“My wounds were bleeding as I rode,
  And down the hill the bonders strode,
  Killing the wounded with the sword,
  The followers of their rightful lord.
  From wood to wood I crept along,
  Unnoticed by the bonder throng;
  ‘Who knows,’ I thought, ‘a day may come,
  My name may yet be great at home.’”
 

As soon as his wounds were healed, Harald took refuge in Russia, and thence travelled to Constantinople, where he became one of the renowned guards of the Greek Emperor, composed of hired Northmen and Saxons, and called Vaeringer, or Varangians, from the word Wehr, a defence. He went from Constantinople to the Holy Land, bathed in the Jordan, paid his devotions at Jerusalem, and killed the robbers on the way. Strange stories were told of his adventures at Constantinople, of the Empress Zoe having fallen in love with him, and of his refusal to return her affection; upon which she raised an accusation against him, that he had misapplied the pay of the Vaeringers, and threw him into prison, whence, as the story related, he was freed by a lady, who was commissioned to rescue him by St. Olaf, his brother, who appeared to her in a dream. She brought him a rope ladder, and he escaped to his ship, broke through the chains that guarded the harbor, and sailed northward through the Black Sea, composing on his voyage sixteen songs in honor of Elisif, the Russian king’s daughter, whom he married on his arrival at Novogorod. He obtained with her great riches, which he added to the treasures he had brought from Constantinople.

St. Olaf’s son, Magnus, was reigning in Norway, and Harald Hardrada designed to obtain from him a portion of the kingdom, to winch, by the old Norwegian law, every descendant of Harald Harfagre had an equal claim. Harald united with his cousin Swend, who had been dispossessed of an earldom by Magnus, and they advanced together; but Harald was inclined, if possible, rather to decide the matter by a treaty, than by force of arms; while Swend, on the other hand, wished for war and revenge.

One evening, as the two allies were sitting together, Swend asked Harald what he valued most of all his property.

“My banner, Land-Waster,” answered Harald.

“And wherefore?”

“It has always been said that this banner carries victory with it, and so I have ever found it.”

“I will believe in that when thou hast borne it in three battles with thy nephew Magnus, and won them all.”

“I know my kindred with king Magnus,” answered Harald, “without thy recalling it; and though we are now in arms against him, our meeting may be of another sort.”

They came to high words, Swend reproaching his ally with breaking his agreement. Harald distrusted his intentions, and, at night, did not, as usual, sleep in a tent on the deck of his ship, but left a billet of wood in his place. At midnight a man rowed silently up to the side of the ship, crept up to the tent, and struck so violent a blow with his axe, that it remained sticking in the wood, while the murderer retired to his boat, and rowed away in the dark.

Harald, convinced of this treachery, deserted Swend, and went to join Magnus, who met him in a friendly manner, and invited him, with sixty of his men, to a banquet.

After the feast, Magnus went round the table, distributing gifts of robes and weapons to the sixty men; but when he came to Harald, he held up two sticks, and asked which of them he would choose. Harald took the nearest, and Magnus declared that therewith he gave up to him half his power and land in Norway, making him of equal right with himself, and only reserving the first seat when they should be together at any time.

Harald sent for all the treasure he had brought home, declaring that they would likewise divide their riches; and the gold was weighed out, and placed in two equal heaps, each on an ox-hide. But Magnus had no riches to contribute, for he said that the turmoils in the country had so impoverished him, that all the gold he possessed was the ring on his finger, which his father, St. Olaf, had given him at their last parting. Even this, Harald said, smiling, perhaps belonged rightfully to him, since it was, at first, the property of his father, Sigurd Syr. However, the two kings parted amicably, and reigned together without disagreements of any consequence, for the remembrance of St. Olaf seemed always to be a link between his son and brother. Magnus, the more gentle of the two, died just as his uncle had led him to enter on a war of ambition with Swend, King of Denmark.

Norwegian traditions relate that he dreamt that his father, St. Olaf, appeared to him, saying, “Wilt thou choose, my son, to follow me, or to become a long-lived and powerful king, at the cost of a crime that can never be expiated?”

“Do thou choose for me, father,” he answered.

“Then follow me,” replied the spirit.

Magnus awoke, told the dream, sickened, and died, leaving the whole of Norway to Harald Hardrada, and declaring that it would be just not to molest Swend in his possession of Denmark.

Harald reigned prosperously, until, in an evil hour, he received Tostig, the son of Godwin, and listened to his invitation to come and invade England, and revenge him on his brother Harold. He fitted out a great armament, sailed up the Humber, plundered and burnt Scarborough, defeated the young earls of Mercia and Northumberland, and summoned York to surrender.

The citizens, dreading an assault, promised to yield the next day; and, accordingly, early in the morning, Hardrada, Tostig and a small band of followers, set out from their camp at Stamford Bridge, on the banks of the Ouse, to receive the keys. The day was bright and warm, though late in September, and the Northmen had left behind them their shirts of mail, and only bore sword, shield, and helmet; even Harald himself had left behind his hawberk Emma, and only wore a blue robe embroidered with gold, and a rich helmet.

As they were approaching the city, they suddenly beheld a cloud of dust, and beneath it the glitter of armor, glancing, as the Norwegians said, like sparkling ice. As they came nearer, they could distinguish the red dragon standard of Wessex, proving that there was the king whom they had supposed to be far away on the south coast, watching to prevent the landing of William of Normandy.

Though taken by surprise, outnumbered, and half-armed, Hardrada did not lose courage. He sent messengers to summon the rest of his men, and planting in the midst his banner, Land-Waster, ranged his troops round it in a circle, with the ends of their spears resting on the ground, and the points turned outward.

Twenty horsemen, in full armor, advanced from the Saxon army, and one of them, riding close up to the circle, called out, “Where is Earl Tostig, the son of Godwin?”

“He is here!” replied Tostig.

“Thy brother salutes thee, offers thee peace, his friendship, and the Earldom of Northumbria; nay, rather than not be friends with thee, he would give thee the third of his kingdom.”

“If he had held this language a year ago,” replied Tostig, who knew the speaker but too well, “he would have saved the lives of many men. But what will he offer my noble ally, King Harold Sigurdson?”

“Seven feet of English earth,” answered the horseman, proudly scanning the gigantic figure of the Sea-King, “or maybe a little more.”

“Then,” said Tostig, “King Harold, my brother, may prepare for battle. Never shall it be said that the son of Godwin forsook the son of Sigurd.” It must have been a strange look that passed between those two brothers, thus on the verge of a deadly strife, each surrounded with dangers that could scarcely be averted, and but of late actuated with bitter hate, but, at the decisive moment, that hatred giving way, and their hearts yearning to each other, with the memories of long-past days, yet both too proud to show how they were mutually touched, too far pledged to their separate parties to follow the impulse that would have drawn them once together in love. It was too late; the battle must be fought—the brothers’ deeds had decided their lot.

The Saxon horseman rode off, and the Norwegian King asked, who was the man who had been speaking so well.

“It was King Harold Godwinson,” said Tostig.

“Why did I not learn this sooner?” said Hardrada. “He should never have had to boast of the slaughter of our men.”

“It may have been imprudent,” said Tostig, “but he was willing to grant me peace and a great dominion. If one of us must die, I had rather he should slay me, than I slay him.”

So spoke Tostig, who had, of late, been rushing from country to country to stir up foes against his brother. Surely he would have given worlds to check the ruin he had wrought, though his sense of honor would not allow him to forsake his ally.

“He is but a little man, but he sits firmly in his stirrups,” returned Harald Hardrada; and then, to cheer his men in their desperate case, he chanted aloud one of his impromptu war-songs:

 
  “Advance, advance,
  The helmets glance;
  But blue swords play
  In our array.
 
 
  “Advance, advance,
  No hawberks glance—
  But hearts are here
  That know no fear.”
 

“These verses sound but ill,” said the Sea-King, interrupting himself; “we will make some better;” and, careful of his verses as a Skald in his last battle, as well as in his first, he sung:

 
  “In battle morn we seek no lee,
  With skulking head and bending knee,
  Behind the hollow shield;
  With eye and hand we guard the head,
  Courage and promptness stand instead,
  Of hawberk, on this field.”
 

It was his death-song. Early in the battle his throat was pierced by an arrow; and learning his death, Harold Godwinson sent once more to offer Tostig pardon, and leave to the Northmen to return home; but they refused quarter, and Tostig would not forsake them. The other Northmen from the ships joined them, and the fight raged with more fury than ever in the “death-ring,” as the Skalds termed it, round the banner Land-Waster. Tostig fell there, and only a few fled to their ships, protected by a brave Norseman, who stood alone to guard Stamford bridge, then only consisting of a few planks, till an Englishman crept under, thrust up his spear, and slew him from below.

However, Harold’s condition was too critical to allow of his wasting his strength on a defeated foe; he allowed Hardrada’s son to return unmolested to Norway with his fleet and the remains of his army, and he gave great offence to his men by not sharing the plunder of the camp with them.

So died the last of the Sea-Kings, by the last Anglo-Saxon victory.