Sweden. Victor Alfred Nilsson
the land after having caused the death of her husband and his brother. When it was learned that King Ivar, nephew of Gudrod, had entered Svithiod with an army, Asa counselled her father to set fire to the hall of the king after his men were drunk and asleep. Thus perished Ingiald Illrade with his daughter, very much in the same fashion in which he had killed so many of the petty kings.
For the centuries following upon Ingiald’s death, Snorre has a very short, or almost no account to give about Sweden and her rulers. What can be gathered from other sources, principally from late Icelandic sagas, is not trustworthy, mythical and fictitious elements being discernible.
After Ingiald, Ivar Vidfamne (the Far-stretching) is said to have ruled Sweden, “also Denmark, Saxonland, all of Austria and one-fifth of England.” One account has it that Ivar was the head of a new dynasty in Sweden. As he was originally king of Scania, perhaps these were the real Ynglings. Another source claims for the succeeding Swedish kings descent from the old race of the Ynglings (viz., the Skilfings). Ingiald’s son Olof, according to Snorre, fled to the woods of Vermland, until then uninhabited, and later came to Norway. But it is a misunderstanding of Thiodulf’s lines which causes Snorre to say that King Olof was buried close by the Lake Venar, in Vermland. The province of Vermland was inhabited much earlier than in Olof’s time, and the Olof who became the founder of a Norwegian dynasty was probably a Danish prince.
Harald Hildetand of Denmark is said to have succeeded Ivar, and to have ruled over as much territory as his mother’s father. Several sources speak of King Harald and the battle of Bravols, in which his life was ended and which battle generally is taken as a historic milestone, marking the opening of the Viking Age. It was fought somewhere about the year 740. King Harald had become old and almost blind. In Svithiod and West Gothland, the kings Sigurd and Ring (by the sagas made into one hero by the name “Sigurd Ring”) ruled under Harald, while he reigned himself over Denmark and East Gothland. The relations were good at first, but their aspect soon changed. After great preparations on either side, Ring met Harald on the plains of Bravik in East Gothland. The battle was a long and bloody one and the most renowned in song and saga. King Harald, too old to take an active part, mounted a chariot, which carried him into the midst of the fight. When King Ring at last saw the chariot empty, he understood that the aged king had fallen and gave the sign that the battle should come to an end. King Ring caused the remains of his fallen foe to be burned with great pomp and ceremony on a pile with his horse, weapons and many a costly treasure of gold and silver. King Ring was said to have been ruler of Sweden and Denmark after King Harald. The sagas mention the hero, Ragnar Lodbrok, as his son and successor. While this great viking and sea-king appears to have been a historic personage in the earlier half of the ninth century, it is impossible that he could have been identical with King Ring’s son Ragnar, or that he or his sons ever were kings in Upsala or Sweden.
With the first attempts to introduce Christianity into Sweden (of which more later) a more definite knowledge of Swedish rulers and conditions is gained. When Ansgar, the apostle of Sweden, visited the country for the first time, about 830, the ruling king was Biœrn. Shortly afterward King Anund is mentioned. He fled from his land, but was reinstated with the help of the Danes. King Olof was on the throne at the time of Ansgar’s second visit to Sweden, about 850. These kings must have been of the same family as those who held the throne up to the middle of the eleventh century, for their names all occur again in the line of later Swedish kings, the reigns of whom fall in the broad light of history.
We have seen how Ingiald Illrade joined the various communities into one single realm. Although there is doubt whether this realm from the start embraced all Sweden, there is no historical evidence or any reliable traditions whatever to show that Sweden was ever divided into smaller kingdoms after the death of King Ingiald. When Ansgar reaches Sweden he travels through half of the country in order to reach the commercial centre of Birka, where the king of Sweden is dwelling. No other king, great or petty, is spoken of, while the contemporary Icelanders mention jarls (earls) in Gothaland, which proves that the once independent kings in that district were made away with.
Of particular importance is the account of a journey which a certain Wulfstan made to the North, at the close of the ninth century. This account is given in an Old English translation of Orosii Historia, credited to King Alfred of England. Thus it runs: “Wulfstan said that he went from Schleswig to Truso in seven days, that the ship was all the way running under sail. Wendland was on his right, but Langeland, Lolland, Falster and Scania on his left, and all these lands belong to Denmark, and then Bornholm was on our left, which has a king of its own. Then after Bornholm, the lands of Bleking, Mœre, Œland, and Gotland, were first on our left, and these lands belong to Sweden.”
Wulfstan’s account, besides furnishing evidence to prove the political consolidation of Sweden, also gives a good idea of the size of the country in this period. The once independent province of Scania, which had kings of its own, already belongs to Denmark. So does also the province of Halland, while Bohuslæn belongs to Norway. Dal and Vermland are contested provinces between the kings of Sweden and Norway, while great parts of Norrland are yet uninhabited, except by Laps, who ramble from one place to another, without a fixed dwelling place. In King Alfred’s Orosius, Danish Jutland and Swedish Gautland (Gothaland) are alike called Gotland, which recalls the supposition of the majority of modern scholars that Gotland was in the earliest times the common Teutonic name of the North, and Goths the common name of its Teutonic inhabitants.
CHAPTER III
The Viking Age—Ansgar, the Apostle of Sweden
“In the North there is a great ocean, and in this ocean there is a large island called Scandza, out of whose loins our race burst forth like a swarm of bees and spread over Europe.” These were the words the Gothic historian Jordanes put on parchment, inspired by the popular traditions of a Teutonic migration from the North. Historic evidence is lacking to prove or disprove the truth of these words. But they may be applied to the phenomenon which has given its name to the Viking Age.
The Viking expeditions seem to stand in connection with the great Teutonic migrations, at least to be related to them in nature. The Teutons of the North were not directly affected by the migrations, but at the close of the eighth century the same restlessness and desire of expansion appear to have taken possession of the Northmen as in earlier times of their relatives in more southerly lands. And it was a timely move, for the energy and strength with which these had in their time suffused Europe were dying out. Europe was in need of new blood and iron to wake her from her anæmia and to build up new institutions. The North was freed from a turbulent and lawless element and was brought in closer contact than ever before with the learning and culture of the world. For centuries the Northmen had through their southern kinsmen been in contact with continental culture. But now they came out to see for themselves, to make themselves a place in a wider and richer world, or to bring home from there what they most desired of beauty, riches and culture. They were not delicate as to means. Violence was with them as natural as their freedom of individuality was indispensable. Yet they were to play a most important part in the cultural development of Europe, furnishing her with institutions of imperishable iron and changing the darkness of the Middle Ages into an era of chivalry in spirit and in deeds.
The Viking expeditions were always undertaken by free men, and were in the North, from remotest times, considered not only an honest but an honorable occupation. Slaves and freed men were excluded. The leaders—often kings or their sons—were always men of noble descent or of importance. As the Viking expeditions took on larger proportions, they became more and more organized; from random expeditions, undertaken by individuals, they developed into national undertakings, led by the king or his chieftains, not for a pastime, but in completion of a national policy. On account of this latest aspect, it is but just to divide the field in which the Northmen were active according to their respective nationalities. With such a division applied, the Viking expeditions to the West, to Britain, France, Portugal and Spain do not pertain to Swedish history, for they were planned and undertaken principally by Danes and Norwegians. It is true that