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. Gyda answered his embassy and prayer in a distant, lofty manner:
"Her it would not beseem to wed any Jarl or poor creature of that kind;
let him do as Gorm of Denmark, Eric of Sweden, Egbert of England,
and others had done,--subdue into peace and regulation the confused,
contentious bits of jarls round him, and become a king; then, perhaps,
she might think of his proposal: till then, not." Harald was struck with
this proud answer, which rendered Gyda tenfold more desirable to him.
He vowed to let his hair grow, never to cut or even to comb it till this
feat were done, and the peerless Gyda his own. He proceeded accordingly
to conquer, in fierce battle, a Jarl or two every year, and, at the end
of tw