5: Hakon Jarl
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Hakon Jarl, such the style he took, had engaged to pay some kind of
tribute to King Blue-tooth, "if he could;" but he never did pay any,
pleading always the necessity of his own affairs; with which excuse,
joined to Hakon's readiness in things less important, King Blue-tooth
managed to content himself, Hakon being always his good neighbor, at
least, and the two mutually dependent. In Norway, Hakon, without the
title of king, did in a strong-handed, steadfast, and at length,
successful way, the office of one; governed Norway (some count) for
above twenty years; and, both at home and abroad, had much
consideration through most of that time; specially amongst the heathen
orthodox, for Hakon Jarl himself was a zealous heathen, fixed in his
mind against these chimerical Christian innovations and unsalutary
changes of creed, and would have gladly trampled out all traces of
what the last two kings (for Greyfell, also, was an English Christian
after his sort) had done in this respect. But he wisely discerned
that it was not possible, and that, for peace's sake, he must not even
attempt it, but must strike preferably into "perfect toleration," and
that of "every one getting to heaven or even to the other goal in his
own way." He himself, it is well known, repaired many heathen temples
(a great "church builder" in his way!), manufactured many splendid
idols, with much gilding and such artistic ornament as there was,—in
particular, one huge image of Thor, not forgetting the hammer and
appendages, and such a collar (supposed of solid gold, which it was
not quite, as we shall hear in time) round the neck of him as was
never seen in all the North. How he did his own Yule festivals, with
what magnificent solemnity, the horse-eatings, blood-sprinklings, and
other sacred rites, need not be told. Something of a "Ritualist," one
may perceive; perhaps had Scandinavian Puseyisms in him, and other
desperate heathen notions. He was universally believed to have gone
into magic, for one thing, and to have dangerous potencies derived
from the Devil himself. The dark heathen mind of him struggling
vehemently in that strange element, not altogether so unlike our own
in some points.
For the rest, he was evidently, in practical matters, a man of sharp,
clear insight, of steadfast resolution, diligence, promptitude; and
managed his secular matters uncommonly well. Had sixteen Jarls under
him, though himself only Hakon Jarl by title; and got obedience from
them stricter than any king since Haarfagr had done. Add to which
that the country had years excellent for grass and crop, and that the
herrings came in exuberance; tokens, to the thinking mind, that Hakon
Jarl was a favorite of Heaven.
His fight with the far-famed Jomsvikings was his grandest exploit in
public rumor. Jomsburg, a locality not now known, except that it was
near the mouth of the River Oder, denoted in those ages the
impregnable castle of a certain hotly corporate, or "Sea Robbery
Association (limited)," which, for some generations, held the Baltic
in terror, and plundered far beyond the Belt,—in the ocean itself, in
Flanders and the opulent trading havens there,—above all, in opulent
anarchic England, which, for forty years from about this time, was the
pirates' Goshen; and yielded, regularly every summer, slaves,
Danegelt, and miscellaneous plunder, like no other country Jomsburg or
the viking-world had ever known. Palnatoke, Bue, and the other
quasi-heroic heads of this establishment are still remembered in the
northern parts. Palnatoke is the title of a tragedy by
Oehlenschlager, which had its run of immortality in Copenhagen some
sixty or seventy years ago.
I judge the institution to have been in its floweriest state, probably
now in Hakon Jarl's time. Hakon Jarl and these pirates, robbing
Hakon's subjects and merchants that frequented him, were naturally in
quarrel; and frequent fightings had fallen out, not generally to the
profit of the Jomsburgers, who at last determined on revenge, and the
rooting out of this obstructive Hakon Jarl. They assembled in force
at the Cape of Stad,—in the Firda Fylke; and the fight was dreadful
in the extreme, noise of it filling all the north for long afterwards.
Hakon, fighting like a lion, could scarcely hold his own,—Death or
Victory, the word on both sides; when suddenly, the heavens grew
black, and there broke out a terrific storm of thunder and hail,
appalling to the human mind,—universe swallowed wholly in black
night; only the momentary forked-blazes, the thunder-pealing as of
Ragnarok, and the battering hail-torrents, hailstones about the size
of an egg. Thor with his hammer evidently acting; but in behalf of
whom? The Jomsburgers in the hideous darkness, broken only by
flashing thunder-bolts, had a dismal apprehension that it was probably
not on their behalf (Thor having a sense of justice in him); and
before the storm ended, thirty-five of their seventy ships sheered
away, leaving gallant Bue, with the other thirty-five, to follow as
they liked, who reproachfully hailed these fugitives, and continued
the now hopeless battle. Bue's nose and lips were smashed or cut
away; Bue managed, half-articulately, to exclaim, "Ha! the maids
('mays') of Funen will never kiss me more. Overboard, all ye Bue's
men!" And taking his two sea-chests, with all the gold he had gained
in such life-struggle from of old, sprang overboard accordingly, and
finished the affair. Hakon Jarl's renown rose naturally to the
transcendent pitch after this exploit. His people, I suppose chiefly
the Christian part of them, whispered one to another, with a shudder,
"That in the blackest of the thunder-storm, he had taken his youngest
little boy, and made away with him; sacrificed him to Thor or some
devil, and gained his victory by art-magic, or something worse." Jarl
Eric, Hakon's eldest son, without suspicion of art-magic, but already
a distinguished viking, became thrice distinguished by his style of
sea-fighting in this battle; and awakened great expectations in the
viking public; of him we shall hear again.
The Jomsburgers, one might fancy, after this sad clap went visibly
down in the world; but the fact is not altogether so. Old King
Blue-tooth was now dead, died of a wound got in battle with his
unnatural (so-called "natural") son and successor, Otto Svein of the
Forked Beard, afterwards king and conqueror of England for a little
while; and seldom, perhaps never, had vikingism been in such flower as
now. This man's name is Sven in Swedish, Svend in German, and means
boy or lad,—the English "swain." It was at old "Father Bluetooth's
funeral-ale" (drunken burial-feast), that Svein, carousing with his
Jomsburg chiefs and other choice spirits, generally of the robber
class, all risen into height of highest robber enthusiasm, pledged the
vow to one another; Svein that he would conquer England (which, in a
sense, he, after long struggling, did); and the Jomsburgers that they
would ruin and root out Hakon Jarl (which, as we have just seen, they
could by no means do), and other guests other foolish things which
proved equally unfeasible. Sea-robber volunteers so especially
abounding in that time, one perceives how easily the Jomsburgers could
recruit themselves, build or refit new robber fleets, man them with
the pick of crews, and steer for opulent, fruitful England; where,
under Ethelred the Unready, was such a field for profitable enterprise
as the viking public never had before or since.
An idle question sometimes rises on me,—idle enough, for it never can
be answered in the affirmative or the negative, Whether it was not
these same refitted Jomsburgers who appeared some while after this at
Red Head Point, on the shore of Angus, and sustained a new severe
beating, in what the Scotch still faintly remember as their "Battle of
Loncarty"? Beyond doubt a powerful Norse-pirate armament dropt anchor
at the Red Head, to the alarm of peaceable mortals, about that time.
It was thought and hoped to be on its way for England, but it visibly
hung on for several days, deliberating (as was thought) whether they
would do this poorer coast the honor to land on it before going
farther. Did land, and vigorously plunder and burn south-westward as
far as Perth; laid siege to Perth; but brought out King Kenneth on
them, and produced that "Battle of Loncarty" which still dwells in
vague memory among the Scots. Perhaps it might be the Jomsburgers;
perhaps also not; for there were many pirate associations, lasting not
from century to century like the Jomsburgers, but only for very
limited periods, or from year to year; indeed, it was mainly by such
that the splendid thief-harvest of England was reaped in this
disastrous time. No Scottish chronicler gives the least of exact date
to their famed victory of Loncarty, only that it was achieved by
Kenneth III., which will mean some time between A.D. 975 and 994; and,
by the order they put it in, probably soon after A.D. 975, or the
beginning of this Kenneth's reign. Buchanan's narrative, carefully
distilled from all the ancient Scottish sources, is of admirable
quality for style and otherwise quiet, brief, with perfect clearness,
perfect credibility even, except that semi-miraculous appendage of the
Ploughmen, Hay and Sons, always hanging to the tail of it; the grain
of possible truth in which can now never be extracted by man's art!(6)
In brief, what we know is, fragments of ancient human bones and armor
have occasionally been ploughed up in this locality, proof positive of
ancient fighting here; and the fight fell out not long after Hakon's
beating of the Jomsburgers at the Cape of Stad. And in such dim
glimmer of wavering twilight, the question whether these of Loncarty
were refitted Jomsburgers or not, must be left hanging. Loncarty is
now the biggest bleach-field in Queen Victoria's dominions; no village
or hamlet there, only the huge bleaching-house and a beautiful field,
some six or seven miles northwest of Perth, bordered by the beautiful
Tay river on the one side, and by its beautiful tributary Almond on
the other; a Loncarty fitted either for bleaching linen, or for a bit
of fair duel between nations, in those simple times.
Whether our refitted Jomsburgers had the least thing to do with it is
only matter of fancy, but if it were they who here again got a good
beating, fancy would be glad to find herself fact. The old piratical
kings of Denmark had been at the founding of Jomsburg, and to Svein of
the Forked Beard it was still vitally important, but not so to the
great Knut, or any king that followed; all of whom had better business
than mere thieving; and it was Magnus the Good, of Norway, a man of
still higher anti-anarchic qualities, that annihilated it, about a
century later.
Hakon Jarl, his chief labors in the world being over, is said to have
become very dissolute in his elder days, especially in the matter of
women; the wretched old fool, led away by idleness and fulness of
bread, which to all of us are well said to be the parents of mischief.
Having absolute power, he got into the habit of openly plundering
men's pretty daughters and wives from them, and, after a few weeks,
sending them back; greatly to the rage of the fierce Norse heart, had
there been any means of resisting or revenging. It did, after a
little while, prove the ruin and destruction of Hakon the Rich, as he
was then called. It opened the door, namely, for entry of Olaf
Tryggveson upon the scene,—a very much grander man; in regard to whom
the wiles and traps of Hakon proved to be a recipe, not on Tryggveson,
but on the wily Hakon himself, as shall now be seen straightway.
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(6) G. Buchanani Opera Omnia, i. 103, 104 (Curante Ruddimano,
Edinburgi, 1715).
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