The golden halls of Constantinople had given Harald everything he’d dreamed of as an exiled prince—wealth beyond measure, military glory, and a reputation that echoed across the known world.
But for all its splendor, the Byzantine Empire could never give him what his heart truly desired: a crown of his own and vengeance for his fallen brother.
Harold Hadrada’s Mysterious Escape from Constantinople
Harald’s departure from the imperial capital around 1043 remains shrouded in mystery and legend.
The sagas tell conflicting tales of imprisonment, forbidden love affairs, and death-defying escapes that read more like fantasy than history.
Some sources claim he was imprisoned by Empress Zoe, possibly over his involvement with a noblewoman named Maria. Others describe a dramatic nighttime escape involving a mysterious hooded woman, a dash through darkened streets, and a daring break through the great chain that guarded the Golden Horn.
Whether these tales contain grains of truth or are pure literary invention, one fact remains undisputed: Harald had been systematically sending his Byzantine wealth northward to Kiev, creating a treasure horde so immense that no one in northern Europe could recall ever seeing so much wealth in one man’s possession.
This wasn’t mere greed—it was strategy. Every gold solidus was a future soldier, every Byzantine coin a step closer to the Norwegian throne.
The Bride Price and the Homecoming
At twenty-eight, Harald returned to Kiev a changed man.
The awkward teenage exile had been forged into something harder and more formidable in the crucible of Byzantine politics and warfare. His intended bride, Elisif, had grown from a nine-year-old child into a nineteen-year-old princess, making their long-delayed union finally appropriate.
Their wedding in Kiev’s Cathedral of St. Sophia was more than a romantic culmination—it was a political alliance sealed with Byzantine gold.
Harald had fulfilled his promise to Yaroslav, delivering not just the bride price but establishing himself as a valuable connection between the northern kingdoms and the wealthy south.
Yet even as he celebrated his marriage, Harald’s eyes turned westward toward Norway. The crown remained his obsession, and now he finally had the means to claim it.
A Scandinavia Transformed
The northern world Harald returned to in 1045 bore little resemblance to the one he’d fled as a teenager.
Canute the Great was dead, and his North Sea empire crumbled. England was now ruled by Edward the Confessor, while Norway had fallen under the control of Harald’s nephew Magnus—the illegitimate son of his martyred brother Olaf.
Magnus had proven himself a skilled ruler, earning the epithet “the Good” through both political acumen and military success. He had even managed to become king of both Norway and Denmark, apparently achieving the kind of consolidated power Harald coveted.
The Uncle-Nephew Confrontation
The meeting between Harald and Magnus at Sigtuna in autumn 1045 reads like a scene from a saga—which, indeed, it may largely be. The sources describe Harald arriving in a ship with a gilded dragon’s head.
Harald’s proposal was audacious: divide the kingdom between them. Magnus, showing the diplomatic skills that had earned him his reputation, gave a noncommittal answer that amounted to polite refusal. But Harald had anticipated this. If he couldn’t share power with his nephew, he would take it through war.
What followed was a masterclass in psychological warfare wrapped in the language of family negotiation.
Eventually, Magnus agreed to share the kingdom if Harald would share his wealth—a reasonable proposition that revealed the younger king’s desperate financial situation.
The scene of the gold-weighing is one of the most vivid in the sagas. Harald made a theatrical display of his Byzantine fortune, pouring out chest after chest of gold while loudly proclaiming the risks he had taken to earn it.
When asked what he would contribute, Magnus produced a single golden arm ring—inheritance from his father Olaf.
Magnus’ Death Solves All Problems
Before this volatile arrangement could explode into civil war, fate intervened in the way it so often did in this era.
In 1047, Magnus died suddenly of fever while campaigning against the Danes, but not before allegedly receiving a prophetic dream from his father Olaf offering him a choice: a long life marked by a damning sin, or death in youth with salvation.
Magnus chose death and heaven, leaving Harald as the sole claimant to the Norwegian throne.
Everything he had fought for—from his desperate flight after Stiklestad to his years of service in distant Constantinople—had finally culminated in this moment. Harald Sigurdsson was now King Harald of Norway.
Norway – The Bitter Crown
Yet victory brought unexpected disappointment.
After decades of adventure, intrigue, and exotic glory, Harald found himself dealing with the mundane realities of medieval kingship: tax collection, Danish raids, and rebellious farmers. The Great Serpent, his magnificent warship, became a symbol of endless, futile campaigns against Denmark that achieved little beyond mutual exhaustion.
The young prince who had once walked the marble halls of Constantinople, who had fought alongside the Varangian Guard and charmed Byzantine aristocrats, now spent his days enforcing tax collection and suppressing provincial revolts. When Norwegian farmers refused to pay their levies in 1065, Harald’s response was brutal—a harrying campaign that left the uplands “ravaged and empty.”
It was this savage repression that earned him the nickname we know him by: Hardrada, meaning “hard ruler” or “ruthless.” The golden-haired adventurer had become something harder and colder, a king whose “verdict came with fire.”
The Stiffness in Harald’s Bones
By 1065, Harald was fifty years old, his golden hair faded, his body beginning to show the wear of decades of warfare. The sagas capture a sense of melancholy in these final years—a great man waiting for something, though he might not have been able to say what.
He had achieved everything he had set out to accomplish as a teenage exile. He was king of Norway, wealthy beyond imagination, and his name was known from Kiev to Constantinople. Yet there was something incomplete about it all, some final adventure that remained unfulfilled.
Then, on a cloudless day in 1066, a ship rounded the headland and turned into the fjord. On board was news that would offer Harald one last chance at glory—and change the course of English history forever.
Further Reading
If you enjoyed this article, you may enjoy these:
- Harald Hardrada: The Golden City and the Varangian Guard
- Harald Hardrada: From Viking Exile to Elite Byzantine Warrior
- Harald Hardrada’s Epic Journey
- Cnut the Conqueror: How a Viking Became King of England
- Blood on St. Brice’s Day: Æthelred’s Viking Massacre
- The Fear of the Year 1000: Apocalyptic Anxieties
- Tribute or Treason? Æthelred’s Gamble with the Vikings
- Kings and Queens of England Ranked from Worst to Best
- Why was the crowning of Charlemagne so important?
