Haakon the Good Battles the Sons of His Brother, Eric Bloodaxe, 953-961
Around the year 934, shortly after the death of the Norway’s legendary King Harald Fairhair, his youngest son Haakon – raised in Northumbria by King Athelstan (Æthelstan) – returned to usurp the throne bequeathed to Harald’s beloved but unpopular son Eric Bloodaxe.
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Aud the Deepminded, Daughter of Ketill, Flees Scotland with her Grandchildren
Accounts conflict as to why Ketill (Björnsson) Flatnose, a Viking chieftain from Romsdal and the father of his “tall and portly” yet wisely regal second daughter, Aud the Deepminded, left Norway for the Hebrides (Suðreyjar) in the years of Harald Fairhair’s rise to power.
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King Harald Fairhair Unifies and Scatters Norway at the Battle of Hafrsfjord, 872
Harald I Fairhair (Harald Hårfagre, c. 850-c.932) the legendary and handsome heir to the Vestfold (Oslo) branch of the long-lasting Yngling dynasty, was ten years old when he became king following his father Halfdan the Black’s accidental death.
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Norway’s King Sigurd the Crusader, 1089-1130AD
There were numerous Christian crusades to the Holy Land but one of the more fabled was the Norwegian Crusade. Led by King Sigurd I Magnussen (Sigurd the Crusader) in 1107, the three-year crusade was the first led personally by a European king.
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