Part 5

The next day, Olaf found his little brothers at play; the two eldest building little barns and enclosing cornfields, and Harald lying by the side of a pool of water, in which he was floating small chips of wood.

“What are these?” asked the king.

“My ships of war,” said little Harald.

“Ha! my friend,” said the King, “the time may come when thou wilt command ships.”

He then called the other two, and asked Guttorm what he would like best to have.

“Corn land,” said he.

“And how great wouldst thou like thy corn land to be?”

“I would have the whole ness (peninsula) that goes out into the lake sown with corn every summer.”

“And what wouldst thou like best?” he asked of Halfdan.

“Cows,” said the boy.

“How many wouldst thou like to have?”

“So many, that when they went to the lake to drink, they should stand as tight round the lake as they could stand.”

“That would be a great house-keeping!” said the king; “and now, Harald, what wouldst thou have?” “Followers.”

“And how many of them?”

“Oh, so many as would eat up all Halfdan’s cows at a single meal!”

Olaf laughed, and said, “Here, mother, thou art bringing up a king.”

In fact, Guttorm and Halfdan followed the quiet life of their father, but Harald was of far different temper. When Olaf returned from his exile in Russia, young Harald, who was scarcely fifteen, joined him with all the followers he could muster, and insisted on taking part in the battle of Stiklestad.

Olaf told him he was too young; but Harald boldly answered, “I am not so weak but I can handle the sword; and as to that, I have a notion of tying the sword to my hand;” and then the brave boy sung out some verses, composed on the spur of the moment, according to a talent often found among the Northmen, and highly valued:

“Our army’s wing, where I shall stand, I will hold good with heart and hand; My mother’s eye shall joy to see, A batter’d, blood-stain’d shield from me. The brave young skald should gaily go Into the fray, change blow for blow; Cheer on his men, gain inch by inch, And from the spear-point never flinch.”

Olaf saw plainly that his high-spirited mother had infused her own temper into her youngest son as entirely as into himself, and yielded his consent that Harald should take part in the battle. It was a mournful beginning for a young warrior. Harald beheld the fall of his noble brother, and was himself severely wounded. He was led from the field by a faithful bonder, who hid him in his house; but the spirit of the young minstrel warrior was undaunted, and, during his recovery, he sung thus:

“My wounds were bleeding as I rode, And down the hill the bonders strode, Killing the wounded with the sword, The followers of their rightful lord. From wood to wood I crept along, Unnoticed by the bonder throng; ‘Who knows,’ I thought, ‘a day may come, My name may yet be great at home.’”

As soon as his wounds were healed, Harald took refuge in Russia, and thence travelled to Constantinople, where he became one of the renowned guards of the Greek Emperor, composed of hired Northmen and Saxons, and called Vaeringer, or Varangians, from the word _Wehr_, a defence. He went from Constantinople to the Holy Land, bathed in the Jordan, paid his devotions at Jerusalem, and killed the robbers on the way. Strange stories were told of his adventures at Constantinople, of the Empress Zoe having fallen in love with him, and of his refusal to return her affection; upon which she raised an accusation against him, that he had misapplied the pay of the Vaeringers, and threw him into prison, whence, as the story related, he was freed by a lady, who was commissioned to rescue him by St. Olaf, his brother, who appeared to her in a dream. She brought him a rope ladder, and he escaped to his ship, broke through the chains that guarded the harbor, and sailed northward through the Black Sea, composing on his voyage sixteen songs in honor of Elisif, the Russian king’s daughter, whom he married on his arrival at Novogorod. He obtained with her great riches, which he added to the treasures he had brought from Constantinople.

St. Olaf’s son, Magnus, was reigning in Norway, and Harald Hardrada designed to obtain from him a portion of the kingdom, to winch, by the old Norwegian law, every descendant of Harald Harfagre had an equal claim. Harald united with his cousin Swend, who had been dispossessed of an earldom by Magnus, and they advanced together; but Harald was inclined, if possible, rather to decide the matter by a treaty, than by force of arms; while Swend, on the other hand, wished for war and revenge.

One evening, as the two allies were sitting together, Swend asked Harald what he valued most of all his property.

“My banner, Land-Waster,” answered Harald.

“And wherefore?”

“It has always been said that this banner carries victory with it, and so I have ever found it.”

“I will believe in that when thou hast borne it in three battles with thy nephew Magnus, and won them all.”

“I know my kindred with king Magnus,” answered Harald, “without thy recalling it; and though we are now in arms against him, our meeting may be of another sort.”

They came to high words, Swend reproaching his ally with breaking his agreement. Harald distrusted his intentions, and, at night, did not, as usual, sleep in a tent on the deck of his ship, but left a billet of wood in his place. At midnight a man rowed silently up to the side of the ship, crept up to the tent, and struck so violent a blow with his axe, that it remained sticking in the wood, while the murderer retired to his boat, and rowed away in the dark.

Harald, convinced of this treachery, deserted Swend, and went to join Magnus, who met him in a friendly manner, and invited him, with sixty of his men, to a banquet.

After the feast, Magnus went round the table, distributing gifts of robes and weapons to the sixty men; but when he came to Harald, he held up two sticks, and asked which of them he would choose. Harald took the nearest, and Magnus declared that therewith he gave up to him half his power and land in Norway, making him of equal right with himself, and only reserving the first seat when they should be together at any time.

Harald sent for all the treasure he had brought home, declaring that they would likewise divide their riches; and the gold was weighed out, and placed in two equal heaps, each on an ox-hide. But Magnus had no riches to contribute, for he said that the turmoils in the country had so impoverished him, that all the gold he possessed was the ring on his finger, which his father, St. Olaf, had given him at their last

## parting. Even this, Harald said, smiling, perhaps belonged rightfully

to him, since it was, at first, the property of his father, Sigurd Syr. However, the two kings parted amicably, and reigned together without disagreements of any consequence, for the remembrance of St. Olaf seemed always to be a link between his son and brother. Magnus, the more gentle of the two, died just as his uncle had led him to enter on a war of ambition with Swend, King of Denmark.

Norwegian traditions relate that he dreamt that his father, St. Olaf, appeared to him, saying, “Wilt thou choose, my son, to follow me, or to become a long-lived and powerful king, at the cost of a crime that can never be expiated?”

“Do thou choose for me, father,” he answered.

“Then follow me,” replied the spirit.

Magnus awoke, told the dream, sickened, and died, leaving the whole of Norway to Harald Hardrada, and declaring that it would be just not to molest Swend in his possession of Denmark.

Harald reigned prosperously, until, in an evil hour, he received Tostig, the son of Godwin, and listened to his invitation to come and invade England, and revenge him on his brother Harold. He fitted out a great armament, sailed up the Humber, plundered and burnt Scarborough, defeated the young earls of Mercia and Northumberland, and summoned York to surrender.

The citizens, dreading an assault, promised to yield the next day; and, accordingly, early in the morning, Hardrada, Tostig and a small band of followers, set out from their camp at Stamford Bridge, on the banks of the Ouse, to receive the keys. The day was bright and warm, though late in September, and the Northmen had left behind them their shirts of mail, and only bore sword, shield, and helmet; even Harald himself had left behind his hawberk Emma, and only wore a blue robe embroidered with gold, and a rich helmet.

As they were approaching the city, they suddenly beheld a cloud of dust, and beneath it the glitter of armor, glancing, as the Norwegians said, like sparkling ice. As they came nearer, they could distinguish the red dragon standard of Wessex, proving that there was the king whom they had supposed to be far away on the south coast, watching to prevent the landing of William of Normandy.

Though taken by surprise, outnumbered, and half-armed, Hardrada did not lose courage. He sent messengers to summon the rest of his men, and planting in the midst his banner, Land-Waster, ranged his troops round it in a circle, with the ends of their spears resting on the ground, and the points turned outward.

Twenty horsemen, in full armor, advanced from the Saxon army, and one of them, riding close up to the circle, called out, “Where is Earl Tostig, the son of Godwin?”

“He is here!” replied Tostig.

“Thy brother salutes thee, offers thee peace, his friendship, and the Earldom of Northumbria; nay, rather than not be friends with thee, he would give thee the third of his kingdom.”

“If he had held this language a year ago,” replied Tostig, who knew the speaker but too well, “he would have saved the lives of many men. But what will he offer my noble ally, King Harold Sigurdson?”

“Seven feet of English earth,” answered the horseman, proudly scanning the gigantic figure of the Sea-King, “or maybe a little more.”

“Then,” said Tostig, “King Harold, my brother, may prepare for battle. Never shall it be said that the son of Godwin forsook the son of Sigurd.” It must have been a strange look that passed between those two brothers, thus on the verge of a deadly strife, each surrounded with dangers that could scarcely be averted, and but of late actuated with bitter hate, but, at the decisive moment, that hatred giving way, and their hearts yearning to each other, with the memories of long-past days, yet both too proud to show how they were mutually touched, too far pledged to their separate parties to follow the impulse that would have drawn them once together in love. It was too late; the battle must be fought--the brothers’ deeds had decided their lot.

The Saxon horseman rode off, and the Norwegian King asked, who was the man who had been speaking so well.

“It was King Harold Godwinson,” said Tostig.

“Why did I not learn this sooner?” said Hardrada. “He should never have had to boast of the slaughter of our men.”

“It may have been imprudent,” said Tostig, “but he was willing to grant me peace and a great dominion. If one of us must die, I had rather he should slay me, than I slay him.”

So spoke Tostig, who had, of late, been rushing from country to country to stir up foes against his brother. Surely he would have given worlds to check the ruin he had wrought, though his sense of honor would not allow him to forsake his ally.

“He is but a little man, but he sits firmly in his stirrups,” returned Harald Hardrada; and then, to cheer his men in their desperate case, he chanted aloud one of his impromptu war-songs:

“Advance, advance, The helmets glance; But blue swords play In our array.

“Advance, advance, No hawberks glance-- But hearts are here That know no fear.”

“These verses sound but ill,” said the Sea-King, interrupting himself; “we will make some better;” and, careful of his verses as a Skald in his last battle, as well as in his first, he sung:

“In battle morn we seek no lee, With skulking head and bending knee, Behind the hollow shield; With eye and hand we guard the head, Courage and promptness stand instead, Of hawberk, on this field.”

It was his death-song. Early in the battle his throat was pierced by an arrow; and learning his death, Harold Godwinson sent once more to offer Tostig pardon, and leave to the Northmen to return home; but they refused quarter, and Tostig would not forsake them. The other Northmen from the ships joined them, and the fight raged with more fury than ever in the “death-ring,” as the Skalds termed it, round the banner Land-Waster. Tostig fell there, and only a few fled to their ships, protected by a brave Norseman, who stood alone to guard Stamford bridge, then only consisting of a few planks, till an Englishman crept under, thrust up his spear, and slew him from below.

However, Harold’s condition was too critical to allow of his wasting his strength on a defeated foe; he allowed Hardrada’s son to return unmolested to Norway with his fleet and the remains of his army, and he gave great offence to his men by not sharing the plunder of the camp with them.

So died the last of the Sea-Kings, by the last Anglo-Saxon victory.

CAMEO VI. THE NORMAN INVASION. (1066.)

The Duke of Normandy seems to have considered himself secure of the fair realm of England, by the well-known choice of Edward the Confessor, and was reckoning on the prospects of ruling there, where the language and habits of his race were already making great progress.

On a winter day, however, early in 1066, as William, cross-bow in hand, was hunting in the forests near Rouen, a horseman galloped up to him and gave him, in a low voice, the information that his cousin, King Edward of England, was dead, and that Earl Harold of Kent had been crowned in his stead.

With fierce rage were these tidings given, for the bearer of them was no other than Tostig, who attempted to bring the Normans against his brother, before seeking the aid of Harald Hardrada in the north.

No less was the ire of the Norman Duke excited, but he was of too stern and reserved a nature to allow his wrath to break out at once into words. Sport, however, was at an end for him; he threw down his cross-bow, and walked out of the forest, his fine but hard features bearing so dark and gloomy an expression, that no one dared to ask what had disturbed him.

Without a word, he entered the castle, and there strode up and down the hall, his hands playing with the fastenings of his cloak, until suddenly throwing himself on a bench, he drew his mantle over his face, turned it to the wall, and became lost in deep musings.

His knights stood round, silent and perplexed, till a voice was heard humming a tune at a little distance, and the person entered who, more than any other, shared the counsels of Duke William, namely, William Fitzosborn, Count de Breteuil, son of that Osborn the seneschal who had been murdered in the Duke’s chamber.

The two Williams were of the same age, had been brought up together, and Fitzosborn now enjoyed the office of seneschal, and was on a more intimate footing with his lord than any other was admitted to by the dark and reserved prince. All the knights gathered round him to ask what ailed the Duke.

“Ah!” said he, “you will soon hear news that will not please you;” and as William, roused by his voice, sat up on the bench, he continued: “Sir, why hide what troubles you? It is rumored in the town that the King of England is dead, and that Harold has broken his faith, and seized the realm.”

“You are right,” replied the Duke. “I am grieved at the death of King Edward, and at the wrong Harold has done me.”

Fitzosborn answered with such counsels as his master would best be pleased to hear. “Sir, no one should grieve over what cannot be undone, far less over what may be mended. There is no cure for King Edward’s death, but there is a remedy for Harold’s evil deeds. You have warlike vassals; he has an unjust cause. What needs there, save a good heart? for what is well begun, is half done.”

William’s wishes lay in the direction his friend pointed out, but he was wary, and weighed his means before undertaking the expedition against so powerful and wealthy a state as England. His resources seemed as nothing in comparison with those of England; his dukedom was but a petty state, himself a mere vassal; and though he had reason to hope that the English were disaffected toward Harold, yet, on the other hand, he was not confident of the support of his own vassals--wild, turbulent men, only kept in cheek by his iron rule, without much personal attachment to one so unbending and harsh, and likely to be unwilling to assist in his personal aggrandizement.

He paused and calculated, waiting so long that Tostig, in his impatience, went to Norway, and tried to find a prompter for Harold. Messages in the meantime passed between Normandy and England without effect. William claimed the performance of the oaths at Rouen, and Harold denied any obligation to him, offering to be his ally if he would renounce the throne, but otherwise defying him as an enemy.

Having at length decided, William summoned his vassals to meet at Lillebonne, and requested their aid in asserting his right to the English Crown.

When he left them to deliberate, all with one consent agreed that they would have nothing to do with foreign expeditions. What should they gain? The Duke had no right to ask their feudal service for aught but guarding their own frontier. Fitzosborn should he the spokesman, and explain the result of their parliament.

In came the Duke, and Fitzosborn, standing forth, spoke thus: “Never, my lord, were men so zealous as those you see here. They will serve you as truly beyond sea as in Normandy. Push forward, and spare them not. He who has hitherto furnished one man-at-arms, will equip two; he who has led twenty knights, will bring forty. I myself offer you sixty ships well filled with fighting men.”

Fitzosborn was stopped by a general outcry of indignation and dissent, and the assembly tumultuously dispersed; but not one of the vassals was allowed to quit Lillebonne till after a private conference with William, and determined as they might be when altogether, yet not a count or baron of them all could withstand the Duke when alone with him; and it ended in their separately engaging to do just as Fitzosborn had promised for them; and going home to build ships from their woods, choose out the most stalwart villains on their estates to be equipped as men-at-arms and archers, to cause their armorers to head the cloth-yard shafts, repair the hawberks of linked chains of steel, and the high-pointed helmets, as yet without visors, and the face only guarded by a projection over the nose. Every one had some hope of advantage to be gained in England; barons expected additional fiefs, peasants intended to become nobles, and throughout the spring preparations went on merrily; the Duchess Matilda taking part in them, by causing a vessel to be built for the Duke himself, on the figure-head of which was carved a likeness of their youngest son William, blowing an ivory horn.

William, in the meantime, sought for allies in every quarter, beginning with writing to beg the sanction of the Pope, Alexander II., as Harold’s perjury might be considered an ecclesiastical offence.

The Saxons were then in no favor at Rome; they had refused to accept a Norman Primate appointed by Edward; and Stigand, their chosen Archbishop, was at present suspended by the Court of Rome, for having obtained his office by simony: the whole Anglo-Saxon Church was reported to be in a very bad and corrupt state, and besides, Rome had never enjoyed the power and influence there that the Normans had permitted her. Lanfranc, Abbot, of St. Stephens, at Caen, and one of the persons most highly esteemed by William, was an Italian of great repute at Rome, and thus everything conspired to make the Pope willing to favor the attempt upon England.

He therefore returned him a Bull (a letter so called from the golden bull, or bulla, appended to it), appointing him, as the champion of the Church, to chastise the impious perjurer Harold, and sent him a consecrated banner, and a gold ring containing a relic of St. Peter.

Thus sanctioned, William applied to his liege lord Philippe I. of France, offering to pay homage for England as well as Normandy; but Philippe, a dull, heavy, indolent man, with no love for his great vassal, refused him any aid; and William, though he made the application for form’s sake, was well pleased to have it so.

“If I succeed,” he said, “I shall be under the fewer obligations.”

When he requested aid from Matilda’s brother Baldwin, Count of Flanders, the answer he received was a query, how much land in England he would allot as a recompense. He sent, in return, a piece of blank parchment; but others say, that instead of being an absolute blank, it contained his signature, and was filled up by Baldwin, with the promise of a pension of three hundred marks.

Everything was at length in readiness; nine hundred ships, or rather large open boats, were assembled at the mouth of the Dive; lesser barks came in continually, and counts, barons, and knights, led in their trains of horsemen and archers.

All William’s friends were round him, and his two half-brothers, the sons of Arlette, Robert, Count of Eu, and Odo, the warlike Bishop of Bayeux. Matilda was to govern in his absence, and his eldest son, Robert, a boy of thirteen, was brought forward, and received the homage of the vassals, in order that he might be owned as heir of Normandy, in case any mishap should befall his father on the expedition.

Nothing delayed the enterprise but adverse winds, and these prevailed so long that the feudal army had nearly exhausted their forty days’ stock of provisions; knight and man-at-arms murmured, and the Duke was continually going to pray in the Church of St. Valery, looking up at the weathercock every time he came out.

On the eve of St. Michael, the Duke’s anxious face became cheerful, for a favorable wind had set in, and the word was given to embark. Horses were led into the ships, the shields hung round the gunwale, and the warriors crowded in, the Duke, in his own Mora, leading the way, the Pope’s banner at his mast’s head, and a lantern at the stern to guide the rest.