Part 23

After this idle kind of warfare had gone on for a number of years and Harold found that all he had gained by it was the hatred of the Danes, he made an agreement with Sweyn to fight it out between them. They were to meet at the mouth of the Goetha Elv and whoever won in the battle was to be the king of Denmark. It was a kind of duel for a crown.

But Sweyn tried to gain his end by stratagem. When Harold appeared with his fleet at the appointed place Sweyn and his ships were not to be seen. Harold waited a while, fuming and fretting, and then sailed south to Jutland, where he ravaged the coast, took and burned the city of Heidaby, carried away a number of women of high rank, and filled his ships with plunder. Then he turned homeward, with so little fear of the Danes that he let his ships widely scatter.

The winds were adverse, the weather was foggy, and one morning while they lay at anchor by an island shore, the lookout saw a bright flash through the fog. The king was hastily called, and on seeing it cried:

"What you see is the flash of the morning sun on the golden dragon-heads of warships. The Danish fleet is upon us!"

The peril was imminent. It was hopeless to fight with the few ships at command. Only flight remained and that was almost as hopeless. The oars were got out in haste, but the ships, soaked and heavy from their long cruise, were hard to move, and as the fog lifted under the sun rays, the Danish fleet, several hundred strong, bore down swiftly upon them. The emergency was one that needed all the wit and skill of the king to meet.

To distract the enemy Harold bade his men nail bright garments and other showy spoil to logs and cast them overboard. As these floated through the Danish ships many of them stopped to pick up the alluring prizes. He also was obliged to throw overboard casks of beer and pork to lighten his ships and these also were picked up. Yet in spite of all he could do the Danes gained on him, and his own ship, which brought up the rear, was in danger of capture.

As a last resort the shrewd king had rafts made of boards and barrels and put on these the high-born women he held as captives. These rafts were set afloat one after another, and the pursuers, on seeing these hapless fair ones and hearing their wild appeals for rescue, were obliged to stop and take them up. This final stratagem succeeded and Harold escaped, leaving Sweyn, who had felt sure of capturing his enemy, furious at his failure.

At another time, ten years and more later, Harold again fell into peril and again escaped through his fertility in resources. Having beaten his rival in a naval battle, he entered the long and narrow Lim fiord to plunder the land, fancying that Sweyn was in no condition to disturb him. He reckoned too hastily. Sweyn, learning where his foe was, gathered what ships he could and took post at Hals, the fiord being there so narrow that a few ships could fight with advantage against a much greater number.

Though caught in a trap Harold was not dismayed, but gave orders to sail to the inner end of the fiord. He knew that it ended near the North Sea, only a narrow isthmus dividing them. Then, with great trouble and labor, he managed to have his ships dragged across the isthmus and launched on the sea waters, and away he sailed in triumph, leaving Sweyn awaiting him in vain.

Finally, with the desire to bring this useless strife to an end, if possible, a new compact was made to meet with their fleets in the Goetha Elv and fight once more for the kingdom of Denmark. It was now 1062, thirteen years after the former battle. As before, on reaching the place designated, no Danish ship was visible. But it is difficult to credit what we are told, that Harold, after a vain wait, made the same error as before, dividing his fleet and sending the greater part of it home. With the remainder, one hundred and eighty ships strong, he sailed along the coast, and suddenly found himself in the presence of the Danes, with two ships to his one.

This time Harold did not flee, but joined battle bravely with his enemy, the contest lasting through a whole night and ending in a complete victory over the Danes. It was a great victory, yet it brought Harold no advantage, for Sweyn did not keep to his compact--if he had made one--to surrender his throne, and the Danes hated Harold so thoroughly for his cruel raids on their land that they had no idea of submitting to him. Two years more passed on, and then Harold, finding that the conquest of Denmark was hopeless, consented against his will to make peace. In this way Sweyn, after many years of battling for his throne, forced his powerful antagonist to give up the contest and promise never to disturb him again.

Two years after this peace was made, in the year 1066, King Harold took part in another adventure which brought his tyranny and his life to an end. It is worth telling for another reason, for it was connected with a great historical event, the conquest of England by William the Conqueror. For these two reasons it is very fitting that it should be told.

King Harold of England, who was soon to fall on the fatal field of Hastings, had a brother, Earl Tostig, who, fired by ambition, set out to conquer that kingdom for himself. He went first to Denmark and tried to get King Sweyn to join him in the enterprise, but the prudent Sweyn told him that he had no desire to follow in the footsteps of his uncle Canute, but was quite content to dwell at home and rule his own kingdom.

Then Tostig sought Norway, where he found King Harold far more ready to listen to him. So in September of that year, Harold sailed from Norway with the most powerful fleet and army that had ever left its shores. Counting what was added in the Orkneys and the force under Earl Tostig, it numbered about three hundred and fifty ships and thirty thousand men. Landing in Northumberland, a victory was won and the city of York taken. Then, leaving about one-third of the army to guard the ships, Harold and Tostig encamped at Stamford Bridge, seven miles from York.

It was a warm day, there was no reason to fear danger, and the men lounged about without their arms. In this unwary state they found themselves suddenly face to face with a large army, led by the English King Harold, who had marched north in furious haste. Tostig, finding that they had been taken by surprise, advised a retreat to the ships, but Harold was not the man to turn his back to his foe, and decided to stand and fight, ordering the men to arm and prepare for battle. While they were gathering in ranks for the fray, a party of English horsemen rode up and asked if Earl Tostig was there.

"You see him before you," said Tostig.

"Your brother Harold sends you greeting and offers you peace and the rule of Northumberland. If he cannot gain your friendship for less, he will grant you one-third his kingdom."

"Last year he had only scorn and disdain to offer me," replied Tostig. "But if I should accept his proposal, what has he to offer my ally, the king of Norway?"

"He will grant him seven feet of English soil; or more if his length of body needs it."

"If that is your best offer," said Tostig, "ride back and bid Harold to begin the battle."

Harold of Norway had heard this brief colloquy, and as the English horsemen rode away asked Tostig who was the speaker.

"That was my brother, Harold himself," answered Tostig.

"I learn that too late," said Harold grimly.

The battle that followed was hotly contested. It began with a charge of the English cavalry, which was repulsed, and was followed up fiercely by the Norsemen, who fancied the flight of the English to mean a general rout. In this way they broke their ranks, which the king wished to preserve until reinforcements could reach him from the ships. Forward rushed the impatient Norsemen, King Harold throwing himself into their midst and fighting with savage fury. His men seconded him, the English ranks wavered and broke before the fierce onset, and victory seemed within the grasp of the invaders, when an arrow pierced King Harold's throat and he fell in a dying state from his horse.

His fall checked the onset, and the English king, hearing of his death, offered his brother an armistice. Tostig refused this and led his men back to the fray, which was resumed with all its old fury. But Tostig, too, was slain, and the king's brother-in-law, who arrived with reinforcements from the ships, met with the same fate. By this time the battlefield was covered with the bodies of the dead, and the Norsemen, dispirited by the loss of their leaders, gave way and retreated towards the ships, hotly pursued by their victorious foes. Of their great host only a small remnant succeeded in reaching the ships.

Thus ended the great fight at Stamford Bridge, and with it the reign and life of Harold Hardruler, who fell a victim to his ambition and love of strife. For years thereafter the bones of men lay scattered widely over that field, for none stayed to bury the dead, the Norsemen fleeing in their ships, while news of the landing of William of Normandy called Harold hastily to the south--where he fell in the midst of the fighting at Hastings as Harold of Norway had fallen on Stamford Field. Harold's invasion of England was the last great exploit of the vikings of the north, and though Ireland was invaded later by a Norseland fleet, no foreign foe after the fatal days at Stamford and Hastings ever landed on England's shores.

SVERRE, THE COOK'S SON, AND THE BIRCHLEGS.

In the year 1177 those people in Norway who loved a joke must have laughed to their hearts' content, when the tidings reached them that the son of a cook, followed by seventy ragged and half armed men, had set out to win the throne of the kingdom. Surely a more extraordinary and laughable enterprise was never undertaken, and the most remarkable thing about it was that it succeeded. A few years of desperate adventures and hard fighting raised the cook's son to the throne, and those who had laughed at his temerity were now glad to hail him as their king. How Sverre the adventurer won the crown is a tale full of adventure and amply worth the telling.