Battle of Stiklestad

So where does he start his life? Where are his parents? Well, in Norway, he starts out the first time.

He was born in the year 1000, but we really don't hear about him until the Battle of Stiklestad.

Let me see that.

He was 15 years old then.

He was fighting in battles whilst a teenager.

So he started quite young, around the age of 15, and he fought alongside his half-brother, King Olav II of Norway, at the Battle of Stiklestad in 1030 AD.

Olaf was killed and Harald was wounded, forcing him to flee to Norway.

He ended up in what is now Ukraine.

So he begins his journey in 1030, uh, as a refugee from Norway.

His brother, Olaf Haraldsson, was killed at the Battle of Stiklestad trying to impose his vision of, of Christian unity on, on the Norwegian people.

And in fact, Olaf Haraldsson's death at, at Stiklestad in 1030 is the, is the moment that transforms him into the patron saint of Norway, and so that has its own whole own afterlife.

But Harald goes as a refugee first to Sweden, then to Rus, to Novgorod, and the court of, of Yaroslav, where he spends some time as a mercenary fighting Yaroslav's enemies.

By that time, Harald was about 15 years of age, a young man by medieval standards.

Harald is believed to have brought 600 men to Olaf’s banner, marching through Sweden towards Trondheim in Northern Norway, where on the 29th of July 1030, Olaf, Harald, and their other allies amongst the Norwegians and Swedes met a larger Norwegian force of nobles loyal to King Cnut at the Battle of Stiklestad.

After fierce fighting, Olaf incurred two wounds to his neck and knee, and whilst leaning on a rock, no doubt in a state of exhaustion and physical collapse, a spear was thrust up and under his chainmail coat and into his torso.

Then another warrior dispatched him with a sword thrust to the throat.

Afterwards, stories quickly developed about alleged miracles Olaf had performed during his lifetime, and his conversion to Christianity while in Normandy and his efforts to convert the people of Norway when king there were lionized, leading to his canonization as St Olaf by Pope Alexander III in 1164.

More immediately, with his death in battle, Olaf’s claim to the throne of Norway fell to his half-brother, Harald.

After the defeat at the Battle of Stiklestad, Harald, who had fought bravely by Olaf’s side, found refuge with a small band of followers on a remote farm in order to heal his wounds and plan his next moves.

After recovering, he traveled over the Norwegian border and across the Swedish mountains and forests before taking ship over the Baltic Sea and down the riverine route ways of Eastern Europe to the center of Norse habitation in the region, Kievan Rus, the capital of which was the city of Kyiv, capital of modern-day Ukraine.