position as conqueror might have enabled him to enforce,—indispose the minds of a high-spirited prince and a warlike people, against the faith which he wished them to embrace.[99] [Sidenote: 964.] But miracles were no longer wrought in the time of the Othos. If Harald and some of his people outwardly conformed to the religion of Christ, they were still influenced by that of Odin. Besides, to both the national independence was dear; and we cannot be surprised at the hostile feeling with which the Danes regarded the Germans. During the life of the first Otho, indeed, there was outward harmony; but in about a year after the accession of the second (974), he joined the party of Henry duke of Bavaria, then a rebel, and made several irruptions into Saxony. On the defeat of that powerful vassal, Otho penetrated into Jutland, and advanced as far as the Sound which bears his name. With the result of this war we are not acquainted; but probably Harald submitted. The events, however, of both wars, which have been frequently confounded into one, are very doubtful. A more certain fact is, that the good fortune of Harald now forsook him. He failed in an expedition against Norway, which had thrown off its vassalage. Nor was this the worst: his son Sweyn, who had been baptized with him, rebelled against him. The motives which led the prince in this undutiful conduct are unknown. Probably the chief was the desire of power; and as his nature was ferocious, he scrupled not to bear arms against his father. There is also some reason to believe that he was the instrument of a great party,—the old pagans, who could not behold with much pleasure the gradual progress of the new faith, and the consequent decline of their own. _His_ conversion was not, like his father’s, very sincere; or, perhaps, he cared not for either religion, so that his ambition was gratified. As the pagans were still the more numerous subjects of the state, he became at once their patron and their tool. The war was short, and Harald was compelled to flee. He sought a refuge in Normandy, and by duke Richard, we are told, was restored to at least a portion of his dominions. How far this relation is true, we cannot, in the absence of contemporary authority, decide. A more certain fact is, that, in 991, he was assassinated by the procurement of his own son. He was walking on the skirts of a wood, when an arrow from the bow of a Jomsberg pirate belonging to a band in the pay of Sweyn, laid him in the dust.[100]