Harald Hardrada

by John Marsden

  It is worth remembering, though, that the young Olaf was placed under the guardianship and guidance of his late father’s principal lieutenant, Rani the Far-travelled, when he first went a-viking, and is similarly thought to have had no less a warrior than the famous Thorkell himself as his mentor in England. So it is perhaps more likely that Olaf would not have advised against his young kinsman taking part in the battle at Stiklestad, but against his being placed on the right wing with the Uppland contingent when the king would more probably have wanted to keep him closer to his own most trusted warriors, even within the shelter of his skjaldborg where he intended to place the skalds. There is, in fact, other evidence bearing on Harald’s survival at Stiklestad – which will be considered in detail later – to suggest his having been guarded on the battlefield by one of the most trusted members of the king’s personal retinue.

  One other aspect of the story of timely significance here is Harald’s quoted remark about wielding a sword, because this might be the most convenient point at which to expand upon the subject of weaponry at Stiklestad. While the shield, as aforementioned, was the least expensive and most essential item in the armoury of the northman, the sword was not only the most expensive but also the most prestigious, and the weapon most often celebrated by skald and saga-maker. The most famous swords were given their own names, as was Olaf’s weapon, called ‘Neite’ (Hneitir in the Norse), which served him through his many battles before its gold-worked hilt fell at last from his hand at Stiklestad. Retrieved from the field by a Swedish warrior who had lost his own sword, it was kept in the man’s family for some three generations until the early twelfth century when one of his descendants became a Varangian mercenary in Byzantine service and brought it with him to the east. A closely contemporary account, which was known to Snorri Sturluson, tells how its identity was revealed to the emperor John II Comnenus and how he paid a great price in gold for the sword, which was thereafter enshrined in the Varangian chapel dedicated to Saint Olaf in Constantinople.

  While unlikely to have been all so richly decorated as Neite, swords of quality would usually have blades of foreign manufacture, the best of them imported from the Rhineland, double-edged, pattern-welded and more than 70 centimetres in length. Recognised as the aristocrat of the armoury in the old northern world, the sword was the weapon of the superior class of warrior, of the housecarl, the chieftain and the king, and yet it was the axe which still represents the most characteristic weapon of the northman. It was, of course, equally useful as a working tool and would have been more widely distributed, as also would the spear, especially the lighter throwing-spear as distinct from the heavier type fitted with a broader blade which was used as a thrusting weapon in hand-to-hand combat.

  Thus an army as diverse as the one which Olaf brought to Stiklestad would have gone into battle bearing a disparate range of weaponry. The professional fighting-man would have his sword and shield, possibly a war-axe, probably a spear, or even a bow and arrows when no less an authority than Saxo Grammaticus acknowledged the fame of Norse archery. Those of humbler status would have been armed with the essential shield, probably with an axe and perhaps a spear – even in so basic a form as a sharpened stake – or possibly a hunting bow, while some of the very roughest recruits of the vagabond type might have wielded nothing more sophisticated than a heavy wooden club.

  Social divisions would have been still more obviously apparent in respect of helmets and protective armour or, in the great majority of cases, by their absence. The saga has a lavishly detailed account of Olaf’s arms and armour comprising a gold-mounted helmet and a white shield inlaid with a golden cross, his spear (which Snorri had certainly seen beside the altar in Christ Church at Nidaros) and, of course, his keen-edged Neite. Yet the one item of his war-gear specifically confirmed by a quoted verse from Sigvat is his coat of ring-mail. This ‘burnished byrnie’ was probably singled out for the skald’s attention by reason of its extreme rarity, because while iron was plentiful (and plate armour completely unknown) in eleventh-century Scandinavia, the laborious craftsmanship involved in the production of ring-mail made it the most prohibitively expensive item of war-gear and thus available only to the most affluent on the battlefield. It would also have been extremely hot and heavy to wear while fighting on foot, so leather may often have been preferred by those who were fortunate enough to enjoy the luxury of choice.

  Helmets too, although simpler and thus less costly to produce than mail, are thought not to have been so widespread in Scandinavian warfare as is sometimes imagined. The ‘winged’ or ‘horned’ helmet of ‘the Viking’ has long been confidently dismissed as a fantasy, but helmets of the spangenhelm type – a construction of triangular iron plates held together at the base by a circular headband sometimes mounted with a nose-guard – would have represented standard equipment for the professional fighting-men in a lordly or royal retinue. Again, however, neither helmet nor mail-coat would have been likely to be found among the rougher elements in Olaf’s forces, among whom a leather cap and a heavy woollen or leathern coat would have represented the most common protective clothing behind a shield.

  The saga’s customary reference to the enemy host as the ‘bonders’ army’ must not be taken to indicate a seething peasant rabble, especially when the evidence for selected soldiery gifted by the Swedish king allied with vagabonds recruited from the borderland forests suggests Olaf’s forces representing rather greater extremes of warrior type. The ‘bonders’ army’ was evidently recruited across the entire social range of the free and unfree, but was led by prominent chieftains, some of them exalted to the rank of lenderman, accompanied by their own companies of housecarls, while the bonders themselves, although lower in the social order, were still free farmers recognised by a respected modern authority on the subject as ‘yeomen [who] were the staple of society’.7

  Despite there being nowhere any reference to the inclusion of any foreign element, the possibility of at least some Danish involvement cannot be discounted. When Cnut left his newly acquired Norwegian dominions under the governance of his jarl Hakon, he assigned to him a ‘court-bishop’ in the person of a Danish priest, Sigurd, who is said by the saga to have ‘been long with Cnut’, of whose cause he was assuredly an ardent advocate. This Bishop Sigurd seems to have assumed the roles of principal chaplain and political commissar to the bonders’ army, inciting all possible hostility to Olaf in the speech of exhortation he is said to have delivered to the forces before the battle. It would have been quite unthinkable for any Scandinavian churchman of the time, especially one given such an assignment by the all-powerful Cnut, to have been without his own escort of housecarls. Sigurd himself is described as exceptionally haughty and hot-tempered, so there would be every reason to expect his demanding a formidable warrior retinue which would undoubtedly have been present, to whatever extent it was actively engaged, at Stiklestad.

  On balance, then, there is no reason to imagine this ‘bonders’ army’ as any the worse equipped or accomplished than Olaf’s forces, and yet there is nowhere any trace of doubt as to their massive superiority in numbers. Snorri Sturluson is almost certainly drawing upon a deep and ancient well of folk-memory when he describes the muster in the Trondelag as ‘a host so great that there was nobody in Norway at that time who had ever seen so large a force assembled’, but as to any more precise estimate of numbers, he would seem to signal his doubts as to the accuracy of the figure he mentions in his usual form of words: ‘We are told that the bonders’ army was not less than a hundred times a hundred on that day’. Reckoning in ‘long hundreds’, that figure would represent a strength of almost fourteen and a half thousand. While not entirely beyond the bounds of credibility, even at a time when the total population of eleventh-century Norway is estimated at around two million, the phrase ‘a hundred times a hundred’ has a suspiciously formulaic character and so might be more cautiously read as an indication of ‘a very great number, almost beyond counting’. The saga also quotes lines from Si
gvat, but the obscurity of their phrasing allows for no more informative evidence than a claim for Olaf’s having been defeated entirely by weight of numbers, so in the last analysis neither source can offer evidence for anything more precise than confirmation of a modest army overwhelmingly outnumbered by the enemy host.

  Such was clearly Olaf’s own appraisal of the situation when he addressed his troops on the morning of the battle, proposing that victory was more likely to be won by shock tactics than a long and wearying confrontation of unequal forces. His stratagem was to extend his forces thinly across a long front to prevent their being outflanked by superior numbers and then to launch a ferocious onslaught at the enemy’s front line, throwing it back against the ranks behind, thus extending the impact back through the host with such resulting chaos that ‘their destruction will be the greater the greater numbers there are together’.

  This sort of oratory is customarily set out in the sagas at great length, and in the finest prose which is more realistically recognised as creative writing than historical record, but there is still no reason to doubt the essential accuracy of its content. The same is usually also true of negotiations between principal characters in the sagas, where the dialogue cannot be anything more than speculative reconstruction and yet the outcome corresponds well enough to the subsequent course of events, as it does in the discussion which decided the command and battle order of the bonders’ army.

  The first choice for its leader would have been the redoubtable Einar Eindridison, called Tambarskelve (‘paunch-shaker’),8 who represented the most powerful figure in the Trondelag. A long-standing enemy of Olaf and married to a sister of the jarls Erik and Svein, Einar had been promised high office by Cnut. When he learned of the death of Hakon Eriksson, Einar sailed to England in full expectation of succeeding as Cnut’s jarl over Norway, thus being out of the country when Olaf returned from Russia and apparently in no hurry to return and oppose him.

  In Einar’s absence, the most senior of the lendermen was Harek of Thjotta and it was he whom Kalv Arnason proposed for command, but the Halogalander protested that he was too old for such a duty and suggested Thore Hund in his stead as a younger man with his own blood-feud to pursue against Olaf. Although eager for vengeance, Thore doubted whether the Trondelag men who made up the greater part of the army would take orders from someone out of the far north. At this point, Kalv Arnason introduced a note of urgency, warning that Olaf’s forces might be smaller but were still fiercely loyal to a fearless leader. Assuredly well aware of the potential consequences of his own disloyalty to his king, he warned of the terrifying revenge Olaf would inflict on those he defeated, urging the bonders to attack as one united army to ensure their victory, and in response they acclaimed Kalv as their commander.

  Immediately setting the forces into battle order, Kalv raised his banner and drew up his housecarls with Harek and his retinue beside them. Thore Hund and his troop were placed in front of the banner and at the head of the formation with chosen bands of the best-armed bonders on both sides. The saga describes this central formation of men of the Trondelag and Halogaland as ‘long and deep’, which would imply that it was formed into a column, while on its right wing was ‘another formation’ and on the left the men of Rogaland, Hordaland, Sogn and the Fjords stood with a third banner.

  At this point the saga introduces Thorstein Knaresmed,9 a sea-trader and master shipwright, sturdy, strong ‘and a great man-slayer’ who had been drawn to join the bonders’ army by fierce enmity to Olaf on account of the great new merchant-ship he had built and which had been taken from him as wergild (the fine for man-slaughter). Now he came to join Thore Hund’s company so as to be in the front line of the coming battle and the first to drive a weapon at King Olaf in repayment for his theft of the ‘best ship that ever went on a trading voyage’. Quite possibly inspired by the appearance of this vengeful shipbuilder, Kalv Arnason’s address to his troops before the march to battle clearly sets out to fire up their lust for vengeance, urging those with injuries to avenge upon the king to place themselves under the banner which was to advance against Olaf’s own standard.

  Thus the bonders’ army came to the field of Stiklestad where Olaf’s forces had already taken up their positions, but the plan of immediate attack intended by both sides was delayed. While the king’s forces were still awaiting the arrival of Dag Ringsson’s contingent, detachments of the bonders’ army were lagging some way behind the front ranks and so, as Kalv and Harek were coming within closer view of their enemy, Thore and his company were assigned to marshal the laggardly rearguard and ensure that all would be present and correct when battle began.

  The saga has an account – assuredly more formulaic than authentically historical, but perfectly plausible for all that – of verbal exchanges between the principals on both sides when the front ranks of the opposing forces were close enough for individuals to recognise each other. Olaf upbraided Kalv for disloyalty to his king, and to his kin when he had brothers standing with the forces he was about to attack. The tone of Kalv’s reply might have been thought to hint at reconciliation, but Finn warned the king of his brother’s habit of speaking fairly when he meant ill and then Thorgeir of Quiststad, who had formerly been one of Olaf’s lendermen, shouted to the king that he should have such peace as many had earlier suffered at his hands, ‘and which you shall now pay for!’ The saga endows Olaf’s response with the tenor of a prophecy when he shouted a warning back to Thorgeir that fate had not decreed him a victory this day. At this point Thore Hund moved forward with his warriors shouting the battle-cry of ‘Forward, forward, bonder men!’ and the battle of Stiklestad began.

  Olaf’s forces countered with their ‘Forward, forward, Christ-men! cross-men! king’s men!’ and the saga interpolates an anecdote, and one not entirely implausible, of confusion caused in the more distant ranks of the bonders’ army where some took up their enemy’s war-cry and warriors turned on each other imagining that the king’s forces were among them. As Dag Ringsson’s company was now coming into view, Olaf launched into his battle plan and commanded the opening assault from his position on the higher ground. The sun shone in a clear sky as the headlong charge rolled downhill and drove into the enemy lines with such impact that the bonders’ array bent before it. While many in the farther ranks of the bonders were already turning to flee, the lendermen and their housecarls stood firm against an onslaught described by Sigvat as the ‘steel-storm raging at Stiklar Stad’. Their stand stemmed the flight of their own reluctant rearguard, who were forced to re-form into a counter-attack which was soon pushing on from all sides, its front line slashing with swords, while those behind them thrust with spears and all the ranks in the rear shot arrows, cast throwing-spears and hand-axes, or let fly with stones and sharpened stakes.

  This was the murderous hand-to-hand combat which marked the crucial phase of battle. Many were falling now on both sides and the lines in front of Olaf’s shield-rampart were steadily growing thin when the king commanded his banner to be brought forward. Thord Folason the standard-bearer advanced and Olaf himself followed, emerging from the shield-rampart and leading those warriors he had chosen as the best-armed and most accomplished to stand with him in battle. Sigvat’s verses tell of bonders rearing back in awe at the sight of the king’s entry into the fray, although one who remained undeterred was the aforementioned Thorgeir of Quiststad, at least until Olaf’s sword slashed across his face, cutting the nose-piece of his helmet and cleaving his head down below the eyes. ‘Did I not speak true, Thorgeir, when I warned that you would not be the victor at our meeting?’

  Thord the standard-bearer drove his banner-pole so deep into the earth that it remained standing there even when he himself had been dealt his death-wound and fell beneath it. There also fell two of Olaf’s skalds, first Thorfinn Mudr and after him Gissur Gulbraaskald who was attacked by two warriors, one of whom he slew and the other wounded before he himself was slain. At around this same time Dag Ringsson arrived on the field
, raising his banner and setting his troops into array, yet finding the light becoming so poor that he could hardly make out the men of Hordaland and Rogaland who were facing him on the left wing of the bonders’ army.

  The cause of this sudden darkening of what had been a bright summer sky only shortly before was an eclipse of the sun which is reliably recorded for the summer of 1030, but which raises its own point of difficulty as to the precise date of the battle. Snorri Sturluson firmly assigns the death of Olaf to the ‘fourth kalends of August’ or 29 July in modern reckoning, and so too does Theodoric the Monk in his Historia. The Feast of St Olaf in commemoration of the day of his martyrdom is entered in the church calendars at that same date, and yet the total eclipse – which would certainly have been visible from Stiklestad in the year 1030 – actually occurred on 31 August.

  There are really only two possible explanations, of which the first is that the battle was fought in July and the eclipse merely a fictional accretion inspired by the actual phenomenon which occurred a month later. Yet the tradition of the eclipse taking place while the battle was in progress must be almost immediately contemporary when it is described in Sigvat’s verses on the battle composed within very recent memory of the event. No less significant is the impressive correspondence between the timings recorded in the saga – which record the armies meeting near midday, the battle beginning in early afternoon and the king slain at three o’clock – and those calculated for the historical eclipse of August which would have begun at 1.40 p.m., become total at 2.53, and was over by four in the afternoon.