The History of Scandinavia by S.A. Dunham

Author:S.A. Dunham
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ozymandias Press

Fate had not yet done its worst on the offspring of the Norwegian monarch. His son Gudred perished at sea. And when he resigned his imperial dignity in favour of his beloved Eric, other tragedies might have been foreseen—if not in his lifetime, immediately after his death. The elevation of Eric was opposed, among others, by Halfdan the Black, who, also, assumed the title of monarch. Olaf, brother of the murdered Biorn, who had succeeded that prince in the government of Westfold, did the same. In two years Halfdan was removed by poison,—the deed, as was commonly reported, of Gunhilda. Harald was little moved by these atrocities. So long as his favourite son enjoyed life and empire, he cared little for the rest. But his own days were hastening to an end. When he resigned his sceptre to his son Eric, he was eighty years of age. In two or three years after that event,—in the year 934, or, according to others, 936—he paid the debt of nature. The place of his interment was one of his manors in Drontheim. Near the spot, a magnificent heathen temple was erected, which was standing in the days of Snorro.

To dwell on the character of this monarch, after the ample relation which we have given of his deeds, would be useless. With the exception of his martial prowess, of his enterprising spirit, of his unwearied activity, we see little to praise in him. His numerous adulteries—his feebleness soon after he had passed the meridian of life—his blind policy—have not often been exceeded. Much praise has been lavished on him for his extirpation of piracy; but he is entitled to little. So long as his own shores were not visited by the marauders, he cared not what depredations were committed on others. His chiefs, his very sons, followed piracy as a profession, not merely with his sanction, but at his express command. He has been called the friend of the peasants, or rather of the humble allodial proprietors; but did not policy make him so? If they were plundered by those in authority, could they furnish the new contributions which, as the first of Norway’s feudal sovereigns, he exacted from them? Then, as to his boasted administration of the laws, nothing is more certain than their perpetual neglect: after he had passed his fortieth year, they were inoperative,—despised by his own sons, evaded by the jarls. Nor, however brilliant his conquests, can he be called the founder of the Norwegian monarchy. If he destroyed many tyrants, he replaced them by greater: if he united many independent states into one empire, by his own deliberate act he broke that empire into fragments, and restored the anarchy which he had laboured to destroy. Widely different is his character before and after he had attained the meridian of life. It seemed as if he were led by some evil spirit to undo, in the latter period, all that he had done in the former. But he had

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