Halfdan became the ancestor of the royal race of Norway, his son, Harald the Fairhaired, being the first king of united Norway. According to tradition, when Queen Ragnhild was with child she dreamed that she was standing in her herb-garden, and she took a thorn out of her chemise, and while she was holding it in her hand it grew into a great tree, one end of which struck roots into the earth, while the other raised itself in the air until she could hardly see the top or the end of its widely spread branches. The lower part of the tree was red with blood, but the stem was beautifully green, and the branches white as snow, and they spread over all Norway, and even much more. This dream was years afterward interpreted as having foretold the destiny of Ragnhild's son. One day in the spring of 860, when Halfdan the Swarthy was driving home from a feast across the Randsfjord, he broke through the ice and was drowned. He was so popular that when his body was found the leading men in each _Fylki_ demanded to have him buried with them, believing that it would bring prosperity to the district. They at last agreed to divide the body into four parts, which were buried in four different districts. The trunk of the body was buried in a mound at Stein, Ringerike, where a little hill is still called Halfdan's Mound. CHAPTER V _Harald the Fairhaired (860-930)--Norway United_ Harald was only ten years old when he succeeded his father. Many of the chiefs thought that it would be an easy matter now to divide the country between them, but Guthorm, a brother of Harald's mother, who was at the head of the government and commander of the army, soon subdued them. When Harald had become old enough to marry, he sent his men to a girl named Gyda, a daughter of King Erik of Hordaland, who was brought up as a foster-child in the house of a rich _Bonde_ in Valders. Harald had heard of her as a very beautiful though proud girl. When the men delivered their message, she answered that she would not marry a king who had no greater kingdom than a few _Fylkis_ (districts), and she added that she thought it strange "that no king here in Norway will make the whole country subject to him, in the same way as Gorm the Old did in Denmark, or Erik at Upsala." When the messengers returned to the king, they advised him to punish her for her haughty words, but Harald said she had spoken well, and he made the solemn vow not to cut or comb his hair until he had subdued the whole of Norway and had become the sole king.