"Now," said the messengers, "thou hast taken the sword, as our king wished, and thou art therefore his sword-taker or vassal."
Harold was angry at having been thus tricked, but did not molest the messengers. The next year, however, he sent his young son Haakon with an embassy to Ethelstan. They found the king in London, and were well received by him. The spokesman of the embassy then placed the boy, Haakon, on Ethelstan's knee, saying, "King Harold begs thee to foster this child of his servant-maid."
Ethelstan angrily drew his sword, as if he would kill the child; but the spokesman said: "Now that thou hast once put him upon thy knee, thou mayst murder him, if it please thee; but thereby hast thou not slain all King Harold's sons."
To foster another man's child was in Norway regarded as an acknowledgment of inferiority; and Harold had thus repaid Ethelstan in his own coin. There are, however, several circumstances which make the story suspicious. In the first place Ethelstan and his ancestors had had too severe an experience of Norsemen and Danes to wish to challenge the mightiest of them by a wanton insult; and again, it is more credible that Harold sent his youngest son out of the country for his own safety,[A] than in order to play an undignified trick upon a foreign king. At all events, Haakon was treated with the greatest kindness by the English king, and won his affection.
[A] See Munch, i., 591.
When Harold the Fairhaired was eighty years old, he felt no longer able to bear the burden of the government. He therefore led Erik to his royal high-seat, and abdicated in his favor. Three years later he died (933), after having ruled over Norway for seventy-three years.
