CHAPTER VII 



HISTOKY 

 Harald Fairhair— Hakon— Guuliild's Sous. (Circ. a.d. 867-969.) 



A NATION of small land-owners, each a little chief in 

 his own way ; for he has the sons of his house under 

 him, his uephew^s, may be, and his nephews' and his 

 sons' sons ; and his servants, not perhaps precisely 

 thralls nor adscripti glclce, but what is next door to 

 that ; for they have little or no chance of livelihood, 

 save upon the estate on which they have been born. 

 Then, superior to these yeomen, these peasant pro- 

 prietors, are certain hcrsar} who are their leaders in 

 war ; and over these hersar, again, stand the earls or the 

 petty kings. This is the nationality of Norway at the 

 dawn of her historical period. But that which makes 

 all the people, not of the whole of Xorway, but those 

 living in each considerable district of the country into 

 a single nationality, is not the unity of its government, 

 of its executive, but rather the unity of its legislature 

 (though this is to some extent executive also), — that 

 is to say, its general assembly of freemen, whicli was 

 called the Thiwj. These Things were of many kinds 

 and of various degrees of importance. There were 



1 Slug, licrsir {hersi). 



U3 



