文档介绍：EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY.
EARLY KINGS OF
NORWAY.
by Thomas Carlyle
1
EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY.
The Icelanders, in their long winter, had a great habit of writing; and
were, and still are, excellent in penmanship, says Dahlmann. It is to this
fact, that any little history there is of the Norse Kings and their old
tragedies, crimes and heroisms, is almost all due. The Icelanders, it seems,
not only made beautiful letters on their paper or parchment, but were
laudably observant and desirous of accuracy; and have left us such a
collection of narratives (_Sagas_, literally "Says") as, for quantity and
quality, is unexampled among rude nations. Snorro Sturleson's History of
the Norse Kings is built out of these old Sagas; and has in it a great deal of
poetic fire, not a little faithful sagacity applied in sifting and adjusting
these old Sagas; and, in a word, deserves, were it once well edited,
furnished with accurate maps, chronological summaries, &c., to be
reckoned among the great history-books of the world. It is from these
sources, greatly aided by accurate, learned and unwearied Dahlmann,[1]
the German Professor, that the following rough notes of the early Norway
Kings are hastily thrown together. In Histories of England (Rapin's
excepted) next to nothing has been shown of the many and strong threads
of connection between English affairs and Norse.
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EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY.
CHAPTER I.
HARALD HAARFAGR.
Till about the Year of Grace 860 there were no kings in Norway,
nothing but numerous jarls,--essentially kinglets, each presiding over a
kind of republican or parliamentary little territory; generally striving each
to be on some terms of human neighborhood with those about him, but,--
in spite of "_Fylke Things_" (Folk Things, little parish parliaments), and
binations of these, which had gradually formed themselves,--
often reduced to the unhappy state of quarrel with them. Harald Haarfagr
was the first to put an end to this state of