THE NORWEGIAN JUBILEE.

Southland Times, Issue 1660, 12 November 1872, Page 3

THE NORWEGIAN JUBILEE.

. « The Times' Norwegian correspondent, writing from Ohristiania, July 18, says : — la every part of Norway a festival is this day being celebrated, in memory of that fusion of her petty kingdoms into one realm, which was completed just 1000 years ago. Tradition relates how one of feW many kinglings of the land — Harold, afterwards called " Fair Hair" — asked for the hand of Githa, a daughter of another petty Prince, but the only answer he got from her was that she would only listen to his suit when he had laid all Norway under his feet. After a long series of weary struggles and conflets, he actually succeeded in accomplishing this task. One Prince after another was forced to bow before him, and at last, in a bloody sea-fight at Hafsfjord, he, in the year 872, was able to crush all opposition to bis absolute rule. This ia the eyent from which it is usual, when speaking of a distinct period, to reckon Norway's consolidation into one kingdom, and it ia with this deed of arms, after a thousand years, that the festivities of today are more immediately connected. Several years ago, a general wish was expressed that a monument should he raised over the grave of Norway's first king, as the man with whose name history has especially connected the tradition of consolidation of the kingdom, and that it should be inaugurated on the thousandth anniversary of the Battle of Hafsfjord. In choosing a place, therefore, for the monument, a spot has necessarily been selected which is designated as the resting-place of the great King by a very unsafe tradition. By a peculiar accident, Harold was buried but a few miles from the Fjord on which he completed his conquest of Norway. Hafsfjord, where in 872 he fought his crowning battle against the last of his foes, is a little bay on the south side of the entrance to the broad Stavanger Fjord, where the Island of Karm, off which Haugesund lies, touches the northern side of the Stavanger Fjord.