Fled the lusty Kiotvi then Before the Shock-head king of men, And bade the islands shield his flight. Warriors wounded in the fray, Beneath the thwarts all gasping lay, Where head-long cast they mourned the loss of light. So does an Icelandic skald describe the most important battle in the annals of the Norse.[1] Harald Shock-head had exalted himself, and said "I will be king" over the whole of Norway. He desired to wed the daughter of the kinglet of Hordaland. She was a maiden exceeding fair and withal somewhat high-minded. To Harald's messengers she answered in this wise: "I will not waste my maidenhood for the taking to husband of a king who has no more realm to rule over than a few folks. Marvellous it seems to me that there is no king minded to make Norway his own, and be sole lord thereof in such wise as Gorm of Denmark or Eric of Upsala have done." The messengers came back in wrath and told the king that Gyda (for so the maiden was called) was witless and overbold, but Harald answered that the maid had spoken nought of ill, and done nought worthy of evil reward. Rather he bade her much thank for her word; "For she has brought to my mind that matter which it now seems to me wondrous I have not had in my mind heretofore." And, moreover, he said: "This oath I make fast, and swear before that god who made me and rules over all things, that never more will I cut my hair nor comb it, till I have gotten to me all Norway, with the scat thereof and the dues, and all rule thereover, or else will I die rather." And so for ten winters his hair was neither cut nor combed, but during all those days the kinglets were being warred down, and at last, in 872, as monarch of all Norway, Harald took a bath and let his hair be combed. Jarl Rognvald sheared his locks and called him Harald Fairhair; the name by which he is known in history to-day.[2] Thus he wedded the fair Gyda, but unhappily he also took to wife more other maidens than one may count with ease. Their very numerous sons were soon waxen riotous men in the land and were not at one among themselves. The good work of their father they came near to undoing.