Harald's rule asking of Norway following the assassination of KingHarald Greycloak of Norway was more tenuous, most likely lasting for no more than a few years in the 970s. Some sources say his sonSweyn Forkbeard forcibly deposed him from his Danish throne before his death.
Curmsun disc with "Harald" inscription (Arald Curmsun) at the top lines
Harald's name is written asrunicharaltr : kunukʀ (ᚼᛅᚱᛅᛚᛏᚱ ᛬ ᚴᚢᚾᚢᚴᛦ) in theJelling stone inscription. In normalizedOld Norse, this would correspond toHaraldr konungr, i.e. "Haraldking". The Latinized name as given in the medievalDanish chronicles isHaraldus Gormonis filius (Harald, Gorm's son). The given nameHaraldr (alsoHaralldr) is the equivalent of Old EnglishHereweald, Old High GermanHeriwald, fromhari "army" andwald- "rule".[3] Harald's name is also inscribed on the so-calledCurmsun disc, rediscovered in 2014 (but part of a Viking hoard previously discovered in 1841 in the crypt of theGroß-Weckow village church inPomerania, close to the Viking Age stronghold ofJomsborg), as+ARALD CVRMSVN + REX AD TANER + SCON + JVMN + CIV ALDIN, i.e. "Harald Gormson, king ofDanes,Scania,Jumne, [in]Bishopric of Aldinburg [de]".[4]
The first documented appearance of Harald's nickname "Bluetooth" (asblatan; Old Norse*blátǫnn) is in theChronicon Roskildense (written c. 1140), alongside the alternative nicknameClac Harald.[5]Clac Harald appears to be a conflation of Harald Bluetooth with the legendary or semi-legendaryHarald Klak, son ofHalfdan. The byname is given asBlachtent and explicitly glossed as "bluish or black tooth" (dens lividus vel niger) in achronicle of the late 12th century,Wilhelmi abbatis regum Danorum genealogia.[6]The traditional explanation[according to whom?] is that Harald must have had a conspicuous bad tooth that appeared "blue" (i.e. "black", asblár "blue"meant "blue-black", or "dark-coloured").Another explanation, proposed byScocozza (1997), is that he was called "bluethane" (or "dark thane") in England (with Anglo-Saxonthegn corrupted totan when the name came back into Old Norse).[7]
The largerJelling stone, showing the inscription concerning Harald
During his reign, Harald oversaw the reconstruction of the Jelling runic stones, and numerous other public works. The most famous is fortifying the fortress of Aros (nowadaysAarhus) which was situated in a central position in his kingdom in the year 979. Some believe these projects were a way for him to consolidate economic and military control of his country and the main city.Ring forts were built in five strategic locations with Aarhus perfectly in the middle:Trelleborg onZealand,Borrering in eastern Zealand (the inner construction of this fort is still yet to be established),Nonnebakken onFunen,Fyrkat inHimmerland (northernJutland) andAggersborg nearLimfjord. All five fortresses had similar designs: "perfectly circular with gates opening to the four corners of the earth, and a courtyard divided into four areas which held large houses set in a square pattern."[8] A sixthTrelleborg of similar design, located atBorgeby, in Scania, has been dated to about 1000 and may have been built by King Harald and a second fort named Trelleborg is located near the modern town ofTrelleborg in Scania in present-day Sweden, but is of older date and thus pre-dates the reign of Harald Bluetooth.[citation needed]
He constructed the oldest known bridge in southern Scandinavia, the 5-metre (16 ft) wide and 760-metre (2,490 ft) longRavning Bridge at Ravning meadows.[citation needed]
While quiet prevailed throughout the interior, he turned his energies to foreign enterprises. He came to the help ofRichard the Fearless of Normandy in 945 and 963, while his son conqueredSamland, and after the assassination of KingHarald Greycloak of Norway, managed to force the people of that country into temporary subjugation to himself.
TheNorse sagas present Harald in a rather negative light. He was forced twice to submit to the renegade Swedish princeStyrbjörn the Strong of theJomsvikings- first by giving Styrbjörn a fleet and his daughterThyra, the second time by giving up himself as hostage, along with yet another fleet. When Styrbjörn brought this fleet toUppsala to claim the throne of Sweden, Harald broke his oath and fled with his Danes to avoid facing the Swedish army at theBattle of Fýrisvellir.[9]
This articleis missing information about the end of Harald's reign, his son's alleged rebellion, and his possible exile and death. Please expand the article to include this information. Further details may exist on thetalk page.(September 2025)
Harald's kingdom (in red) and his vassals and allies (in yellow)[a]
In the wake ofOtto I's death, Harald attacked Saxony in 973.Otto II counter-attacked Harald in 974, conquering Haithabu, Dannevirke and possibly large parts of Jutland.[10] Harald regained some of the seized territory in 983 when Otto II was defeated by the Saracens.[10]
As a consequence of Harald's army having lost to the Germans at theDanevirke in 974, he no longer had control of Norway, and Germans settled back into the border area between Scandinavia and Germany. They were driven out of Denmark in 983 by an alliance ofObodrite soldiers and troops loyal to Harald, but soon after, Harald was killed fighting off a rebellion led by his son Sweyn. He is believed to have died in 986, although several accounts claim 985 as his year of death. According toAdam of Bremen he died in Jumne/Jomsborg from his wounds.[11] His body was brought back to the Trinity Church in Roskilde where he was buried.[12]
The Curmsun Disc, found in Groß-Weckow,Pomerania, (after 1945Wiejkowo) is inscribed with "ARALD CVRMSVN" (Harald Gormson), calling him, in abbreviated Latin, "king of Danes, Scania,Jomsborg, town ofAldinburg". Based on this, Swedish archaeologist Sven Rosborn has proposed that Harald is buried at the church there, close to Jomsborg, in what is now Poland.[13][11][14]
TheHiddensee treasure, a large trove of gold objects, was found in 1873 on the German island ofHiddensee in the Baltic Sea. It is believed that these objects belonged to Harald's family.[16]
Harald introduced the first nationwide coinage in Denmark.[17]
Widukind of Corvey, writing during the lives of King Harald andOtto I (ruled 962–973), claims that Harald was converted by a "cleric by the name of Poppa" who, when asked by Harald to prove his faith in Christ, carried a "great weight" of iron heated by a fire without being burned.[18] According to 12th-century Danish historianSaxo Grammaticus in his workGesta Danorum, Poppa performed his miracle for Harald's sonSweyn Forkbeard after Sweyn had second thoughts about his own baptism.[19] Harald himself converted to Catholicism after a peace agreement with the Holy Roman Emperor (either Otto I or II).[20]
Adam of Bremen, writing 100 years after King Harald's death in "History of the Archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen", finished in 1076, describes Harald being forcibly converted byOtto I, after a defeat in battle.[21] However, Widukind does not mention such an event in his contemporaryRes gestae saxonicae sive annalium libri tres orDeeds of the Saxons. Some 250 years after the event, theHeimskringla relates that Harald was converted withEarl Haakon, byOtto II (ruled 973 – 983).[22]
A cleric named Poppo or Poppa, perhaps the same one, also appears in Adam of Bremen's history, but in connection withEric of Sweden, who had supposedly conquered Denmark (the fact that Eric conquered Denmark during the realm of Sweyn Forkbeard is explained by Saxo as a punishment of Sweyn'sapostasy).[23][24] The story of this otherwise unknown Poppo or Poppa's miracle and baptism of Harald is also depicted on the gilded altar piece in the Church of Tamdrup in Denmark (see image at top of this article). The altar itself dates to about 1200.[25] Adam of Bremen's claim regarding Otto I and Harald appears to have been inspired by an attempt to manufacture a historical reason for the archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen to claim jurisdiction over Denmark (and thus the rest of Scandinavia); in the 1070s, the Danish king was in Rome asking for Denmark to have its own arch-bishop, and Adam's account of Harald's supposed conversion (and baptism of both him and his "little son"Sweyn, with Otto serving as Sweyn's godfather) is followed by the unambiguous claim that "At that time Denmark on this side of the sea, which is called Jutland by the inhabitants, was divided into three dioceses and subjected to the bishopric of Hamburg."[21]
As noted above, Harald's father,Gorm the Old, had died in 958, and had been buried in a mound with many goods, after the pagan practice. The mound itself was from c. 500 BCE, but Harald had it built higher over his father's grave, and added a second mound to the south. Mound-building was a newly revived custom in the 10th century, perceivably as an "appeal to old traditions in the face of Christian customs spreading from Denmark's southern neighbors, the Germans".[26]
After his conversion, around the 960s, Harald had his father's body reburied in the church next to the now empty mound.[27] He had the Jelling stones erected to honour his parents.[28] The biography of Harald Bluetooth is summed up by this runic inscription from the Jelling stones:
King Harald bade these memorials to be made after Gorm, his father, and Thyra, his mother. The Harald who won the whole of Denmark and Norway and turned the Danes to Christianity.
Harald undoubtedly professed Christianity at that time and contributed to its growth, but with limited success in Denmark and Norway.[29]
Sweyn Forkbeard. Born about 960. Usually given as the son of Harald and Gunhild, though it is said in some of the older sagas that he was an illegitimate son.
The Bluetooth wireless specification design was named after the king in 1997,[30] based on an analogy that the technology would unite devices the way Harald Bluetooth united the tribes of Denmark into a single kingdom.[31][32][33] The Bluetooth logo consists of aYounger Futharkbind rune for his initials, H (ᚼ) and B (ᛒ).[34]
Hagrold, a 10th-century Danish Viking in Normandy, mentioned as a Danish king, who became conflated with Harald Bluetooth in a later historical account.
^Mortuo patre, [Haraldus] quinquaginta annos regnavit. Hic Christianus extitit cognomine Blatan sive Clac Harald. ed. Langebek (1772)p. 375Archived 14 April 2023 at theWayback Machine.
^ed. Ludewig,Reliquiæ Manuscriptorum, vol. IX, 591–650:Haraldus, hinc cognomento Blachtent, id est, dens lividus, vel niger
^Scocozza, Benito (1997), Politikens bog om danske monarker, København: Politikens Forlag,ISBN87-567-5772-7
^Skovgaard-Petersen, Inge (2003), Helle, Knut (ed.),"The making of the Danish kingdom",The Cambridge History of Scandinavia: Volume 1: Prehistory to 1520, Cambridge University Press, p. 176,ISBN978-0-521-47299-9,archived from the original on 8 January 2022, retrieved8 January 2022
^Widukind,Res gestae Saxonicae 3.65, ed. Paul Hirsch and Hans-Eberhard Lohmann, MGH SS rer.Germ. in usum scholarum (Hanover, 1935), pp. 140–141. Translated from Latin by Anders Winroth, 2006.
^Zeeberg, Peter (2000).Saxos Danmarkshistorie (e-book ed.). Gads Forlag. pp. 924–925.ISBN978-87-12-04745-2.
^Zeeberg, Peter (2000).Saxos Danmarkshistorie (e-book ed.). Gads Forlag. p. 1069.ISBN978-87-12-04745-2.
^Zeeberg, Peter (2000).Saxos Danmarkshistorie (e-book ed.). Gads Forlag. p. 1100.ISBN978-87-12-04745-2.
^Anders Winroth,Viking Sources in Translation, 2009.
^Anders Winroth, Viking Sources in Translation, in text drawing on a caption by Anders Winroth in Barbara Rosenwein,Reading the Middle Ages, (Peterborough, Ontario, 2006). p. 266.
^Rose, Mark."Gorm the Old Goes Home".Archaeology. Archaeological Institute of America.Archived from the original on 9 November 2022. Retrieved9 November 2022.
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