Harald Fairhair
The king Norway dates itself from, on evidence written three hundred years after he died. Harald Fairhair is remembered for the sea battle at Hafrsfjord, conventionally 872, after which the Norwegian monarchy counts its beginning. The story told in the Icelandic sagas is that he swore not to cut or comb his hair until he ruled the whole country, and went unshorn for ten years, which is where the byname comes from - before it he was Harald Shaggy-Hair. The sagas are the problem. Snorri Sturluson's Heimskringla, the fullest account, was written in Iceland in the 1230s, and the earlier skaldic verse it draws on is fragmentary. Modern historians generally accept that a king called Harald fought and won at Hafrsfjord and that he was the ancestor the later dynasty claimed, while doubting that he ruled anything like all of Norway. What he probably unified was the western coastal districts, from Agder up to Trondelag - the shipping lane, not the interior. Icelandic tradition makes his rule the reason Iceland was settled: chieftains who would not submit sailed west, taking the Faroes and Iceland with them. That is a founding story told by the people who left, and it flatters both sides. He is said to have had many sons by many women, and to have divided the kingdom among them before his death, which undid whatever unity he had achieved. Eric Bloodaxe, the son who succeeded him, is remembered chiefly for killing his brothers and being driven out. His dates are estimates. He died somewhere around 930 and was probably born in the 850s. Norway fragmented after him and was not securely a single kingdom for another two centuries. He remains its founding figure regardless, which is a fair description of how founding figures usually work.
- Lived: 850 CE – 932 CE
- Nationality: Norwegian
- Roles: ruler, monarch
