Earl Hakon 167 



Throndhjem district, though he had nominally made 

 peace with the murderers of his father, knew that he 

 could never consider himself secure, and eventually he 

 escaped to the court of Harald, king of Denmark. All 

 the causes of division, which made the weakness of the 

 Scandinavian nations, had now begun to operate. In 

 the previous century the Viking hordes, who came 

 swarming over Europe, had seemed like different parts 

 of one vast army of heathenism which was bent on the 

 conquest of Christendom. Since then, the Scandinavian 

 nationalities had united into three or four large states ; 

 but there was less unity between these separate states 

 than there had been among different bands of Viking 

 freebooters. Denmark was at war with Norway ; Nor- 

 way turned its arms against Sweden, against the Ork- 

 neys, or against Iceland. Wherefore, every discontented 

 subject could find a refuge in one of the neighbouring 

 states. About the same time, two of the subjects of 

 Gunhild's sons sought in different guise protection at 

 two of the Scandinavian courts. Earl Hakon came 

 with a powerful fleet to Denmark, and was well received 

 there. Astrid, the widow of King Tryggvi (so at least 

 the story goes), with hardly a companion, but carrying 

 her infant son, Olaf, known in history as Olaf Trygg- 

 vason, sought asylum in Sweden. 



Earl Hakon was a man of cunning as well as of 

 courage. His morality was the untinged heathen 

 morality of an age that was passing away. He con- 

 trived, first of all, the treacherous slaugliter of Harald 

 Grey-fell by a Danish Harald, called Gold Harald, 

 the half-brotlier of Harald, the king of Denmark, and 

 directly after that, the no less treacherous slaughter of 



