Stiklestad

Und Kiew ist jetzt Dreh- und Angelpunkt auch dieser heutigen Mission und die Reise dorthin ist das, womit es ge, äh, womit es hier anfängt.

Und wir können das Ganze auch ein wenig zeitlich verorten, denn die Geschichte hat nachgezeichnet, dass Harald im Jahr 1031 in Kiew wohl ankam, also ein gutes Jahr nach der Schlacht von Stiklestad.

Bedeutet, der ist jetzt immer noch, ne, 'n jugendlicher pubertierender T...

Wobei damals weiß ich nicht, ob die da noch pubertiert haben mit 16, aber, äh, ja, 16 Jahre alt ist der gute Harald.

Stattdessen befinden wir uns hier bei dieser ersten Mission, die wir für heute gespielt haben, noch voll in seiner Jugendzeit.

Genau genommen, als er gerade mal 15 Jahre alt war und er war hier in einer ganz berühmten Schlacht, nämlich der Schlacht von Stiklestad, an der Seite seines Halbbruders.

Und dieser Halbbruder ist niemand Geringere als der zu dieser Zeit aktuelle König Olaf, der König von Norwegen.

Das heißt, wir befinden uns hier im Jahr 1030.

Ach ja.

Na gut.

Also die Schlacht von Stiklestad.

Äh, ich erzähl jetzt so ein bisschen mal Vorgeschichte, wie es zu dieser Schlacht kam, denn das ist ja quasi der Startpunkt von dieser Mission und, und ich denke, da ist es ganz gut, so 'n bisschen Hintergrundgeschichte auch von dem aktuellen oder damals aktuellen König Olaf Haraldsson zu kennen.

They wouldn't even remember what they had done on the battlefield.

A later ruler of Norway, King Olaf Haraldsson, is said to use berserkers in one of the most famous battles in the country's history at Stiklestad in 1030.

But the berserkers' days are numbered because such animalistic behavior runs counter to the growing faith of Christianity.

In fact, Olaf himself will be canonized as St. Olaf for his campaign to spread the religion.

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.

He then takes the, the road south, as so many others before him had also done, to enter the service of the Byzantine emperor in Constantinople as a Varangian.

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.

Rest now, with the tide rolling in around a wise king's chair and the greatest of the northern empires shining for one bright moment before the dusk.

Norway, Olaf, and Stiklestad.

While Cnut was binding England and Denmark together, the third of his kingdoms, Norway, was living through a struggle of its own that would leave a deeper and more lasting mark than all the empire-building around it.

For Norway was the hardest of the Norse lands to rule, a country of steep valleys and proud, scattered chieftains who had never taken easily to a single master, and the effort to make it both a united kingdom and a Christian one came to a head in the life and death of one determined king.

For a time, it seemed that Cnut had added Norway to his empire without a battle, simply by paying the right men, and that Olaf's cause was finished.

But Olaf would not accept his loss, and after a time in exile he gathered what followers he could and came back to Norway to try to win his kingdom again by force.

In the year ten-thirty he marched into his old realm and met his enemies, a great gathering of the chieftains and farmers who had turned against him, at a place called Stiklestad.

There, in one of the most famous battles in all of Scandinavian history, Olaf's smaller force was overwhelmed and the king himself was cut down and killed on the field.