CHAPTER I.HARALD HAARFAGR.
Till about the Year of Grace 860 there were no kings in Norway, nothing but numerous jarls,--essentially kinglets, each presiding over a kind of republican or parliamentary little territory; generally striving each to be on some terms of human neighborhood with those about him, but,--in spite of "_Fylke Things_" (Folk Things, little parish parliaments), and small combinations of these, which had gradually formed themselves,--often reduced to the unhappy state of quarrel with them.
Harald Haarfagr was the first to put an end to this state of things, and become memorable and profitable to his country by uniting it under one head and making a kingdom of it; which it has continued to be ever since.

His father, Halfdan the Black, had already begun this rough but salutary process,--inspired by the cupidities and instincts, by the faculties and opportunities, which the good genius of this world, beneficent often enough under savage forms, and diligent at all times to diminish anarchy as the world's worst savagery, usually appoints in such cases,--conquest, hard fighting, followed by wise guidance of the conquered;--but it was Harald the Fairhaired, his son, who conspicuously carried it on and completed it.

Harald's birth-year, death-year, and chronology in general, are known only by inference and computation; but, by the latest reckoning, he died about the year 933 of our era, a man of eighty-three.
The business of conquest lasted Harald about twelve years (A.D.
860-872 ?), in which he subdued also the vikings of the out-islands, Orkneys, Shetlands, Hebrides, and Man.

Sixty more years were given him to consolidate and regulate what he had conquered, which he did with great judgment, industry and success.

His reign altogether is counted to have been of over seventy years.
The beginning of his great adventure was of a romantic character .-- youthful love for the beautiful Gyda, a then glorious and famous young lady of those regions, whom the young Harald aspired to marry.