The greatest Norwegian - by Ed West - Wrong Side of History

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The greatest Norwegian<br>Harald Hardrada - your boys took a hell of a beating

Ed West<br>Jul 11, 2026

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England play Norway this evening. Here I analyse the most famous fixture between the two sides, held at Stamford Bridge in 1066 where King Harold’s team scored a spectacular victory against the much-fancied visitors. It is a sort-of extract from my short book on that momentous year.<br>The great drama of 1066, the year of three battles, saw three men fight for the English throne. The charismatic Harold Godwinson had no royal blood but was the choice of the Witan, being both the wealthiest noble in the kingdom and its most experienced and capable commander. Then there was Duke William of Normandy, one of the most frightening and effective rulers of this era of feudal anarchy. Inheriting his father’s land at the vulnerable age of nine, he survived a perilous childhood to rule as duke, even watching as one protector was stabbed to death in his bedroom. William was known to be merciless with those who opposed him, and with the death of his great-uncle Edward in England he now claimed the crown across the water.<br>The third contender was the most colourful, the Norwegian Harald Sigurdsson. This gigantic Thunderbolt of the North, as he was known, was famed for his great bravado, his violence and his sense of adventure. At a time when few heads of state fell into the liberal democratic bracket, Harald’s nickname Hardrada – hard ruler – suggests he was not a man to cross. One of his (supposed) party tricks was to win a siege by attaching burning wood to the wings of birds, which would then fly back to their nests within the city, starting a fire, a method originally thought up by the Vikings in Russia (caveat: this story may be totally made up).<br>Standing at 6’6”, Hardrada was described by one chronicler of the time as ‘the strongest living man under the sun’. He had blond hair, a long moustache and gigantic hands and feet, and one eyebrow higher than the other. He wore a distinctive mailcoat that went all the way down to protect his ankles, which his men called ‘Emma’ because it looked like a skirt.<br>As well as being an enthusiastic fan of violence, Harald was also obsessed with poetry; indeed he saw his whole life in terms of how it would sound in epic verse. Comparing Viking skaldic poetry to rap battles might sound like the sort of cringe-worthy analogy a teacher makes to desperately try to impress a class of bored teenagers, but in oral, pre-literate societies such poetry was often a celebration of masculine prowess. What mattered most to Vikings were the songs people would sing about them celebrating their heroic deeds, and how much they fear they inspired. Harald himself wrote poems, one of which went like this:<br>Now I have caused the deaths<br>Of thirteen of my enemies<br>I kill without compunction<br>And remember all my killings<br>Treason must be scotched<br>By fair means or foul…<br>Admittedly it’s not Wordsworth, but I’m sure it was well-received by his terrified courtiers.<br>Hardrada was the half-brother of King Olaf the Large, a notably strong Viking warrior who supposedly tore down London Bridge as a youth (although in the service of the King of England against some other Vikings). As a small boy Harald had shown his precocious side. When he and his two full brothers were asked what they wanted most in the world, the two older boys replied ‘corn and cattle’. Harold stared intensely and said ‘warriors’.<br>Their mother Åsta Gudbrandsdatter was herself a formidable figure, and once told her eldest son that she would rather he became king, even if it meant dying young, than living to old age and mediocrity like her second husband Sigurd Syr, Harald’s father. She got her wish, and the year that Harald was born, in 1015, his now 22-year-old brother Olaf took the throne.<br>Olaf endured a turbulent reign dominated by conflict with the leading petty kings, and he was eventually overthrown and exiled by Canute in 1028. Two years later he came to reclaim the throne, bringing with him 2,500 men, among them 15-year-old Harald. It didn’t go quite to plan. The night before the Battle of Stiklestad of July 29, 1030, Olaf had a dream in which a ladder came down from heaven and Jesus beckoned him, which can’t have been very encouraging. The next day that particular dream came true and Olaf was killed.<br>He won the propaganda war, at least. Canute placed his English wife Elfgifu in charge of Norway, and she proved so unpopular that a cult soon grew around the former king. It didn’t help that a famine hit the country, and eventually there was a campaign to dig up Olaf’s remains, which turned out to be incorruptible, a sign of sanctity; although Elfgifu tried to explain it away as the result of unusual soil content, no one was interested in her rationalist explanation and her husband’s former rival proved more powerful in death than in...