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118-528: Harald Fairhair ( Old Norse : Haraldr Hárfagri ) ( c.  850 – c.  932 ) was a Norwegian king. According to traditions current in Norway and Iceland in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, he reigned from c.  872 to 930 and was the first King of Norway . Supposedly, two of his sons, Eric Bloodaxe and Haakon the Good , succeeded Harald to become kings after his death. Much of Harald's biography

236-701: A change known as Holtzmann's law . An epenthetic vowel became popular by 1200 in Old Danish, 1250 in Old Swedish and Old Norwegian, and 1300 in Old Icelandic. An unstressed vowel was used which varied by dialect. Old Norwegian exhibited all three: /u/ was used in West Norwegian south of Bergen , as in aftur , aftor (older aptr ); North of Bergen, /i/ appeared in aftir , after ; and East Norwegian used /a/ , after , aftær . Old Norse

354-646: A convenient network of estates with about a day's traveling distance between them, which would be ideal for a king ruling in Vestlandet, but not all of Norway. This reading could be consistent with the Historia Norwegiæ 's account. While it is possible that Harald could have controlled other areas through jarls and client kings, this is difficult to prove with available archeology. Krag has noted that Snorri's account of Harald's origin in Vestfold might have been propaganda as

472-417: A female raven or a male crow. All neuter words have identical nominative and accusative forms, and all feminine words have identical nominative and accusative plurals. The gender of some words' plurals does not agree with that of their singulars, such as lim and mund . Some words, such as hungr , have multiple genders, evidenced by their determiners being declined in different genders within

590-412: A front vowel to be split into a semivowel-vowel sequence before a back vowel in the following syllable. While West Norse only broke /e/ , East Norse also broke /i/ . The change was blocked by a /w/ , /l/ , or /ʀ/ preceding the potentially-broken vowel. Some /ja/ or /jɔ/ and /jaː/ or /jɔː/ result from breaking of /e/ and /eː/ respectively. When a noun, pronoun, adjective, or verb has

708-409: A given sentence. Nouns, adjectives, and pronouns were declined in four grammatical cases – nominative , accusative , genitive , and dative  – in singular and plural numbers. Adjectives and pronouns were additionally declined in three grammatical genders. Some pronouns (first and second person) could have dual number in addition to singular and plural. The genitive

826-584: A long vowel or diphthong in the accented syllable and its stem ends in a single l , n , or s , the r (or the elder r - or z -variant ʀ ) in an ending is assimilated. When the accented vowel is short, the ending is dropped. The nominative of the strong masculine declension and some i-stem feminine nouns uses one such -r (ʀ). Óðin-r ( Óðin-ʀ ) becomes Óðinn instead of * Óðinr ( * Óðinʀ ). The verb blása ('to blow'), has third person present tense blæss ('[he] blows') rather than * blæsr ( * blæsʀ ). Similarly,

944-589: A mound with 12 men. Hrollaug renounced his kingship and took the title of jarl instead. Harald accepted Hrollaug's surrender and allowed him to rule Namdalen in his name. This story is also present in Heimskringla . After this, Namdalen and Hålogaland were in his grasp. The saga then related how Harald did battle with the combined forces of kings Audbjörn of Firðafylki, Solvi Bandy-legs of Møre og Romsdal and Arnvid of Sunnmøre . They were all defeated in battle by Harald, with only Solvi escaping with his life to live

1062-474: A noun must mirror the gender of that noun , so that one says, " heill maðr! " but, " heilt barn! ". As in other languages, the grammatical gender of an impersonal noun is generally unrelated to an expected natural gender of that noun. While indeed karl , "man" is masculine, kona , "woman", is feminine, and hús , "house", is neuter, so also are hrafn and kráka , for "raven" and "crow", masculine and feminine respectively, even in reference to

1180-447: A practitioner of magic, Harald ordered him to cease such activity. When Ragnvald did not listen Harald sent Eirik Bloodaxe to murder him. Eirik had his half-brother and all of his sorcerers burned in their hall . When Bjørn Farmann was killed in a conflict with Eirik, Harald stepped in on Eirik's side against his other sons. There are several accounts of large feasting mead halls constructed for important feasts when Scandinavian royalty

1298-511: A reputation as the father of the Norwegian nation. At the turn of the 21st century, a few historians have tried to argue that Harald Fairhair did not exist as a historical figure. Old Norse hár translates straightforwardly into English as 'hair', but fagr , the adjective of which fagri is a form, is trickier to render, since it means 'fair, fine, beautiful' (but without the moral associations of English fair , as opposed to unfair ). Although it

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1416-472: A similar development influenced by Middle Low German . Various languages unrelated to Old Norse and others not closely related have been heavily influenced by Norse, particularly the Norman language ; to a lesser extent, Finnish and Estonian . Russian, Ukrainian , Belarusian , Lithuanian and Latvian also have a few Norse loanwords. The words Rus and Russia , according to one theory, may be named after

1534-434: A tenant or having hands and feet cut off. According to the saga author, most who were given this option chose to flee. Harald is supposed to have confiscated massive amounts of private property and made many previously free farmers his thralls . Four sons of Harald are mentioned in the saga: Eirikr Bloodaxe (one of the saga's major antagonists), Hákon Aðalsteinsfóstri (otherwise called the Good ), Olaf and Sigurðr (whose name

1652-513: A very different reading of the poem where its references to the dróttin Norðmanna ( lord of the northmen ) might have originally meant referred to the leader of the Norwegians in the battle, but later recontextualised as the lord of all Norwegians. Harald is mentioned in several sagas, some which quotes supposedly older skaldic poetry. If the linguistic dating of the poems are correct, they represent

1770-507: A vital re-enactment culture, which is evident in, among other things, a memorial park in central Haugesund with the erection of a statue of Harald Fairhair ... the performance of a Harald musical ... the building of ‘the largest’ Viking ship in the world ... the establishment of a theme park based on the Viking concept, and a historic centre where the mythology of King Harald is disseminated ... The main initiators behind these commemorative projects in

1888-601: A voiced velar fricative [ɣ] in all cases, and others have that realisation only in the middle of words and between vowels (with it otherwise being realised [ɡ] ). The Old East Norse /ʀ/ was an apical consonant , with its precise position unknown; it is reconstructed as a palatal sibilant . It descended from Proto-Germanic /z/ and eventually developed into /r/ , as had already occurred in Old West Norse. The consonant digraphs ⟨hl⟩ , ⟨hr⟩ , and ⟨hn⟩ occurred word-initially. It

2006-460: A vowel or semivowel of a different vowel backness . In the case of i-umlaut and ʀ-umlaut , this entails a fronting of back vowels, with retention of lip rounding. In the case of u-umlaut , this entails labialization of unrounded vowels. Umlaut is phonemic and in many situations grammatically significant as a side effect of losing the Proto-Germanic morphological suffixes whose vowels created

2124-448: A word. Strong verbs ablaut the lemma 's nucleus to derive the past forms of the verb. This parallels English conjugation, where, e.g., the nucleus of sing becomes sang in the past tense and sung in the past participle. Some verbs are derived by ablaut, as the present-in-past verbs do by consequence of being derived from the past tense forms of strong verbs. Umlaut or mutation is an assimilatory process acting on vowels preceding

2242-537: Is classified as Old West Norse, and Old West Norse traits were found in western Sweden . In what is present-day Denmark and Sweden, most speakers spoke Old East Norse. Though Old Gutnish is sometimes included in the Old East Norse dialect due to geographical associations, it developed its own unique features and shared in changes to both other branches. The 12th-century Icelandic Gray Goose Laws state that Swedes , Norwegians , Icelanders , and Danes spoke

2360-558: Is convenient and conventional to render hárfagri in English as 'fair-hair(ed)', in English 'fair-haired' means ' blond ', whereas the Old Norse fairly clearly means 'beautiful-haired' (in contrast to the epithet which, according to some sources, Haraldr previously bore: lúfa , '(thick) matted hair'). Accordingly, some translators prefer to render hárfagri as 'the fine-haired' or 'fine-hair' (which, however, unhelpfully implies that Haraldr's hair

2478-471: Is dated to the late 9th century, but an exact dating is difficult and due to its fragmentary presentation it may be a compilation of unrelated stanzas. Unlike Hrafnsmál its relation to Harald and the events it supposedly relates to in Heimskringla is ambiguous. Sendibitr , the last and shortest poem Snorri quotes is attributed to Jórunn skáldmær (Jorunn the skaldmaiden), one of few female poets mentioned in

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2596-450: Is described and his conquest of Norway. Unlike Heimskringla , Flateyjarbók clearly states that the two were married. Harald's further marriages are described as is his rejections of them and his various concubines in favor of Ragnhild the Mighty. The Þáttr concludes with a description of the fates of Harald's various sons, including Thorgils' and Frodi's career as "west-vikings". According to

2714-502: Is elaborated upon in the final chapter of the 14th century Ragnarssona þáttr . Harald's mother is said to have been Ragnhild Sigurdsdotter , who according to the saga was the great-granddaughter of Sigurd through her mother Inibjorg and he grandmother Aslaug. This story is the same as in Snorri's earlier Hálfdanar saga svarta in Heimskringla , but contradicts Fagrskinna . Both Hálfdanar saga svarta and Ragnarssona þáttr have issues with

2832-461: Is expected to exist, such as in the male names Ragnarr , Steinarr (supposedly * Ragnarʀ , * Steinarʀ ), the result is apparently always /rː/ rather than */rʀ/ or */ʀː/ . This is observable in the Runic corpus. In Old Norse, i/j adjacent to i , e , their u-umlauts, and æ was not possible, nor u/v adjacent to u , o , their i-umlauts, and ǫ . At

2950-403: Is found well into the 15th century. Old Norse was divided into three dialects : Old West Norse (Old West Nordic, often referred to as Old Norse ), Old East Norse (Old East Nordic), and Old Gutnish . Old West Norse and Old East Norse formed a dialect continuum , with no clear geographical boundary between them. Old East Norse traits were found in eastern Norway , although Old Norwegian

3068-500: Is here described as being the first to rule the entire coastal region of Norway, as opposed to all of Norway. The interior is described to as having been ruled by petty kings, however, it is said that Harald as good as ruled this region as well. This account describes Eirik Bloodaxe as the oldest son of Harald, unlike in Heimskringla. Hákon is not referred to as " the good " and is Harald's second son, not his youngest. This account of Hákon suggest that he did not accept Christianity. Like

3186-655: Is indecisive. Part of the poem is cited by Snorri in Heimskringla as a source for his narrative of the Battle of Hafrsfjord , while another is cited in Fagrskinna as information about Harald. Both credits Hornklofi as the composer. Hrafnsmál largely consists of a conversation between an unnamed valkyrie and a raven; the two discuss the life and martial deeds of Harald Fairhair. The poem describes Harald as an Yngling , but does not use his famous nickname hárfagri ( fairhair ), but uses his widely cited previous nickname Lufa . The bulk of

3304-574: Is more common in Old West Norse in both phonemic and allophonic positions, while it only occurs sparsely in post-runic Old East Norse and even in runic Old East Norse. This is still a major difference between Swedish and Faroese and Icelandic today. Plurals of neuters do not have u-umlaut at all in Swedish, but in Faroese and Icelandic they do, for example the Faroese and Icelandic plurals of the word land , lond and lönd respectively, in contrast to

3422-681: Is otherwise usually rendered as Sigröðr ). The saga renders Harald's title as einváldskonungr ( absolute king ). Not unlike Egil's Saga , Harald's conquest of Norway sets off the plot of Grettis saga . Gretti's great-grandfather Önundr Wood-foot is said to be one of many people that fled Norway after fighting for king Kjotvi the Rich and Thorir Haklang in the battle of Hafrsfjord. The saga describes how Harald and his elite Úlfhèðnar warriors (famously mentioned in Hrafnsmál) fought and killed Thorir Haklang when he went berserk. Önundr got his name after his leg

3540-526: Is repeated by Snorri in Heimskringla and suggests two conflicting stories of Harald's ancestry being combined into one. Harald Fairhair is said to have inherited Halfdan's lands at a young age after the king drowned in the lake Rǫnd in Rykinsvik. The text then sites the poem Hrafnsmál at length as an example of Harald's nobility and prowess in battle. Harald appointed Atli the Slender as jarl of Fjaler , but that

3658-411: Is said to have succeeded Harald, ruling for five years, with two as a co-ruler with his father. Hákon eventually supplanted the cruel and oppressive rule of Eirik and his wife Gunnhildr . Hákon is said to be a Christian, but swayed from Christianity due to his unnamed pagan wife and his will to please his people. Historia Norwegiæ , which is dated to about 1220, mentions that Iceland was discovered in

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3776-520: Is suspicious of the king and he and his friend Sæmundr emigrate to Iceland. Harald wins an extrodinary victory at Hafrfjord and makes Ragnvald a jarl. The Orkneyinga saga likely dates to in the early thirteenth century and belongs to belongs to the genre of "Kings’ Sagas" within Icelandic saga literature, a group of histories of the kings of Norway. It describes in more detail the expedition of Harald Fairhair and Rognvald Mørejarl on an expedition to clear

3894-456: Is that the nonphonemic difference between the voiced and the voiceless dental fricative is marked. The oldest texts and runic inscriptions use þ exclusively. Long vowels are denoted with acutes . Most other letters are written with the same glyph as the IPA phoneme, except as shown in the table below. Ablaut patterns are groups of vowels which are swapped, or ablauted, in the nucleus of

4012-449: Is uncertain. A couple of praise poems by his court poet Þorbjörn Hornklofi survive in fragments, but the extant accounts of his life come from sagas set down in writing around three centuries after his lifetime. His life is described in several of the Kings' sagas , none of them older than the twelfth century. Their accounts of Harald and his life differ on many points, but it is clear that in

4130-557: Is unclear whether they were sequences of two consonants (with the first element realised as /h/ or perhaps /x/ ) or as single voiceless sonorants /l̥/ , /r̥/ and /n̥/ respectively. In Old Norwegian, Old Danish and later Old Swedish, the groups ⟨hl⟩ , ⟨hr⟩ , and ⟨hn⟩ were reduced to plain ⟨l⟩ , ⟨r⟩ , ⟨n⟩ , which suggests that they had most likely already been pronounced as voiceless sonorants by Old Norse times. The pronunciation of ⟨hv⟩

4248-499: Is unclear, but it may have been /xʷ/ (the Proto-Germanic pronunciation), /hʷ/ or the similar phoneme /ʍ/ . Unlike the three other digraphs, it was retained much longer in all dialects. Without ever developing into a voiceless sonorant in Icelandic, it instead underwent fortition to a plosive /kv/ , which suggests that instead of being a voiceless sonorant, it retained a stronger frication. Primary stress in Old Norse falls on

4366-525: The Latin alphabet , there was no standardized orthography in use in the Middle Ages. A modified version of the letter wynn called vend was used briefly for the sounds /u/ , /v/ , and /w/ . Long vowels were sometimes marked with acutes but also sometimes left unmarked or geminated. The standardized Old Norse spelling was created in the 19th century and is, for the most part, phonemic. The most notable deviation

4484-657: The Rus' people , a Norse tribe, probably from present-day east-central Sweden. The current Finnish and Estonian words for Sweden are Ruotsi and Rootsi , respectively. A number of loanwords have been introduced into Irish , many associated with fishing and sailing. A similar influence is found in Scottish Gaelic , with over one hundred loanwords estimated to be in the language, many of which are related to fishing and sailing. Old Norse vowel phonemes mostly come in pairs of long and short. The standardized orthography marks

4602-503: The Uplands and then taken Trondheim and become overlord over the thronds . This accounts differs from Heimskringla where it is said that Harald made a marriage alliance with Håkon Grjotgardsson which won him Trøndelag after they together defeated the petty kings there. The saga then relates the story of the brothers Herlaug and Hrollaug, kings of Namdalen . When Herlaug heard Harald was coming he committed suicide by closing himself into

4720-638: The Viking Age , Sogn was a petty kingdom called Sygnafylki . Some notable Kings of Sogn were Harald Gullskjegg ("Goldbeard", father of Ragnhild, first wife of Halfdan the Black), Halfdan the Black , and Harald Fairhair . In 1662, Sogn fogderi was created as part of the Nordre Bergenhus amt (county). Sogn was further divided into Indre Sogn (Inner Sogn) and Ytre Sogn (Outer Sogn). In 1919, Nordre Bergenhus amt

4838-496: The Viking Age , the Christianization of Scandinavia , and the consolidation of Scandinavian kingdoms from about the 8th to the 15th centuries. The Proto-Norse language developed into Old Norse by the 8th century, and Old Norse began to develop into the modern North Germanic languages in the mid- to late 14th century, ending the language phase known as Old Norse. These dates, however, are not absolute, since written Old Norse

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4956-654: The word stem , so that hyrjar would be pronounced /ˈhyr.jar/ . In compound words, secondary stress falls on the second stem (e.g. lærisveinn , /ˈlɛːɾ.iˌswɛinː/ ). Unlike Proto-Norse, which was written with the Elder Futhark , runic Old Norse was originally written with the Younger Futhark , which had only 16 letters. Because of the limited number of runes, several runes were used for different sounds, and long and short vowels were not distinguished in writing. Medieval runes came into use some time later. As for

5074-551: The 11th century in most of Old East Norse. However, the distinction still holds in Dalecarlian dialects . The dots in the following vowel table separate the oral from nasal phonemes. Note: The open or open-mid vowels may be transcribed differently: Sometime around the 13th century, /ɔ/ (spelled ⟨ǫ⟩ ) merged with /ø/ or /o/ in most dialects except Old Danish , and Icelandic where /ɔ/ ( ǫ ) merged with /ø/ . This can be determined by their distinction within

5192-957: The 12th-century First Grammatical Treatise but not within the early 13th-century Prose Edda . The nasal vowels, also noted in the First Grammatical Treatise, are assumed to have been lost in most dialects by this time (but notably they are retained in Elfdalian and other dialects of Ovansiljan ). See Old Icelandic for the mergers of /øː/ (spelled ⟨œ⟩ ) with /ɛː/ (spelled ⟨æ⟩ ) and /ɛ/ (spelled ⟨ę⟩ ) with /e/ (spelled ⟨e⟩ ). Old Norse had three diphthong phonemes: /ɛi/ , /ɔu/ , /øy ~ ɛy/ (spelled ⟨ei⟩ , ⟨au⟩ , ⟨ey⟩ respectively). In East Norse these would monophthongize and merge with /eː/ and /øː/ , whereas in West Norse and its descendants

5310-642: The 13th century there. The age of the Swedish-speaking population of Finland is strongly contested, but Swedish settlement had spread the language into the region by the time of the Second Swedish Crusade in the 13th century at the latest. The modern descendants of the Old West Norse dialect are the West Scandinavian languages of Icelandic , Faroese , Norwegian , and the extinct Norn language of Orkney and Shetland , although Norwegian

5428-496: The 21st century both are "true" in a completary, non-completive way. As unifier of the kingdom, Harald rests under a 'Viking' memorial site of burial mounds and memorial stones near his royal court at Avaldsnes in the Westland , precisely the region that first caught his attention in Gyda, and whose conquest at the Battle of Hafrsfjord has been regarded as the keystone in the unification of

5546-421: The Black 's death by going through the ice on Randsfjorden , a story also told by Snorri in Heimskringla, and that Harald became king afterwards. He is said to have taken control of Sogn from Atli jarl due to him never paying taxes. This happened before Harald's conquest of Norway. Ágrip af Nóregskonungasögum is dated to about 1190. Here Harald is described as having become the first king of all of Norway at

5664-560: The Faroe Islands, Faroese has also been influenced by Danish. Both Middle English (especially northern English dialects within the area of the Danelaw ) and Early Scots (including Lowland Scots ) were strongly influenced by Norse and contained many Old Norse loanwords . Consequently, Modern English (including Scottish English ), inherited a significant proportion of its vocabulary directly from Norse. The development of Norman French

5782-469: The Finn: Other children: Harald Fairhair became an important figure in Norwegian nationalism in the nineteenth century, during its struggle for independence from Sweden , when he served as 'a heroic narrative character disseminating a foundation story of Norway becoming an independent nation'. In particular, a national monument to Harald was erected in 1872 on Haraldshaugen , an ancient burial mound at

5900-402: The Good becoming kings. In this account, Eirik is described as Harald's eldest son and Hakon as the youngest. Only one of Harald's wives/concubines is named, Snjófríthr , daughter of Svási ( Norwegian : Svåse ), a beautiful sami -woman. She is described as having died three years after their marriage with Harald mourning for her, but the people mourning for him, considering him bewitched. Eirik

6018-508: The Haugesund region today are, as it was in the 1870s, local commercial entrepreneurs who are nourished by local patriotism. Old Norse Old Norse , also referred to as Old Nordic , or Old Scandinavian , was a stage of development of North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and their overseas settlements and chronologically coincides with

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6136-625: The Holy . In 872, after a great victory at Hafrsfjord near Stavanger against Kjotve the Rich , Harald found himself king over the whole country, ruling from his Kongsgård seats at Avaldsnes and Alrekstad . His realm was, however, threatened by dangers from without, as large numbers of his opponents had taken refuge, not only in Iceland , then recently discovered; but also in the Orkney Islands , Shetland Islands , Hebrides Islands , Faroe Islands and

6254-465: The Hunter and maternal grandfather Sigurd Snake-in-the-Eye , and his parents Halfdan the Black and Ragnhildr. The text also describes Halfdan having another son called Harald by another woman named Ragnhildr, daughter of the king Harald Goldbeard of Sogn . Halfdan's first Harald inherited Sogn after the death of Harald Goldbeard, and then died himself. Halfdan then inherited Sogn from his first son. The story

6372-605: The Isle of Man in the mid 13th century is the backdrop to the saga writer's intentions and in part at least the sagas aim to legitimise Norwegian claims to both the Northern Isles and the Kingdom of the Isles in the west. The fourteenth-century Flateyjarbók features a Þáttr called Haralds þáttr hárfagra , literary "Harald Fairhair's Þáttr". The first chapter describes Harald's ascension to

6490-510: The Mighty. The couple only had one child, Eirik Bloodaxe , before her premature death. Eirik Bloodaxe was named after Ragnhild's father as was custom in medieval Scandinavia. Likely due to Eirik Bloodaxe royal mother, he was favored above Harald's other sons. Eirik himself had an unquestioning, near psychopathic loyalty to Harald. Unlike other authors, Snorri does not attribute Eirik's cruelty solely to Gunnhild. When Harald and Snæfrith's son Ragnvald Rettilbeine became known as patron of sorcerers and

6608-549: The Slender and Håkon Grjotgardsson and their deaths. Håkon's son Sigurd Haakonsson advised Harald to kill Atli's son Hallstein which lead to Hallstein's exile in Iceland. In Vatnsdæla saga Harald's conquest of Norway is described. The saga's initial protagonist Ingimundr recognises that Harald will prevail at Hafrfjord and arranges a meeting with Harald, Ragnvald Mörejarl and their ulfhednar-warriors. Ingimundr offers his loyalty to Harald which Harald graciously accepts, but Ingimundr

6726-458: The Swedish saga -king Erik Eymundsson (whose historicity is not confirmed). Marching up through the Uplands and into Trondheim and then south along the coast Harald subdued many petty kings. Snorri credits his success to excellent leadership by him and his uncle Guthorm, as well as military reforms and his hard tax policy. The taxes demanded by Harald were much higher than other kings and a third of

6844-468: The Swedish plural land and numerous other examples. That also applies to almost all feminine nouns, for example the largest feminine noun group, the o-stem nouns (except the Swedish noun jord mentioned above), and even i-stem nouns and root nouns , such as Old West Norse mǫrk ( mörk in Icelandic) in comparison with Modern and Old Swedish mark . Vowel breaking, or fracture, caused

6962-488: The age of 20. It describes a battle in Hafrsvágr (as opposed of Hafrifjord ) against a king called Skeithar-Brandr ( Skeiðar-Brandr ). The text quotes a poem called " Oddmjór " which describes Harald as a Scylding were as other sources calls him an Yngling . He is described to as having waged wars for 10 years before having conquered all of Norway. He is said to have had 20 children, but that only Eirik Bloodaxe & Hakon

7080-413: The anxieties of Iceland in the early thirteenth century, when the island was indeed coming under Norwegian dominance. He has also suggested that the legend of Harald Fairhair developed in the twelfth century to enable Norwegian kings, who were then promoting the idea of primogeniture over the older custom of agnatic succession , to claim that their ancestors had had a right to Norway by lineal descent from

7198-443: The area of Viken was disputed between the Norwegian and Danish crown in the thirteenth century. Krag points of that Othere describes Viken as Danish territory and Hrafnsmál 's description of the battle of Hafrsfjord suggest that Harald was attacked by "eastern" enemies that were routed and fled back east. He proposes that the battle was not part of a war of conquest but Harald defending his own territory from invaders. This idea offers

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7316-541: The beginning of words, this manifested as a dropping of the initial /j/ (which was general, independent of the following vowel) or /v/ . Compare ON orð , úlfr , ár with English word, wolf, year . In inflections, this manifested as the dropping of the inflectional vowels. Thus, klæði + dat -i remains klæði , and sjáum in Icelandic progressed to sjǫ́um > sjǫ́m > sjám . The * jj and * ww of Proto-Germanic became ggj and ggv respectively in Old Norse,

7434-411: The cluster */Crʀ/ cannot be realized as /Crː/ , nor as */Crʀ/ , nor as */Cʀː/ . The same shortening as in vetr also occurs in lax = laks ('salmon') (as opposed to * lakss , * laksʀ ), botn ('bottom') (as opposed to * botnn , * botnʀ ), and jarl (as opposed to * jarll , * jarlʀ ). Furthermore, wherever the cluster */rʀ/

7552-438: The country's supposed first king. One possibility advanced is that Harald Fairhair was based on a historical king called Harald, perhaps also known as "hárfagri", who ruled Vestlandet . The legend of this Harald later grew into the figure of medieval tradition. Historians who accept the early dating of skaldic poetry such as Claus Krag and Hans Jacob Orning tend to accept Harald's existence, while remaining skeptical regarding

7670-448: The dating of events. Flóamanna saga is traditionally thought of as a 14th-century work and repeats the story of Harald Fairhair's ancestry as told in Saga of Ragnar Lodbrok , and elaborates back to Sigurd Fafnisbani and Odin through Aslaug . In old Norse society, the ancestry of both parents was considered of imperance for the status of a person. The saga relates the conflict between Atli

7788-400: The daughter of Svási, here called Snæfrithr , but in his account they are described as jötnar rather than finns ( sami ). Gyda is said to have been made a friðla (concubine) of Harald after her father Eirik of Hordaland had been killed in battle by Harald's followers. Harald is said to have divorced Åsa and rejected Gyda and several other concubines to marry a Jutish princess called Ragnhild

7906-449: The diphthongs remained. Old Norse has six plosive phonemes, /p/ being rare word-initially and /d/ and /b/ pronounced as voiced fricative allophones between vowels except in compound words (e.g. veðrabati ), already in the Proto-Germanic language (e.g. * b *[β] > [v] between vowels). The /ɡ/ phoneme was pronounced as [ɡ] after an /n/ or another /ɡ/ and as [k] before /s/ and /t/ . Some accounts have it

8024-644: The discord, which continued into the next reign. When he grew old, Harald handed over the supreme power to his favourite son Eirik Bloodaxe , whom he intended to be his successor. Eirik I ruled side by side with his father when Harald was 80 years old. In the Gray Goose Laws , a person above the age of 80 was not allowed to make financial decisions or decisions about inheritance. This co-rulership likely reflected similar laws and would also been way for Harald to force his intended succession. Harald died three years later due to old age in approximately 933. Harald Harfager

8142-451: The earliest accounts of Harald Fairhair. Hrafnsmál , also known as Haraldskvæði , is a fragmentary skaldic poem generally accepted as being written by the 9th-century skald Þorbjörn Hornklofi . There does not exist a complete copy of the poem, and modern editions of the poem are based on the compilation of the segments. Through dating of the parts as well as the meter is consistent, they may be separate compositions but scholarly consensus

8260-402: The good as Harald's youngest son, through a servant named Thora. The thirteenth-century Egil's Saga presents a broadly similar account to that of Heimskringla , though its depiction of Harald and his family is much more negative. It has been suggested that Heimskringla and Egil's Saga share Snorri Sturluson as author, or at least share a common source. Given the difference in attitude to

8378-509: The islands of the Viking refugees of from Harald's conquest of Norway that raided the coast. During the expedition Rognvald's son Ivar was killed so Harald gave governorship of the islands to him. Rognvald wanted to stay in his home in Møre so he passed the jarlship of the Islands to his brother Sigurd. The saga is informed by the Norwegian politics of the day. Once, historians could write that no-one denied

8496-408: The later Heimskringla, Ragnvald Rettilbeine is described as killed on Harald's orders. In Heimskringla he is burned alive by Eirik Bloodaxe, while Historia Norwegiæ describes Ragnvald as being drowned. Fagrskinna is thought to have been written around 1220 and is a catalogue of the kings of Norway. The first part describes Harald Fairhair's birth ancestry in form of his paternal grandfather Gudrød

8614-399: The long vowels with an acute accent. In medieval manuscripts, it is often unmarked but sometimes marked with an accent or through gemination . Old Norse had nasalized versions of all ten vowel places. These occurred as allophones of the vowels before nasal consonants and in places where a nasal had followed it in an older form of the word, before it was absorbed into a neighboring sound. If

8732-399: The medieval Icelandic and Norwegian historiography of Harald Fairhair is part of an origin myth created to explain the settlement of Iceland , perhaps in which a cognomen of Haraldr Sigurðarson was transferred to a fictitious early king of all Norway. Sverrir Jakobsson has suggested that the idea of Iceland being settled by people fleeing an overbearing Norwegian monarch actually reflects

8850-708: The most conservative language, such that in present-day Iceland, schoolchildren are able to read the 12th-century Icelandic sagas in the original language (in editions with normalised spelling). Old Icelandic was very close to Old Norwegian , and together they formed Old West Norse , which was also spoken in Norse settlements in Greenland , the Faroes , Ireland , Scotland , the Isle of Man , northwest England, and in Normandy . Old East Norse

8968-503: The nasal was absorbed by a stressed vowel, it would also lengthen the vowel. This nasalization also occurred in the other Germanic languages, but were not retained long. They were noted in the First Grammatical Treatise , and otherwise might have remained unknown. The First Grammarian marked these with a dot above the letter. This notation did not catch on, and would soon be obsolete. Nasal and oral vowels probably merged around

9086-406: The next 150 years. Harald's third principal ally was Rognvald Eysteinsson , jarl of Møre . Snorri describes Rognvald as Harald's closest friend and the one to coin the name "Fairhair". Harald is said to have fathered Bjørn Farmann and Olav Geirstadalv with Rognvald's sister Svanhild, ancestors of the famous Christian kings Olav Tryggvason (named after his grandfather Olav Geirstadalv) and Olav

9204-590: The nickname " Lufa ", shockhead . Harald is said to have fought many battles, including a decisive battle in Hafrfjord against Kjotve the Rich and Haklang. After this battle, all of Norway is said to paid tribute to Harald. Ragnvald jarl then cut Harald's hair and gave him the nickname Fairhair . The text then described Harald's various sons, describing Eirik Bloodaxe as his most beloved and one of his oldest. Harald named Eirik his heir and died in Rogaland from old age and

9322-562: The northern European mainland. However, his opponents' leaving was not entirely voluntary. Many Norwegian chieftains who were wealthy and respected posed a threat to Harald; therefore, they were subjected to much harassment from Harald, prompting them to vacate the land. At last, Harald was forced to make an expedition to the West, to clear the islands and the Scottish mainland of some Vikings who tried to hide there. Snorri describes Harald's marriage to

9440-641: The other North Germanic languages. Faroese retains many similarities but is influenced by Danish, Norwegian, and Gaelic ( Scottish and/or Irish ). Although Swedish, Danish and Norwegian have diverged the most, they still retain considerable mutual intelligibility . Speakers of modern Swedish, Norwegian and Danish can mostly understand each other without studying their neighboring languages, particularly if speaking slowly. The languages are also sufficiently similar in writing that they can mostly be understood across borders. This could be because these languages have been mutually affected by each other, as well as having

9558-423: The other two districts in the county. The name Sogn derived from the name of Sognefjord . The name of the fjord is from the root of súga "to suck", referring to the strong tidal streams at the mouth of the fjord. An old name for the district is Sygnafylki . The first element in this name is the genitive of sygnir which means "people from Sogn" and the last element is fylki "county". Since early in

9676-465: The poem refers to past events, which would mean the poet lived in a later time than the events described in the poem. Linguistic dating of the poem has not been successful. The earliest narrative source which mentions Harald, the twelfth-century Íslendingabók , notes that Iceland was settled during his lifetime. Harald is thus depicted as the prime cause of the Norse settlement of Iceland and beyond. Iceland

9794-482: The poem seems to describe the Battle of Hafrsfjord, were Harald faced off against Kjotve the Rich and Hakláng. The poem mentions Ragnhild, who in Heimskringla is presented as Harald's queen and mother of Eirik Bloodaxe , as well as the following of ulfheðnar warriors that the saga tradition ascribes to Harald. Like Hrafnsmál, Glymdrápa is a praise poem attributed to Þorbjörn Hornklofi about various battles won by Harald. It

9912-519: The reality of Harald Fairhair's expeditions to the west (recounted in detail in the Heimskringla ), but this is no longer the case. Thomson (2008) writes that Harald's "great voyage is so thoroughly ingrained in popular and scholarly history, both ancient and modern, that it comes as a bit of a shock to realise that it might not be true." The Norwegian contest with the Kings of Scots over the Hebrides and

10030-554: The realm ever since Snorri. Harald Fairhair will always be the first king of Norway. The claim to Harald has become important to the development of the tourism industry of Haugesund and its region: today, King Harald Fairhair is associated with several archaeological sites where modern monuments and theme parks (obelisks, towers, sculptures, ‘reconstructions’ of ancient houses/villages) are constructed and where various commemorative practices (jubilees, rallies, festivals) are being performed. The Viking hero Harald Fairhair has become part of

10148-430: The rest of his life as a roving Viking. The remaining independent rulers of Norway were then crushed by Harald's allies or opportunists that attacked their neighbors and then submitted to Harald like Hrollaug had done. The saga tells how people of Norway were then put under heavy taxes and oppression by Harald. Anyone suspected of wanting to rise in rebellion were given the option of fleeing the country, submitting himself as

10266-550: The revenues where given to his jarls. This made jarls and rich farmers flock to his cause to enrich themself. One of these was Håkon Grjotgardsson of Trondheim who allied with Harald and married off his daughter Åsa to him. Harald established the royal estate of Hlade in Trondheim and Håkon became the first of the Earls of Lade , a family which would be one of the dominating forces in Norway for

10384-536: The root vowel, ǫ , is short. The clusters */Clʀ, Csʀ, Cnʀ, Crʀ/ cannot yield */Clː, Csː, Cnː, Crː/ respectively, instead /Cl, Cs, Cn, Cr/ . The effect of this shortening can result in the lack of distinction between some forms of the noun. In the case of vetr ('winter'), the nominative and accusative singular and plural forms are identical. The nominative singular and nominative and accusative plural would otherwise have been OWN * vetrr , OEN * wintrʀ . These forms are impossible because

10502-423: The royal family and information regarding Erik Bloodaxe's family, the latter seems more likely. Through the name Harald Fairhair appears, he is mostly irreverently referred to as Haraldr lúfa. Chapter 3 and 4 tells of Harald's conquest of Norway. It repeats Snorri's story of Harald's vow not to cut his hair until he had become king of all of Norway, but no mention is made of Gyda. Harald is said to have first conquered

10620-451: The saga accounts. In 2015, Hans Jacob Orning, building on then-recent archaeology and Krag's work, argued that Harald was based in Sogn , an area which the medieval Icelandic historian Snorri Sturluson associated with Harald, and which was a centre of power in the ninth century. In the skaldic poetry (which is generally considered authentic ninth-century work by linguists) the estates mentioned match

10738-415: The saga sources, the latter part of Harald's reign was disturbed by the strife of his many sons. The number of sons he left varies in the different saga accounts, from 11 to 20. Twelve of his sons are named as kings, two of them ruled over the whole of Norway. He gave them all the royal title and assigned lands to them, which they were to govern as his representatives; but this arrangement did not put an end to

10856-481: The sagas. It deals with a conflict between Harald and his son Halfdan, identified in Heimskringla as Halfdan the Black (the Younger), Harald's son by Åsa Håkonsdottir. Finnur Jónsson dates this poem to the late 10th century. If the dating is correct, it is the first instance of Harald having the epithet " fairhair " ( hárfagra in the text). However, consensus is that the exact dating is uncertain. It has been suggested that

10974-441: The same language, dǫnsk tunga ("Danish tongue"; speakers of Old East Norse would have said dansk tunga ). Another term was norrœnt mál ("northern speech"). Today Old Norse has developed into the modern North Germanic languages Icelandic , Faroese , Norwegian , Danish , Swedish , and other North Germanic varieties of which Norwegian, Danish and Swedish retain considerable mutual intelligibility . Icelandic remains

11092-426: The throne at the age of sixteen, in contrast to other accounts which gives the age of ten. He is here given the otherwise unknown nickname " Dofrafostri " ( Dovre -fostered ). Harald's maternal uncle Guthormr is described as his duke and most important ally. Harald's war with Gandalf Alfgeirsson and his neighboring kings is described as in Heimskringla , through in less detail. Following this Harald's marriage to Gyda

11210-544: The time of Harald Fairhair by Ingólfr Arnarson and Hjörleifr Hróðmarsson . The work describes the history of the Yngling -dynasty from the legendary king Ingvi as Harald's ancestors and Halfdan the Black was his father. Halfdan is here described as ruling a mountainous region of Norway and having drowned in Rondvatnet . Harald's rule is said to have lasted for 73 years and his nickname derived from his beautiful hair. Notably, Harald

11328-402: The town of Haugesund then imagined to be Harald Finehair's burial place, despite opposition from left-wing politicians. The German historian Jan Rüdiger concluded that: His compelling narrative has survived scholarly scrutiny almost unscathed - or rather, professional historical knowledge based on a century of source criticism coexists with Snorri's unscathed narrative in the sense that in

11446-417: The traditional dating of the saga events. The marriage of Sigurd Snake-in-the-Eye and Blaeja could not have occurred earlier than 867, which would put the dating Harald's ascension to kingship of Norway in 872 into question. Fagrskinna makes no mention of Blaeja and states that Ragnhild Sigurdsdotter was Sigurd Snake-in-the-Eye's daughter and not his great-granddaughter, which seems more plausible in regards to

11564-407: The twelfth and thirteenth centuries Harald was regarded as having unified Norway into one kingdom. Since the nineteenth century, when Norway was in a personal union with Sweden , Harald has become a national icon of Norway and a symbol of independence. Though the king's sagas and medieval accounts have been critically scrutinised during the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, Harald maintains

11682-571: The two fell out. In this time Harald meet jarl Håkon Grjotgardsson (called Hákon the Old in the text) at a feast in Hladir ( Lade ) in Trondheim and gave him part of Atli's fief. Atli defended his old area with violence and both of the jarls were killed. Harald proclaimed he would not cut his hair until having become overlord of Norway and earning tribute from every inland valley and outlying headland, earning him

11800-497: The umlaut allophones . Some /y/ , /yː/ , /ø/ , /øː/ , /ɛ/ , /ɛː/ , /øy/ , and all /ɛi/ were obtained by i-umlaut from /u/ , /uː/ , /o/ , /oː/ , /a/ , /aː/ , /au/ , and /ai/ respectively. Others were formed via ʀ-umlaut from /u/ , /uː/ , /a/ , /aː/ , and /au/ . Some /y/ , /yː/ , /ø/ , /øː/ , and all /ɔ/ , /ɔː/ were obtained by u-umlaut from /i/ , /iː/ , /e/ , /eː/ , and /a/ , /aː/ respectively. See Old Icelandic for information on /ɔː/ . /œ/

11918-915: The various sagas name anywhere from 11 to 20 sons of Harald in various contexts, the contemporary skaldic poem Hákonarmál says that Harald's son Håkon would meet only "eight brothers" when arriving in Valhalla , a place for slain warriors, kings, and Germanic heroes. Only the following five names of sons can be confirmed from skaldic poems (with saga claims in parentheses), while the full number of sons remains unknown: The full list of sons (and partial list of daughters) according to Snorri Sturluson's Heimskringla : Children with Åsa, daughter of Håkon Grjotgardssson , Jarl av Lade: Children with Gyda Eiriksdottir : Children with Svanhild, daughter of Øystein Jarl: Children with Åshild, daughter of Ring Dagsson: Children with Snæfrithr Svásadottir , daughter of Svåse

12036-482: The verb skína ('to shine') had present tense third person skínn (rather than * skínr , * skínʀ ); while kala ('to cool down') had present tense third person kell (rather than * kelr , * kelʀ ). The rule is not absolute, with certain counter-examples such as vinr ('friend'), which has the synonym vin , yet retains the unabsorbed version, and jǫtunn (' giant '), where assimilation takes place even though

12154-404: Was a moderately inflected language with high levels of nominal and verbal inflection. Most of the fused morphemes are retained in modern Icelandic, especially in regard to noun case declensions, whereas modern Norwegian in comparison has moved towards more analytical word structures. Old Norse had three grammatical genders – masculine, feminine, and neuter. Adjectives or pronouns referring to

12272-400: Was also influenced by Norse. Through Norman, to a smaller extent, so was modern French. Written modern Icelandic derives from the Old Norse phonemic writing system. Contemporary Icelandic-speakers can read Old Norse, which varies slightly in spelling as well as semantics and word order. However, pronunciation, particularly of the vowel phonemes, has changed at least as much in Icelandic as in

12390-702: Was buried in Haugesund . In the Saga of Harald Fairhair in Heimskringla (written around 1230), which is the most elaborate although not the oldest or most reliable source to the life of Harald, it is written that Harald succeeded, on the death of his father Halfdan the Black Gudrödarson in Rondvatnet , to the sovereignty of several small, and somewhat scattered kingdoms in Vestfold , which had come into his father's hands through conquest and inheritance. His protector-regent

12508-479: Was commonly stated to have been buried under a mound at Haugar by the Strait of Karmsund near the church in Haugesund , an area that later would be named the town and municipal Haugesund . The area near Karmsund was the traditional burial site for several early Norwegian rulers. The national monument of Haraldshaugen was raised in 1872, to commemorate the Battle of Hafrsfjord which is traditionally dated to 872. While

12626-432: Was crushed beneath the knee by the prow of one of the king's ships and he had to walk on a wooden pegleg for the rest of his life. The 13th century Ragnars saga loðbrókar ok sona hans ( Saga of Ragnar Lothbrok and his sons ) mentions Harald Fairhair in chapter 18 as the great-great-grandson of Sigurd Hart through his daughter Aslaug, her son Sigurd Snake-in-the-Eye and his daughter Ragnhild. Harald's maternal ancestry

12744-571: Was heavily influenced by the East dialect, and is today more similar to East Scandinavian (Danish and Swedish) than to Icelandic and Faroese. The descendants of the Old East Norse dialect are the East Scandinavian languages of Danish and Swedish . Among these, the grammar of Icelandic and Faroese have changed the least from Old Norse in the last thousand years, though their pronunciations both have changed considerably from Old Norse. With Danish rule of

12862-422: Was his mother's brother duke Guthorm . He is described as the descendant of the Yngling -dynasty, whose history is described earlier in the work. The unification of Norway is something of a love story. It begins with a marriage proposal that resulted in rejection and scorn from Gyda , the daughter of Eirik, king of Hordaland . She said she refused to marry Harald "before he was king over all of Norway". Harald

12980-409: Was invited. The Värmlandish chieftain Áki ( Swedish Åke jarl ) invited both king Harald Fairhair and the Swedish saga -king Erik Eymundsson , but had the Norwegian king stay in the newly constructed and sumptuous one, because he was the youngest one of the kings and the one who had the greatest prospects. The older Swedish king, on the other hand, had to stay in the old feasting hall. The Swedish king

13098-606: Was killed on Orkney by Rognvald's son Torf-Einarr and Gudrød was brought to justice by Harald. The estates in Møre are returned to Rognvald's other son Thorir the Silent who was given Harald's daughter Ålov in marriage as compensation . A variation of this story also appears in Orkneyinga saga . Afterwards, Gudrød was kept in Harald's hird , in a position where Harald could prevent him from similar transgressions. The account describes Hákon

13216-535: Was obtained through a simultaneous u- and i-umlaut of /a/ . It appears in words like gøra ( gjǫra , geyra ), from Proto-Germanic *garwijaną , and commonly in verbs with a velar consonant before the suffix like søkkva < *sankwijaną . OEN often preserves the original value of the vowel directly preceding runic ʀ while OWN receives ʀ-umlaut. Compare runic OEN glaʀ, haʀi, hrauʀ with OWN gler, heri (later héri ), hrøyrr/hreyrr ("glass", "hare", "pile of rocks"). U-umlaut

13334-543: Was settled by "malcontents" from Norway, who resented Harald's claim of rights of taxation over lands, which the possessors appear to have previously held in absolute ownership. It is the earliest non-skaldic account of Harald to use the nickname hárfagri . The Skarðsárbók -version of Landnámabók includes a brief narrative of Harald and his background. Harald is here described as the great-grandson of Sigurd Snake-in-the-Eye through his daughter Áslaug, her son Sigurd Hart and his daughter Ragnhild. The text describes Halfdan

13452-531: Was so humiliated that he killed Áki. Harald drove Erik Eymundsson out of Värmland and inserted Áki's son Ubbi ( Swedish : Ubbe ) as jarl. Harald is then said to have made a punitive raid into Västra Götaland , to weaken Erik Eymundsson. As Harald's sons came of age their unruly behavior became a source of instability in Norway. Snæfrith's sons Halfdan Long-Leg and Gudrød Ljome burned Rognvald jarl alive in his hall and took his lands in More and Orkney . Halfdan Long-Legs

13570-687: Was spoken in Denmark, Sweden, Kievan Rus' , eastern England, and Danish settlements in Normandy. The Old Gutnish dialect was spoken in Gotland and in various settlements in the East. In the 11th century, Old Norse was the most widely spoken European language , ranging from Vinland in the West to the Volga River in the East. In Kievan Rus' , it survived the longest in Veliky Novgorod , probably lasting into

13688-528: Was therefore induced to take a vow not to cut nor comb his hair until he was " þjóðkonungr " ( people-king ) of Norway, and when he was justified in trimming it ten years later, he exchanged the epithet " Shockhead " or "Tanglehair" (Haraldr lúfa) for the one by which he is usually known. In 866, Harald made the first of a series of conquests over the many petty kingdoms which would compose all of Norway, including Värmland in Sweden, which had sworn allegiance to

13806-560: Was thinning) or even 'handsome-hair'. Through the nineteenth and most of the twentieth centuries, historians broadly accepted the account of Harald Fairhair given by later Icelandic sagas. However, Peter Sawyer began to cast doubt on this in 1976, and the decades around 2000 saw a wave of revisionist research that suggested that Harald Fairhair did not exist, or at least not in a way resembling his appearance in sagas. The key arguments for this are as follows: Scholarly consensus on Harald's historicity now falls into two camps. One suggests that

13924-423: Was used partitively and in compounds and kennings (e.g., Urðarbrunnr , the well of Urðr; Lokasenna , the gibing of Loki). There were several classes of nouns within each gender. The following is an example of the "strong" inflectional paradigms : Sogn The district of Sogn comprises the southern part of the former county Sogn og Fjordane . The districts of Sunnfjord and Nordfjord are

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