building at Nidaros is not only rich in detail but reliably supported by more recent archaeological investigation. Snorri tells of Harald having completed construction of the church dedicated to Olaf by Magnus but left unfinished at the time of his death, and building two churches of his own, one dedicated to St Gregory beside his royal residence on the banks of the River Nid and a St Mary's church (interestingly bearing the same dedication as the earliest Varangian chapel in Constantinople) on the site where Olaf's remains had lain through the winter following his martyrdom.