The time came--as well in Norway as in Denmark and Sweden, and as it appears to come sooner or later in all lands--when the most powerful of the numerous chiefs forced the rest to submit, and united all into one kingdom. “Harold of the fair hair” descended from the Ynglings of Upsala, children of the God Frey, was the chief of Ringerike and Vestfold in the south of Norway, a valiant and persistent warrior. He succeeded in subjugating the whole country, and founded a dynasty which lasted for five centuries. Harold reigned from 860 to 930 A.D. His reign was the period of adventurous expeditions and of colonisation. The population was increasing, and some of the chiefs could not brook the enforced allegiance to an overlord. The spirit of adventure and discovery was in the air. The northern Vikings loved the freedom of a roving life upon the ocean. Brave and fearless, they were controlled only by their code of honour, and the precepts of Odin’s rules contained in the Havamel or high song of Odin, and in the lay of the Valkyrie Sigfrida alone restrained them. Their fleets were the terror of all the coasts of western Europe, and no creek or haven was safe from the ravages of their leaders. Such a man was Rolf the Ganger, a chief in Nordmore, who finally established himself as Duke of Neustria. His commanding ability and statesmanship were shown by his great and enduring achievement. Other Vikings settled in the Faroes, Shetlands, Orkneys, Caithness, and the chief harbours of Ireland. Naddod seized the Faroes, and in 863 Gardar Svafarson reached the coast of Iceland. It is curious that both in the Faroes and in Iceland Irish monks were found, who had gone there to find lonely places as dwellings for anchorites. They went away on the arrival of the Norsemen, as they would not live with heathens. The great event of the period of Harold Haarfager was the colonisation of Iceland. It was a forbidding home, yet the leading men of the Norwegian fjords settled there in numbers. Ingulf Ormsson, who came in 875, was the first. Two years afterwards Gunnbjörn Ulfson followed, sailing westward until he discovered islets (doubtless on the east coast of Greenland) which were afterwards called Gunnbjörn’s Skerries. He turned back, and shaped a course for Iceland, which he had passed without knowing it.