Harald Hardrada (9 page)

In Einar's absence, the most senior of the lendermen was Harek of Thjotta and it was he whom Kalv Arnason proposed for command, but the Halogalander protested that he was too old for such a duty and suggested Thore Hund in his stead as a younger man with his own blood-feud to pursue against Olaf. Although eager for vengeance, Thore doubted whether the Trondelag men who made up the greater part of the army would take orders from someone out of the far north. At this point, Kalv Arnason introduced a note of urgency, warning that Olaf's forces might be smaller but were still fiercely loyal to a fearless leader. Assuredly well aware of the potential consequences of his own disloyalty to his king, he warned of the terrifying revenge Olaf would inflict on those he defeated, urging the bonders to attack as one united army to ensure their victory, and in response they acclaimed Kalv as their commander.

Immediately setting the forces into battle order, Kalv raised his banner and drew up his housecarls with Harek and his retinue beside them. Thore Hund and his troop were placed in front of the banner and at the head of the formation with chosen bands of the best-armed bonders on both sides. The saga describes this central formation of men of the Trondelag and Halogaland as ‘long and deep', which would imply that it was formed into a column, while on its right wing was ‘another formation' and on the left the men of Rogaland, Hordaland, Sogn and the Fjords stood with a third banner.

At this point the saga introduces Thorstein Knaresmed,
⁹
a sea-trader and master shipwright, sturdy, strong ‘and a great man-slayer' who had been drawn to join the bonders' army by fierce enmity to Olaf on account of the great new merchant-ship he had built and which had been taken from him as
wergild
(the fine for man-slaughter). Now he came to join Thore Hund's company so as to be in the front line of the coming battle and the first to drive a weapon at King Olaf in repayment for his theft of the ‘best ship that ever went on a trading voyage'. Quite possibly inspired by the appearance of this vengeful shipbuilder, Kalv Arnason's address to his troops before the march to battle clearly sets out to fire up their lust for vengeance, urging those with injuries to avenge upon the king to place themselves under the banner which was to advance against Olaf's own standard.

Thus the bonders' army came to the field of Stiklestad where Olaf's forces had already taken up their positions, but the plan of immediate attack intended by both sides was delayed. While the king's forces were still awaiting the arrival of Dag Ringsson's contingent, detachments of the bonders' army were lagging some way behind the front ranks and so, as Kalv and Harek were coming within closer view of their enemy, Thore and his company were assigned to marshal the laggardly rearguard and ensure that all would be present and correct when battle began.

The saga has an account – assuredly more formulaic than authentically historical, but perfectly plausible for all that – of verbal exchanges between the principals on both sides when the front ranks of the opposing forces were close enough for individuals to recognise each other. Olaf upbraided Kalv for disloyalty to his king, and to his kin when he had brothers standing with the forces he was about to attack. The tone of Kalv's reply might have been thought to hint at reconciliation, but Finn warned the king of his brother's habit of speaking fairly when he meant ill and then Thorgeir of Quiststad, who had formerly been one of Olaf's lendermen, shouted to the king that he should have such peace as many had earlier suffered at his hands, ‘and which you shall now pay for!' The saga endows Olaf's response with the tenor of a prophecy when he shouted a warning back to Thorgeir that fate had not decreed him a victory this day. At this point Thore Hund moved forward with his warriors shouting the battle-cry of ‘Forward, forward, bonder men!' and the battle of Stiklestad began.

Olaf's forces countered with their ‘Forward, forward, Christ-men! cross-men! king's men!' and the saga interpolates an anecdote, and one not entirely implausible, of confusion caused in the more distant ranks of the bonders' army where some took up their enemy's war-cry and warriors turned on each other imagining that the king's forces were among them. As Dag Ringsson's company was now coming into view, Olaf launched into his battle plan and commanded the opening assault from his position on the higher ground. The sun shone in a clear sky as the headlong charge rolled downhill and drove into the enemy lines with such impact that the bonders' array bent before it. While many in the farther ranks of the bonders were already turning to flee, the lendermen and their housecarls stood firm against an onslaught described by Sigvat as the ‘steel-storm raging at Stiklar Stad'. Their stand stemmed the flight of their own reluctant rearguard, who were forced to re-form into a counter-attack which was soon pushing on from all sides, its front line slashing with swords, while those behind them thrust with spears and all the ranks in the rear shot arrows, cast throwing-spears and hand-axes, or let fly with stones and sharpened stakes.

This was the murderous hand-to-hand combat which marked the crucial phase of battle. Many were falling now on both sides and the lines in front of Olaf's shield-rampart were steadily growing thin when the king commanded his banner to be brought forward. Thord Folason the standard-bearer advanced and Olaf himself followed, emerging from the shield-rampart and leading those warriors he had chosen as the best-armed and most accomplished to stand with him in battle. Sigvat's verses tell of bonders rearing back in awe at the sight of the king's entry into the fray, although one who remained undeterred was the aforementioned Thorgeir of Quiststad, at least until Olaf's sword slashed across his face, cutting the nose-piece of his helmet and cleaving his head down below the eyes. ‘Did I not speak true, Thorgeir, when I warned that you would not be the victor at our meeting?'

Thord the standard-bearer drove his banner-pole so deep into the earth that it remained standing there even when he himself had been dealt his death-wound and fell beneath it. There also fell two of Olaf's skalds, first Thorfinn Mudr and after him Gissur Gulbraaskald who was attacked by two warriors, one of whom he slew and the other wounded before he himself was slain. At around this same time Dag Ringsson arrived on the field, raising his banner and setting his troops into array, yet finding the light becoming so poor that he could hardly make out the men of Hordaland and Rogaland who were facing him on the left wing of the bonders' army.

The cause of this sudden darkening of what had been a bright summer sky only shortly before was an eclipse of the sun which is reliably recorded for the summer of 1030, but which raises its own point of difficulty as to the precise date of the battle. Snorri Sturluson firmly assigns the death of Olaf to the ‘fourth kalends of August' or 29 July in modern reckoning, and so too does Theodoric the Monk in his
Historia
. The Feast of St Olaf in commemoration of the day of his martyrdom is entered in the church calendars at that same date, and yet the total eclipse – which would certainly have been visible from Stiklestad in the year 1030 – actually occurred on 31 August.

There are really only two possible explanations, of which the first is that the battle was fought in July and the eclipse merely a fictional accretion inspired by the actual phenomenon which occurred a month later. Yet the tradition of the eclipse taking place while the battle was in progress must be almost immediately contemporary when it is described in Sigvat's verses on the battle composed within very recent memory of the event. No less significant is the impressive correspondence between the timings recorded in the saga – which record the armies meeting near midday, the battle beginning in early afternoon and the king slain at three o'clock – and those calculated for the historical eclipse of August which would have begun at 1.40 p.m., become total at 2.53, and was over by four in the afternoon.

All of which might suggest the alternative explanation – which proposes 31 August as the true date of the battle and construes 29 July as a misreckoning – being the more likely; and that same likelihood is convincingly developed by the editor of a long-respected English translation of
Olaf the Saint's saga
,
¹⁰
who suggests the discrepancy may have derived from misinterpretation of an original text which would probably have given the date in a customary medieval form as ‘1029 years and two hundred and nine days since Christ's birth'. Reckoning in ‘long hundreds' (as 249 days) from 25 December would actually give a date of 31 August, while reckoning in ‘continental' hundreds (or 209 days) from 1 January would give the date of 29 July which is found in Theodoric's
Historia
and Snorri's
Heimskringla
. The prime significance of the eclipse in the saga, as it is also in Sigvat's verse referring to the same phenomenon, is its ominous portent, perhaps even making an implied allusion to Christ's crucifixion, because it is at just this point that Olaf is about to meet his martyrdom.

In fact, the saga narrative itself reads as if abruptly distracted from Dag's entry into the battle when it suddenly turns to identify the warriors who were at that moment closing with the king on the field. Kalv Arnason stood with two of his kinsmen, one of them also called Kalv (yet more precisely identified as Kalv Arnfinsson, and thus as Kalv Arnason's cousin), while on his other side stood Thore Hund, clad in a reindeer-skin coat he had brought back from a trading voyage to Lapland and believed to have been rendered as weapon-proof as ring-mail by the witchcraft of the Lapps. This is clearly a reference to legend, and yet to one of closely contemporary provenance when Sigvat's verses on the battle tell how ‘the mighty magic of the Finns sheltered Thore from maim'.
¹¹

It was Thore with whom Olaf first engaged when he hewed at shoulders protected by reindeer skin and found that his famously sharp sword had no effect. Turning to Bjorn his marshal, Olaf commanded him to ‘strike the dog whom steel will not bite', but a great blow from Bjorn's axe similarly bounced off the magic hide and allowed Thore to retaliate with a spear-thrust which killed the marshal outright, proclaiming that ‘this is how we hunt the bear'. It is, of course, quite characteristic of the Norse heroic tradition to engage in such name-play at the very edge of a death-dealing combat, and just such is reflected in Snorri's narrative before it moves on to the specific detail of Olaf's martyrdom.

Having slain one of Kalv Arnason's kinsmen, Olaf next found himself facing Thorstein Knaresmed who struck with his axe to wound the king in the left thigh. Finn Arnason retaliated by slaying the shipwright, as Olaf staggered to support himself against a rock, dropping his sword as Thore Hund made another spear-thrust beneath the king's mail-coat to wound him in the stomach and Kalv inflicted a third wound, this to the left side of his neck. While Snorri's narrative confirms that ‘those three wounds were King Olaf's death', he goes on to say that not all are agreed as to which of the two Kalvs delivered the wound to the neck. Theodoric the Monk's
Historia
, set down a century and a half after the event, tells of men still disagreed as to the number of wounds suffered by Olaf as well as the identity of those who dealt them, but there is evidence found in the saga record to confirm both Olaf's son Magnus and half-brother Harald having reason to believe Kalv Arnason guilty. Perhaps most convincing of all is a story stamped with impressive authority – although preserved only in
Orkneyinga saga
– which tells of Kalv himself having ‘repented of his crime of killing King Olaf the Saint' when confronted by Rognvald Brusason in Russia five years after the battle.

Meanwhile, there is more to be told of events on the field of Stiklestad in the immediate aftermath of the king's death because, while the greater part of the force which had advanced with him fell with him also, Dag Ringsson is said to have kept up the battle with a fierce assault in which many bonders and lendermen fell and from which many others fled. This onset was apparently well remembered in tradition as ‘Dag's Storm', a byname which was to have the strangest echo in another battle fought thirty-six years later. Eventually, though, Dag Ringsson's force was confronted by the greater strength of the bonders' army with Kalv Arnason, Harek of Thjotta and Thore Hund in the forefront, and was so hopelessly overwhelmed by superior numbers that he and his surviving warriors were left with no course other than flight.

It may have been at this point – or, perhaps more probably, somewhat earlier – that the young Harald Sigurdsson escaped what must by now have been a scene of fearsome carnage. Whether he had been with the Upplanders or within the king's
skjaldborg
, he would almost certainly have been drawn into the forces gathered around Olaf's entry into the blood-fray. When Olaf's sword is said to have been retrieved by a Swede who had lost his own weapon, it would appear that all three divisions of the initial battle order had come together around the king's retinue when he emerged from his shield-rampart.

One who would assuredly have been found among the select company who formed Olaf's bodyguard was the Orkneyman Rognvald Brusason. Through the years since his first arrival as a ten-year-old boy at the Norwegian court, he had grown into a formidable warrior who had demonstrated unswerving loyalty to the king, travelling with him to Russia and back to Scandinavia on the grim progress which led to Stiklestad.

The most comprehensive account of Rognvald's life and career is preserved in the work now known as
Orkneyinga
saga and subtitled as ‘a history of the jarls of Orkney'. Completed in Iceland in 1234/5, it is effectively the updated version of an earlier text, usually referred to by the title
Jarls' saga
, also the work of an Icelander and set down in the last years of the twelfth century. It was this
Jarls' saga
which was known to Snorri Sturluson, providing his chief source of information on Rognvald Brusason (who was himself to become one of the most celebrated Orkney jarls after 1037), and thus representing one of the two principal sources for the opening chapter of his
Harald's saga
in
Heimskringla
, which begins with Rognvald's rescue of the young Harald from the carnage of Stiklestad. The other, and elder, of those sources was a strophe quoted by Snorri in the saga where it is attributed to Thjodolf Arnorsson, the skald authoritatively recognised as Harald's ‘favourite poet . . . who spent many years in his company'.
¹²