HARALD FAIRHAIR
The hero-king of Norway and his amazing hair
AD 880–930
She has reminded me of those things which it now seems strange I have not thought of before. And I make this vow, and the god who made me and rules all things shall be my witness, that never shall my hair be cut or combed till I have possessed myself of all Norway in scot, dues, and rule—or else die.
—King Harald Fairhair
HARALD FAIRHAIR WAS THE FIRST TRUE king of Norway, the national hero of his country, and a man known not only for a mighty propensity for carving through his enemies like a Thanksgiving turkey but also for rocking a head of epically glorious hair so righteous it’s the primary way violence-loving Viking skalds chose to remember his name.
Seeing as how this guy never really bothered to write anything down, many of the details of Harald’s reign are cloaked in mythology, folklore, and hopefully true anecdotes about his incredible feathered mullet. We know for sure that he was a real guy, that he was the first king of Norway, and that he founded a dynasty that would rule the northern Viking lands off and on throughout the entire Viking Age. Which is enough on its own, I suppose.
But his story is too good not to tell in a little more detail. So for that we go to the sagas, one of which was written by a guy named Hornklove, which is awesome.
As I’ve mentioned previously, Norway wasn’t actually a country or a kingdom back in the 800s. Known simply as the “North Way,” this part of the Scandinavian peninsula was really just a mishmash of minor Viking kingdoms, each ruled by a different guy. There was no national identity, no overarching king, and no Norwegian Olympic downhill-skiing team—it was all just a loosely associated group of crown-wearing bearded dudes ruling little towns and villages and generally just pretending they were a heck of a lot more important than they actually were.
Young Harald Fairhair came from a long line of these minor kings, and for some reason most of his grandpas met gruesome, untimely, and historically unlikely ends. One great-great-great-granddaddy passed out and drowned in a vat of mead. Another was captured by the Swedish and offered to the gods as a human sacrifice. One was burned alive. Another was supposedly attacked in his bed and suffocated by demons. Most met their ends the old-fashioned Viking way, either dying in combat or being murdered by their brothers, cousins, neighbors, or wives.
The most recent fatality in the unlucky history of Harald Fairhair’s genealogy was his pops, Halfdan the Black, who drowned when the Santa Claus–style sleigh he was driving crashed through the thin ice of a partially thawed lake and dumped him into freezing-cold water. Harald was ten years old when this happened. Now he was the ruler of the small kingdom of Vestfold.
As you can probably imagine, your typical big, strapping Viking warrior wasn’t exactly thrilled about the idea of having to take orders from a ten-year-old kid who hadn’t even grown a decent beard yet, so a lot of Vestfold’s jarls rose up and tried to yank power away from Harald. Luckily for the young king, he had a secret weapon—his father’s chief military advisor and captain of the Vestfold royal guard was a warmongering human killing machine known as Duke Guthorm. Together with Guthorm, Harald (who was, it turned out, a whole lot tougher than his enemies expected) responded to the jarls’ insubordination by mobilizing his troops and preparing for war.
His first opponent was King Gandalf—yes, you read that correctly, Tolkien fans—who tried to act quickly and seize power right away, before Harald could organize. But Harald wasn’t the sort of guy who hesitated, ever. He and Guthorm got the drop on Gandalf’s army, ambushed them, cut off their escape, and killed both Gandalf and his son in a single battle. (“You shall not pass!”) Then, when he heard some other guy was trying to overthrow him, the young king sent Viking warriors to sneak into that dude’s city and set fire to his castle in the middle of the night. When the wannabe future king and his men ran outside to escape the blaze, they fled right into the spears of Harald Fairhair’s warriors.
A few years later, after cementing his power, Harald Fairhair decided he wanted to get married, so he sent his men to talk to the princess of a neighboring kingdom called Hordaland. The princess, whose name was Gyda, was like, “Yeah, I don’t think so.” She told Harald’s men she was worthy of a mighty kingdom like the kingdom of Gorm the Old, who had united all of Denmark, or like the kingdom of Erik Weatherhat (yes, Weatherhat), who had united Sweden a few years back, and if this Harald dude was so marriage-worthy, how come all he had was some puny little nothing kingdom?
When Harald’s men came back and relayed her message to their king, they politely asked if they should just burn down her castle and carry her away against her will, but the king said no. He liked her spirit. He would be the man she deserved. He would rule Norway as one kingdom.
That day, King Harald of Vestfold swore he would not cut or comb his hair until he had accomplished his epic mission—the conquest of every minor kingdom in Norway.
Very little is known of the bloody ten-year campaign that ensued, except that no man could stand against the furious might of Harald’s ridiculous, never-ending hair. With his long, flowing locks blowing in the breeze behind him, the king charged across the coastal districts and waterways of Norway, into the Uplands, across dales and tundras, winning battle after battle, conquering obscure kingdom after obscure kingdom, destroying all who dared oppose him. Outside Trondheim, he defeated eight kings in eight battles to seize the city. Another time, he killed three enemy kings in a single battle when they tried to team up against him. Before long, enemy kings were running the white flag up their castle walls as soon as they saw Harald’s banners fluttering in the breeze.
Unstoppable, strong-willed, and energetic, King Harald was also fair. He respected and upheld the laws passed at the Things (the parliaments held by the people) and left the jarls alone to run their territory untouched. He only asked for two things: (1) He placed a land tax on the freemen, demanding they pay him for the privilege of being his subjects. The jarls collected the money, kept one-third of it (which made them happy), and gave the rest to Harald. And (2) from the jarls, Harald demanded sixty warriors for the national army, plus an additional twenty men from each of the jarl’s hersirs. This wasn’t too tough—men who’d heard the great tales of Harald’s dominating victories came from every corner of Norway, Denmark, and Sweden to seek glory, treasure, and excitement fighting for the hero-king and his dreadlocked, uncombed mega-hair and matching floor-length beard. Before long, Harald became known for personally charging into combat at the head of a super-scary force of Viking berserkers.
Eventually, all of Norway was divided into two factions—the kingdom of Harald Fairhair and a huge alliance of Norwegian rulers who would rather have been kings of tiny kingdoms than subordinates of Harald. At the Battle of Hafrsfjord around 880, Harald Fairhair sailed his fleet into a fjord and crashed his ships into an enemy armada commanded by rulers with names like Solvi Bandy-Legs, Kjotvi the Rich, Tore Hagalang, and Hadd the Hard. Harald’s sailors latched their boats to their foes’ and unloaded shiploads of berserkers. Men battled hard across the decks of the ships, which burned and sank and broke apart, filling the harbor with shredded masts, broken shields, and terrified enemy warriors in full armor swimming for their lives. The battle was hard fought, lasted all day, and left lots and lots of men at the bottom of the fjord.