Halfdan the Black
ninth-century king of Vestfold
Halfdan the Black (Old Norse: Halfdanr Svarti; fl. c. 9th century) was a king of Vestfold. He belonged to the House of Yngling and was the father of Harald Fairhair, the first king of a unified Norway.
In sagas
According to Íslendingabók, Heimskringla and Fagrskinna, Halfdan was the son of the Yngling King Gudrød the Hunter. Heimskringla also names his mother, as Åsa, daughter of King Harald of Agder, and his half-brother as Olaf Geirstad-Alf. Heimskringla relates that when Halfdan's father was killed, Åsa took the 1 year-old Halfdan and returned to Agder, where Halfdan was raised. When he was 18 or 19 years old, Halfdan became king of Agder. He quickly began adding to his kingdom, through political negotiation and military conquest. He divided the kingdom of Vestfold with his brother Olaf and, through military action, persuaded King Gandalf of Vingulmark to cede half his kingdom. Based on the formulaic nature of his ties to his predecessors, his strong affiliation with Agder, and the failure of an early saga dedicated to him to name any family connections, some scholars have suggested that the linkage to the earlier Yngling dynasty of Vestfold was a later invention, created to associate a conquering Halfdan and his son Harald Fairhair with the family glorified in the Ynglingatal, whom he had displaced.
Halfdan next is said to have subdued an area called Raumarike.
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Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 29, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q504932. VIAF identifies the subject as 296149106164968491145. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 3 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank.
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This entry incorporates text from “Halfdan the Black” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.