Northmen: The Viking Saga AD 793-1241 (46 page)

Håkon soon faced a greater challenge to his throne. After their father’s death in 954, Erik Bloodaxe’s sons had gone to Denmark and won Harald Bluetooth’s support for a campaign to try to drive Håkon from the Norwegian throne. Håkon proved to be a capable warrior, inflicting a succession of defeats on Erik’s sons. In 960, three of Erik’s sons, Harald Greycloak, Gamle and Sigurd, landed secretly in Hordaland and surprised Håkon in his hall at Fitjar. Håkon fought off the brothers, who fled back to their ships, but it was his last victory: during the battle he received an arrow wound to his arm and he died of blood loss soon afterwards. Although Snorri says that he was still a Christian at the end of his life, Håkon may, at least publicly, have converted to paganism, if only to keep the peace. Certainly Håkon’s followers gave him a traditional pagan burial in a barrow and in his funeral lay
Hákonamál
, Håkon’s skald Eyvind Skaldaspillir described his welcome in Valhalla as befitting a pagan warrior who fell in battle. Despite all the opposition to his religious policies, Håkon was remembered in saga traditions as a just ruler who brought peace and good harvests and whose legal reforms made the district things more representative and easier to consult.

As Håkon had no male heirs, Harald Greycloak, the eldest of Erik’s sons, succeeded to the throne with the support of Harald Bluetooth. Harald and his brothers had been baptised while they were in England and, unlike their uncle, they were prepared to use violence against those who opposed Christianity. They destroyed many pagan temples and overthrew the idols to demonstrate their powerlessness, but few Norwegians converted despite the intimidation. Harald aspired to exercise direct authority throughout Norway and dealt ruthlessly with opposition. It was clear to Harald that the most serious obstacle to achieving this was jarl Sigurd. Harald courted Sigurd’s malcontent brother Grjotgard and came to a secret agreement: in return for helping to overthrow Sigurd, Harald would make Grjotgard jarl in his place. After the harvest in 962, Grjotgard sent word to Harald that Sigurd was gathered with very few followers in a hall at Aglo in north Trøndelag. Guided by Grjotgard, Harald sailed up Trondheim Fjord by starlight arriving at Aglo undetected late at night. Harald’s men set fire to the hall while Sigurd was feasting with his followers. Trapped inside, the jarl and his men were all burned to death. Harald also engineered the murders of Gudrød Bjørnsson and Tryggvi Olafsson soon afterwards, but the violent elimination of his main rivals did not make Harald’s position secure.

Norway comes under Danish control

Rising popular discontent with Harald’s activities created an opportunity for Harald Bluetooth to intervene in Norway. Jarl Sigurd had been a popular ruler and after his killing the folk of Trøndelag rallied to his son Håkon Sigurdsson. After three years of desultory warfare, Harald was forced to accept Håkon as jarl of Lade, with the same autonomy his father had enjoyed. The peace did not last and in 968 Håkon went into exile in Denmark, where he hatched a conspiracy with Harald Bluetooth to overthrow Harald Greycloak and share Norway between them. Danish Harald lured Norwegian Harald to Denmark with offers of land, only to ambush and kill him when he landed at Hals on Limfjord in north Jutland. After the killing Håkon and Harald Bluetooth took a large fleet to Viken and divided the country between them. Håkon received back his ancestral jarldom in the north, which he ruled in complete autonomy, and the west coast districts of Rogaland, Hordaland, Sogn, Møre and Romsdal, which he ruled as Harald’s vassal. Harald took control of the rest of the country except for Vestfold and Agder, which he gave to Harald Grenske, the son of the murdered king Gudrød Bjørnsson.

At first Håkon was true to his arrangement with Harald and loyally brought ships and men to defend Denmark against the emperor Otto II’s attack in 975. While Håkon was in Denmark, Harald forced him to accept baptism and agree to take a party of priests with him to Norway to begin missionary work. A devout pagan, Håkon’s conversion was insincere and he had no intention of helping Harald Christianise Norway. Håkon took the priests onboard his ship as Harald demanded but, as soon as he got a favourable wind for home, he disembarked the priests and made good his escape, plundering Danish territory on the way. Preoccupied with the threat from Germany, Harald was unable to prevent Håkon seizing control of all of Norway on his return and for the next ten years or so he enjoyed undisturbed possession of the country. Late in Harald’s reign or early in Svein Forkbeard’s – the sources are contradictory and none can be considered to be really reliable – the Danes attempted to win back control of Norway by sending a fleet of sixty ships to attack Lade. According to saga traditions the fleet was led by the elite Jomsvikings, but it never reached its destination. Deliberately misled by a captured herdsman, the Danes blundered unwittingly into a much larger Norwegian fleet under jarl Håkon and his son Erik at Hjørungavåg in Sunnmøre and was crushingly defeated in a battle fought in a heavy hailstorm. Only about half the Danish fleet escaped.

According to the saga traditions, Håkon became increasingly overbearing after his victory at Hjørungavåg and began to tax the bonders so heavily that his support ebbed away. So unpopular had Håkon become that when Olaf Tryggvason unexpectedly arrived in Norway in 995, fresh from his triumphs in England, he was immediately accepted as king. Håkon fled but was murdered soon after by one of his retainers while he was hiding in a pigsty: when Olaf later displayed his severed head, it was pelted with stones by a mob of angry bonders. Håkon’s son Erik Håkonarson escaped however, and, like many an exile before him, became a Viking leader.

Olaf’s rapturous welcome soon began to turn sour. Olaf’s upbringing had made him ruthless even by the standards of a ruthless age. Olaf was still a young child when his father, King Tryggve Olafsson, was murdered, forcing him into exile with his mother. Crossing the Baltic Sea on their way to Russia, their ship was captured by Estonian Vikings and Olaf fell into the hands of a slave dealer called Klerkon. Luckily for Olaf, he was sold to kind-hearted owners who looked after him well as he grew up (Klerkon exchanged him for a good cloak). When Olaf was eight, he was found by his cousin Sigurd who bought his freedom and took him to Novgorod. It was there that the then nine-year-old Olaf ran into Klerkon again and promptly split his head in two with a small axe. As a teenager Olaf became a warrior in Vladimir the Great’s
druzhina,
but left when he was eighteen to begin a career of Viking raiding. As a man of royal blood, Olaf easily raised a warrior band despite his youth and, as was still the custom, this entitled him to call himself a king. All he needed to do now was to win a kingdom. Eight years of ceaseless raiding in the Baltic and England provided him with the wealth, the reputation and the loyal warrior band to do just that: he was still only about twenty-seven years old.

Convert or die

While Olaf had been in England in 994, he had been baptised by Ælfheah, the archbishop of Canterbury, who was later martyred by the Danes in 1012, and he was determined to break pagan resistance to Christianity once and for all. Olaf was not a patient man and he seems to have concluded from the start that force would bring quicker results than argument. Olaf began his campaign of Christianisation in Viken, where he could count on the support of his father’s family. Olaf treated those who opposed him harshly, killing some, mutilating others, and driving some into exile. Olaf tied practitioners of traditional pagan
seiðr
magic to rocks by the sea at low tide and left them to drown. The folk of Viken found Olaf’s approach persuasive and by early 997 most had been baptised. That summer Olaf moved to the west of the country, taking a large army with him to quell any opposition. There was none, in part thanks to Olaf’s maternal family, which used its influence in the area to soften up the opposition to Christianity. In the autumn, Olaf moved to the still staunchly pagan Trøndelag and burned the temple at Lade. This was a step too far for the locals and they rose in arms forcing Olaf to withdraw to Viken for the winter. This was only a temporary setback. The following year Olaf returned to the Trøndelag. At first Olaf adopted a conciliatory approach, offering to learn about pagan customs, but this was only to lull his opponents into a false sense of security. At the district thing, Olaf and his men killed the leader of the pagan faction, Járn-Skeggi, in the temple of Thor. Though the pagans had come well-armed, the loss of their leader broke their resistance and they tamely agreed to baptism.

To better consolidate his authority in the all-too independent Trøndelag, Olaf built a palace and a missionary church on a peninsula by the mouth of the Nidelva river, with the river on one side and Trondheim Fjord on the other. As it was almost completely surrounded by water, the site was easy to defend and had good access to sea. It was also only 2 miles from Lade: so closely associated with local independence but now very obviously under royal control. Olaf called the place Kaupangen (‘trading place’), perhaps to attract merchants and the taxes and tolls they could be made to pay, but it soon became known as Nidaros (‘mouth of the Nidelva’). Since the nineteenth century, however, it has been known as Trondheim, now Norway’s third largest city. Olaf also tried to strengthen his authority in the region by marrying Járn-Skeggi’s daughter Gudrun. This turned out to be an almost fatal error of judgment on Olaf’s part: Gudrun did not have a forgiving nature and she tried to stab him to death on their wedding night. After that the saga notes laconically: ‘Gudrun never came into the king’s bed again.’ In spring 999, Olaf completed the conversion of Norway’s coastal districts when he sailed to Halogaland, north of the Arctic Circle, but only after he had defeated the Halogalanders in a sea battle. Around the same time, the Icelandic Althing bowed to Olaf’s pressure and adopted Christianity as the island’s official religion.

Christianisation was only one means by which Olaf hoped to strengthen royal authority. Coinage was an important way that medieval monarchs promoted their image and authority: Olaf opened a mint at Trondheim and issued Norway’s first coinage. He also introduced the office of district governor. However, Olaf’s reign was destined to be a short one. After several years of successful raiding in the Baltic, Erik Håkonarson went to Denmark, where he was welcomed by Svein Forkbeard. In alliance with the Swedish king Olof Skötkonung (r.
c.
995 – 1022), who had his own designs on Norwegian territory, the pair began to plot Olaf’s downfall. Their opportunity came in 1000, when Olaf sailed south, through Danish waters, to raid the Wendish lands on the south coast of the Baltic.

According to saga traditions Olaf was goaded into the raid by his new wife Thyre, Svein Forkbeard’s sister. This was no diplomatic marriage: against her brother’s wishes, Thyre had abandoned her pagan husband, a Wendish king, and married Olaf instead. Thyre demanded that Olaf go to Wendland to recover property she had been forced to abandon when she fled from her husband. Against his counsellors’ advice, Olaf is alleged to have agreed. A more plausible scenario is that Olaf believed that a profitable raiding expedition would help heal the wounds of his forced Christianisation and bind the warrior aristocracy in loyalty to him. And as pagans, the Wends were fair game.

Battle at sea

Olaf’s expedition went well enough but King Svein’s spies observed his movements closely. As Olaf sailed home that September, Svein and his allies ambushed him at Svöld with a superior force. Svöld has never been identified: some historians favour the German Baltic island of Rügen, others the Øresund, the narrow channel that separates Denmark and Sweden. With sixty-four oars Olaf’s gilded flagship, the drakkar
Long Serpent
, was one of the largest longships ever built but Olaf had eleven ships, his opponents over seventy and the result was never in doubt.

The exact course of the battle is not known for certain but it probably did not involve individual ship-to-ship actions. Viking Age sea battles were usually fought in much the same way as land battles, but with the ships themselves forming the battlefield. The opposing fleets formed up in line, bows-on to the other. The largest ships were always stationed in the centre. Masts and sails were taken down before battle to clear the decks for action and all manoeuvring was done under oars alone. The defending fleet, as Olaf’s fleet did at Svöld, often used the masts and spars to lash its ships together so that they formed a solid fighting platform on which warriors could move quickly from ship to ship to where they were most needed. The attacking fleet could also do this but only after it had made contact with the enemy. Tactics were simple. The first step was to fasten onto the enemy ships with grappling hooks and anchors, and then board them. Once the deck had been cleared in hand-to-hand fighting, the ship would be cut loose and rowed away. Size was always more important in sea battles than speed and manoeuvrability. The larger a ship was, the more men it carried and the taller it was. A high-sided ship offered better protection from missiles for its crew and it was harder for attackers to board. Its crew could in turn rain missiles down onto the crew of a smaller ship and they were also more easily able to board it.

At Svöld Erik Håkonarson took the lead in the fighting on his own flagship, the
Iron Beard
, which rivalled Olaf’s
Long Serpent
in size and splendour. According to Snorri’s account of the battle in his saga of the king’s life in
Heimskringla
, Erik laid his ship:

‘alongside the outermost of King Olaf’s ships, thinned it of men, cut the cables, and let it drift free. Then he laid alongside the next, and fought until he had cleared it of men too. Now all the people who were in the smaller ships began to run into the larger and the jarl cut them loose as soon as he cleared them of men... At last it came to this, that all King Olaf’s ships were cleared of men except the
Long
Serpent
, on board of which gathered all who could still use their weapons. Then
Iron
Beard
lay side to side with the Serpent and the fight went on with battle axe and sword.’