with great judgment, industry and success. His reign altogether is
counted to have been of over seventy years.

The beginning of his great adventure was of a romantic
character.--youthful love for the beautiful Gyda, a then glorious and
famous young lady of those regions, whom the young Harald aspired to
marry. Gyda answered his embassy and prayer in a distant, lofty
manner: "Her it would not beseem to wed any Jarl or poor creature of
that kind; let him do as Gorm of Denmark, Eric of Sweden, Egbert of
England, and others had done,--subdue into peace and regulation the
confused, contentious bits of jarls round him, and become a king;
then, perhaps, she might think of his proposal: till then, not."
Harald was struck with this proud answer, which rendered Gyda tenfold
more desirable to him. He vowed to let his hair grow, never to cut or
even to comb it till this feat were done, and the peerless Gyda his
own. He proceeded accordingly to conquer, in fierce battle, a Jarl or
two every year, and, at the end of twelve years, had his unkempt (and
almost unimaginable) head of hair clipt off,--Jarl Rognwald
(_Reginald_) of More, the most valued and valuable of all his
subject-jarls, being promoted to this sublime barber function;--after
which King Harald, with head thoroughly cleaned, and hair grown, or
growing again to the luxuriant beauty that had no equal in his day,
brought home his Gyda, and made her the brightest queen in all the
north. He had after her, in succession, or perhaps even
simultaneously in some cases, at least six other wives; and by Gyda
herself one daughter and four sons.

Harald was not to be considered a strict-living man, and he had a
great deal of trouble, as we shall see, with the tumultuous ambition
of his sons; but he managed his government, aided by Jarl Rognwald and