Early Kings of Norway

Early Kings of Norway is by Thomas Carlyle. The text says the Icelanders, in their long winter, had a great habit of writing, and that Snorro Sturleson's History of the Norse Kings is built out of these old Sagas. The Icelanders, it seems, not only made beautiful letters on their paper or parchment but have left a collection of narratives, Sagas, literally Says, unexampled among rude nations for quantity and quality.

Harald Haarfagr had a good many sons and daughters, and the daughters he married mostly to jarls of due merit who were loyal to him. Two of the sons, Halfdan Haaleg and Gudrod Ljome, jealous of the favors won by the great Jarl Rognwald, surrounded him in his house one night and burnt him and sixty men to death there. The text says Knut became indisputable sole King of England, and decisively settled himself to his work of governing there. The text says Olaf had decided to give up Vikingism in all its forms and to return to Norway.