Harald Harfagre HALVDANSEN, KING

                   SOURCES:
    Fusa Bygdebok, p. 657 Norse Family Saga, p. 56;64-65, FHL 929.2481 K831a Ancestral File Ordinance Index Vikings by Magnus Magnusson, Dutton Publishers, New York, p. 56 A History of the Vikings, by Gwyn Jones, pp. 88-89

NOTES:
    Harald Harfagre, or King Harold, the Fair-Haired, united all of Norway Had many wives and "frille-damer." Harald is a much revered figure in Norway's history. It is stated that he vowed he would not cut his hair until Norway was united, and did so ceremoniously when he felt that his goal had been achieved. This may be true or not, as much legend surrounds him. He had many sons by several wives and concubines. He is buried in a mound on Karmoy or by Haugasund in Rogaland, where he had long chosen to live. The history books call him the greatest king that Norway had ever known.
NOTES:
    According to early Icelandic historians, it was Harald's "tyranny" that provoked a mass exodus of the free-minded Norwegians to found new colonies westward over the sea. "Iceland was first settled from Norway in the days of Harald Fine-Hair, the son of Halfdan the Black...and that was 870 years after the birth of Christ...And then there came such a great movement of people out here from Norway that King Harald laid a ban on emigration, because he feared that Norway was being depopulated...It is said that Harald was king for seventy years, and lived to be eighty years old. --Ari the Learned: Book of Icelanders

NOTES:
    Worth to note that the final battle with the confederacy of chief- tains opposing Norway's unification took place near present-day Stavanger, and is known as the Battle of Hafrsfjord. "It was a long, hard fight," says Snorri Sturlusen, the early historian, "but eventu- ally King Harald won the day." Many of the sea-kings fell. The tradi- tional date of 872 for this battle is probably wrong. It is drawn from the works of the early Icelandic historians, who saw the settlement of Iceland itself as a direct outcome of Harald's subjugation of the independent chieftains of Norway. The latest scholarly thinking indicates that the Battle of Hafrsfjord probably took place around 890.