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Harald "Bluetooth" Gormsson (Old Norse: Haraldr blátonn Gormsson, Danish: Harald Blåtand Gormsen) (probably born c. 935) was a King of Denmark and Norway. He was the son of King Gorm the Old and of Thyra Dannebod. He died in 985 or 986 having ruled as King of Denmark from c. 958 and King of Norway for a few years probably around 970. Some sources say his son Sweyn Forkbeard forcibly deposed him as King. The Jellinge stones Harald had the Jelling stones erected to honour his parents.[2] The Encyclopædia Britannica considers the runic inscriptions as the most well known in Denmark.[3] 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." Denmark's conversion to Christianity King Harald Bluetooth's conversion to Christianity is a contested bit of history, not least because medieval writers such as Widukind of Corvey and Adam of Bremen give conflicting accounts of how it came about. Widukind of Corvey, writing during the lives of King Harald and Otto I, 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.[4] 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 by Otto I, after a defeat in battle.[5] However, Widukind does not mention such an event in his contemporary Res gestae saxonicae sive annalium libri tres or Deeds of the Saxons, which, considering Widukind was at least partly writing to promote Otto I and his family, is damning to Adam of Bremen's claims. Four hundred years later, the Heimskringla relates that Harald was converted with Earl Haakon, by Otto II.[6] A cleric named Poppa, perhaps the same one, also appears in Adam of Bremen's history, but in connection with Eric of Sweden, who had supposedly conquered Denmark (there is no evidence anywhere else that this happened).[7] 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 Tandrup in Denmark (see image at top of this article). The altar itself dates to about 1200.[8] 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."[5] 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."[9] After his conversion, around the 960s, Harald had his father's body reburied in the church next to the now empty mound, and erected one of the Jelling stones described above. Harald undoubtedly professed Christianity at that time and contributed to its growth, but with limited success in Denmark and Norway.[10] Reign During his reign, Harald oversaw the reconstruction of the Jelling runic stones, and numerous other public works. Some believe these projects were a way for him to consolidate economic and military control of his country. Ring forts were built in five strategic locations: Trelleborg on Sjælland, Nonnebakken on Fyn, Fyrkat in central Jylland, Aggersborg near Limfjord, and a second Trelleborg near the modern town of Trelleborg in Scania in present-day Sweden. 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."[11] A sixth Trelleborg of similar design, located at Borgeby, in Scania, has been dated to about 1000 and may also have been built by King Harald. He constructed the oldest known bridge in southern Scandinavia, the 5 meters wide, 760 meters long Ravninge Bridge at Ravninge meadows. While quiet prevailed throughout the interior, he turned his energies to foreign enterprises. He came to the help of Richard the Fearless of Normandy in 945 and 963, while his son conquered Samland, and after the assassination of King Harald Greycloak of Norway, managed to force the people of that country into temporary subjugation to himself. The Norse sagas present Harald in a rather negative light. He was forced twice to submit to the renegade Swedish prince Styrbjörn the Strong of the Jomsvikings- first by giving Styrbjörn a fleet and his daughter Thyra, the second time by giving up himself as hostage, along with yet another fleet. When Styrbjörn brought this fleet to Uppsala to claim the throne of Sweden, Harald broke his oath and fled with his Danes to avoid facing the Swedish army at the Battle of Fýrisvellir. As a consequence of Harald's army having lost to the Germans at the Danevirke 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 of Obodrite soldiers and troops loyal to Harald, but soon after, Harald was killed fighting off a rebellion led by his son Swein. He is believed to have died in 986, although several accounts claim 985 as his year of death. From 1835 to 1977 it was believed that Harald ordered the death of Haraldskær Woman, a bog body thought to be Gunnhild, Mother of Kings until radiocarbon dating proved otherwise.[12] Marriages and children: 1. Gyrid Olafsdottir, probably by 950. Thyra Haraldsdatter, married Styrbjörn the Strong Sweyn Forkbeard. Born about 960. Usually given as the son of Harald and Gyrid, though it is said in some of the older sagas that he was an illegitimate son. Haakon. Born in 961. Gunhilde. She married Pallig, Jarl and Ealdorman of Devonshire. It is thought that they both died in the St. Brice's Day massacre in November 1002. 2. Thora (Tova) the daughter of Mistivir in 970. She raised the Sønder Vissing Runestone after her mother. Bluetooth communication protoco "Bluetooth" now commonly refers to the Bluetooth wireless specification design started by Ericsson, Nokia, Intel, Toshiba and IBM, to enable cable-free connections between computers, mobile phones, PDAs, printers, etc. The Bluetooth communications protocol in these devices is named after this king, ostensibly due to his abilities to make diverse factions communicate with each other. According to legend, he gained the nickname "Bluetooth" from his love of blueberries, which stained his teeth. The Bluetooth logo consists of the Nordic runes for his initials, H and B (Long-branch runes version).[13] References Jump up ^ "Tamdrup Kirke". Den store danske. Jump up ^ megalithic.co.uk C. Michael Hogan, "Jelling Stones", Megalithic Portal, editor Andy Burnham Jump up ^ books.google.com Encyclopædia Britannica Jump up ^ 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. ^ Jump up to: a b Adam of Bremen, History of the Archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen, trans. Francis J. Tschan (New York, 2002), pp. 55-57. Jump up ^ [emotionalliteracyeducation.com "Heimskringla"]. Jump up ^ Adam of Bremen, History of the Archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen, trans. Francis J. Tschan (New York, 2002), pp. 77-78. Jump up ^ Anders Winroth, Viking Sources in Translation, 2009. Jump up ^ Anders Winroth, Viking Sources in Translation, in text drawing on a caption by Anders Winroth in Barbara Rosenwein, Reading the Middle Ages, (Peterborough, Ont., 2006). p. 266. Jump up ^ Latourette, Kenneth Scott (1975). A History of Christianity. New York: HarperCollins. p. 87. ISBN 0-06-064952-6. Jump up ^ Fortehad, Oram and Pedersen, Viking Empires, Cambridge University Press (2005) p. 180. ISBN 0-521-82992-5 Jump up ^ " Haraldskaer Woman: Bodies of the Bogs", Archaeology, Archaeological Institute of America, December 10, 1997 Jump up ^ Bluetooth, About the Bluetooth SIG. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
William B.
