_Eystein_, the son of Halfdan, succeeded to the united crowns of Raumarik and Westfold. As the latter province was maritime, Eystein built vessels, and followed the ordinary as well as most honourable profession of his time,—that of piracy. According to the tradition which the poet Thiodulf perpetuated, he perished in one of his expeditions. He had the temerity to disembark on the coast of Varnia,—the king of which was a great magician,—to lay waste the region bordering on the sea; to carry to his ships everything upon which he could lay his hands, and to slaughter the cattle on the sea-shore. Scarcely had he embarked, when the wizard king arrived. The latter knew how to be avenged. Shaking his mantle in the air, and blowing from his mouth, another vessel suddenly appeared close to that of Eystein, and the spar which was used for distending the sails striking the king, who was sitting at the helm, he was thrown overboard. The sailors flew to his aid, but could not rescue him from the waves until the vital spark had fled. _Halfdan II._, the son of Eystein, is noted for a strange inconsistency in his conduct. To his followers—and as a piratical chief he had many—he gave, in the shape of wages, as many golden as other kings gave silver pieces of money; yet he almost starved them for want of food.[163] The sceptre was now swayed by _Gudred_, the son of Halfdan, who, from his chief pursuit, was called the hunter king. He was also called Gudred the Magnificent, probably from the extent of his dominions, no less than from his wealth. None of his predecessors understood better the art of profiting by matrimonial alliances. His first wife was Alfhilda, daughter of the king of Alfheim; and with her he received, as dowry, a part of Vingulmark. As this province was bounded on the north by Raumarik, on the west by Westfold,—both on the southern confines of Norway and Sweden,—it was a valuable acquisition. On her death, in looking round where his dominions could be most conveniently extended, the maritime coast of Agder, which lay to the south of Westfold, and which, like that province, is now a portion of Christiania, as Raumarik is of Aggerhus, he demanded Asa, daughter of that king. On the refusal of Harald to bestow the princess on him,—probably from a knowledge of his ulterior policy,—he equipped a fleet, sailed to the coast of Agder, disembarked, hastened to the royal abode, and assailed king Harald, who fell in the battle, together with the heir of the province. Agder therefore became an easy prey to this ambitious monarch. But it was his doom to fall by the hand of a domestic, at the instigation of his second wife, Asa, many years after. His states were now divided between _Olaf_ and _Halfdan_; the former his son by Alfhilda, the latter by Asa: the one reigned in the east (Vermeland), the other in the south. Vermeland, at this time, was tributary to the Swedish kings; its contiguity, indeed, to Upsal,