party of Henry duke of Bavaria, then a rebel, and made several irruptions into Saxony. On the defeat of that powerful vassal, Otho penetrated into Jutland, and advanced as far as the Sound which bears his name. With the result of this war we are not acquainted; but probably Harald submitted. The events, however, of both wars, which have been frequently confounded into one, are very doubtful. A more certain fact is, that the good fortune of Harald now forsook him. He failed in an expedition against Norway, which had thrown off its vassalage. Nor was this the worst: his son Sweyn, who had been baptized with him, rebelled against him. The motives which led the prince in this undutiful conduct are unknown. Probably the chief was the desire of power; and as his nature was ferocious, he scrupled not to bear arms against his father. There is also some reason to believe that he was the instrument of a great party—the old pagans, who could not behold with much pleasure the gradual progress of the new faith, and the consequent decline of their own. His conversion was not, like his father’s, very sincere; or, perhaps, he cared not for either religion, so that his ambition was gratified. As the pagans were still the more numerous subjects of the state, he became at once their patron and their tool. The war was short, and Harald was compelled to flee. He sought a refuge in Normandy, and by duke Richard, we are told, was restored to at least a portion of his dominions. How far this relation is true, we cannot, in the absence of contemporary authority, decide. A more certain fact is, that, in 991, he was assassinated by the procurement of his own son. He was walking on the skirts of a wood, when an arrow from the bow of a Jomsberg pirate belonging to a band in the pay of Sweyn, laid him in the dust.[100]
Such was the fate of a monarch whose memory was dear to the early Christians of Denmark. He was the first monarch that openly professed the new religion; and the constancy with which he adhered to it affords indisputable proof of his sincerity. From Ledra, the ancient seat of the Odinic superstition, he removed his court to Roskild, where he erected a cathedral to the most holy Trinity. This was a politic step; connected with the new capital were no ancient recollections to remind the idolater of the faith of his fathers. The foundation of three other bishoprics attested his zeal. The reverence in which this monarch was held in the centuries immediately following his death, and a passage, of which the application was mistaken, in the History of Adam of Bremen, nearly led to his canonisation.[101]
|991.|
On the tragical death of Harald, the sceptre devolved to the unnatural Sweyn. As the majority of the people were still pagans, the accession of this prince was beheld with satisfaction; for though, perhaps, he did not openly apostatise, he encouraged the old religion, and rebuilt many of the temples which had been destroyed. And he was the ally of the Jomsburg pirates, the leader of whom shot the arrow which had proved fatal to Harald. Yet Harald was the founder of that city—one of the most famous in the annals of the world. It was situated near the great lake of Pomerania, on the site of the modern Wollin. It was avowedly built for a piratical fortress; yet the founders could not anticipate the greatness which it afterwards retained. Its first governor, who was also its legislator, was a pirate chief, Palnatoko, whose skill as an archer was never equalled in the north. He decreed that no man who had ever shown the slightest fear, even in the greatest dangers, should be a member of the new community. No Christian was admitted, because Christianity was supposed to enfeeble the mind; but people of all other religions and of all countries were received; and each of the great European nations had a street of its own. It was the last place of the north which was humanised by the religion of Christ; and probably it would longer have defied the general influence of that faith, had not its riches enervated the vigour of its inhabitants, and intestine dissensions still further weakened it, so as to render it a prey to its enemies. Palnatoko, the assassin of Harald, had been long resident at the Danish court, and had been the tutor of Sweyn; and to that barbarous deed he was, we are told, excited by a personal injury. His skill in archery was the quality on which he most prided himself, and he was accustomed to boast that he could hit an apple, however small, on the top of a pole. This boast, which was regarded as an arrogant display, made him some enemies. It reached Harald, who insisted that the archer’s own child should supply the place of the pole; and threatened, that if the first arrow missed its aim, his own head should bear the penalty. As there was no hope of changing the royal determination, Palnatoko warned his child to be steady—not to flinch hand or foot—not to move a muscle of his body, when the arrow approached. On the day appointed, the dreaded experiment was tried; and the apple was cloven, while the child remained uninjured. But the archer had three arrows, and being asked what he had intended to do with the remaining two, he replied, that had he been the death of innocence, the guilty contriver of the experiment should not have escaped.—Such is the story which Saxo has preserved. That it has given rise to the fabulous one of William Tell, must be apparent to the reader; for the Danish historian wrote a full century before the Swiss patriot flourished. Nor do we think that Saxo’s account is the original one: the circumstance probably took place centuries before the reign of Harald Blaatand, and became a portion of the “legendary lore” the origin of which is so mysterious. Whether this incident be true or false in regard to Harald and this archer, the latter joined Sweyn, and, as we have already related, caused the death of the former.[102]
|991.|
In the early part of this monarch’s reign we meet with much obscurity, much contradiction. We are told that in return for his rebellion against his father, and for his restoration of paganism, he was doomed to great bitterness of suffering; that he was thrice a prisoner among the pirates, and thrice redeemed by his people. For the last act of redemption he is said to have been indebted to Danish ladies, who, seeing that the money of the state was wholly exhausted by the preceding ransoms, contributed their choicest ornaments for that purpose. For this generosity, adds Saxo, the grateful Sweyn passed a law, that, in future, females should, like males, succeed, by inheritance, to a portion of their father’s property. Such a law certainly existed, and it may possibly be referred to Sweyn; but in regard to the circumstances which gave rise to it, there is room for scepticism. That a powerful monarch—for such Sweyn always was—should be thrice captured by pirates—the pirates, too, of Jomsberg—is surely unparalleled in the history of the world. Yet the relation alike of Saxo and Sweyn Aggesen must have had some foundation in truth. The probability is, that the king, prior to his accession, was once a captive, and that the monastic writers of the following age mistook the time and multiplied the circumstances.[103] Those venerable fathers, struck with horror at the filial no less than the religious impiety of this king, were ready to adopt, without examination, the most unfavourable reports concerning him. Another statement, that Sweyn was expelled from his kingdom by Eric of Sweden, and that he remained almost fifteen years in exile, fourteen of which he spent in Scotland, is entitled to just the same credit. His father, we are told, died in 991; yet in 994 he was powerful enough to begin the conquest of England; and from that year to the period of his death, in 1014, he was always in this country, or in Denmark. Where, then, are these sixteen years to be inserted? Assuredly no chasm can be found for them between 991 and 1014. Other circumstances demonstrate the falsehood of the relation—a relation, however, adopted by the most recent historians. On his expulsion, we are told, he applied for the common rights of hospitality to Olaf Trygveson of Norway, but was spurned by that prince. This conduct of Olaf, says Saxo, was the less justifiable, as Sweyn had assisted him to regain the throne of Norway. Let us for a moment attend to dates. Sweyn’s restoration to his country, after his fifteen years of exile, is placed in the year 994; and as Olaf was the first monarch to whom he applied, this application must have been made about 979. But Olaf did not return to Norway before 996. How much earlier than this year must he have been assisted by Sweyn? Yet for this, as for the preceding relation, there was probably some basis. If Sweyn ever was in exile—and there is some reason to infer that he was, during his hostility with his father—that exile was before the death of Harald, and consequently before his accession to the monarchy. It may possibly be that he was at one time prior to that event king of some portion of the monarchy—perhaps of Scania; and this conjecture would at once account for the facility with which Eric expelled him. However this be, there can be no doubt that if this banishment be a fact, it must be referred to a period long prior to 991. What confirms this conjecture is, the statement of Saxo, that the monarch to whom Sweyn next applied was Edward king
