Northern Europe and France; the Norman Conquest. page 3

Until near the 9th century we have no trustworthy history of Scandinavia. When the Jutes and Angles migrated to Britain, it seems that Danes from Zealand, Fiinen, and other islands took their place in the peninsula. A king of Jutland, at war with Karl the Great, built a line of forts (Dannevirk) across the isthmus. Gorm, king of Denmark at the end of the 9th century, was a bitter opponent of Christianity. His persecutions were stopped by Henry I. of Germany, and his death in 936 gave fresh vigour to the spread of the faith. Harold Blaatand (Bluetooth) then ruled until 985, and was succeeded by Svend or Sweyn, and by Cnut the Great (1014-1035), whom we have met in English history. Under him Christianity became the settled faith. On his death Denmark was separated from Norway, and in 1047 his nephew Svend or Sweyn became king and began a line of princes that continued for four centuries. There were wars with Norway and with the Wends, a branch of the Slavs on the southern coast of the Baltic. Sweden, early in the 9th century, had Christianity preached by Ansgar of Picardy, but the Swedes, fanatical heathens, who treated the countries around the Baltic as their kinsmen of Norway and Denmark treated the people on the shores of the North Sea and the Channel, were not fully converted until three centuries later, though the Goths of the south of the country (Gothland) had long been professed Christians. Some Swedish bands settled around Novgorod, subdued the Slavs in that quarter, and laid a foundation for the future Russia.

The early history of Norway shows us a country divided among many petty kings, with the usual distracted state of affairs, until the 9th century. Then the famous Harold Haarfager (Fairhair), who ruled from 863 to 930, in 12 years' warfare made a solid realm and introduced the feudal system. His sway extended as far north as Trondhjem, where he established his seat of government. It was his firm treatment of the smaller kings and his repression of freebooting which drove so many Norsemen to emigrate to the Faroe Isles, the Shetlands, the Orkneys, the Hebrides, the Isle of Man, and Ireland. From those marine fastnesses they sailed back to their own land, and so plundered the coast-territories given by Harold to other jarls or great vikings that the king went forth and drove them from the Orkneys and Hebrides to Iceland, and appointed earls over the conquered island-groups.

At the court of this long-lived monarch the skalds or improvising poets singing the praises of living warriors or their ancestors, were held in honour. Harold's death was followed by many years o conflict between his sons and other claimants. In 996 Olaf Tryggveson, a descendant of Harold, and a man of renown m England and elsewhere as a viking, became ruler, and died fighting in A.D. 1000, against a host of Norwegian and Danish foes off the south Baltic coast. It was in these days that Northmen discovered, beyond the Atlantic, Greenland and Vinland (afterwards "New England "), and made settlements which endured for some years and then disappeared and were forgotten. Olaf II. (1015-1030) reigned well over a united Norway, and under him Christianity was established. He perished in battle against Cnut (Canute) near Trondhjem. Harold Hardraada was killed in 1066, as we have seen, fighting against Harold II. of England at Stamford Bridge. This last monarch of the period with which we are dealing had been a member of the famous Varangian Guard at Constantinople, composed of Norman warriors and Slav adventurers who took service under the Greek emperors in that period, and he had fought against the Saracens in Sicily.