Page:The Heimskringla; or, Chronicle of the Kings of Norway Vol 3.djvu/400

 388 CHRONICLE OF THE NOTES. 1042. According to Snorro's narrative, (but 1041, on the 8th of June, according to the Saxon Chronicle,) Harda- canute died. King Magnus went to Denmark with a fleet to take possession of that kingdom in virtue of the agreement made in 1036. 1043. King Magnus appointed Swend Ulfsson, the nephew of Canute the Great, to be regent of Denmark. 1044. In spring King Magnus destroyed the castle of the Jomsburg vikings, supposed to have been in the island of Kugen or of WoUen, on the coast of Es- thonia. In autumn he gained the battle of Lyrskog Heath in Jutland, against the people of Vendland; and in winter the battle of Aarhus, against Swend Ulfson, who had assumed the sovereignty of Denmark. 1046. Harald Haardrade, who returned two years before from Constantinople, is received by his nephew King Mag- nus as joint king of Norway. 1047. King Magnus died 25th October in Jutland, and Harald Haardrade became sole king of Norway. Swend Ulfsson becomes sole king of Denmark, by King Magnus on his death-bed renouncing his right derived from Hardacanute. 1061. King Harald being blockaded by Swend's fleet in Lymfiord, drew his vessels across the narrow neck of sand which divided it from the North sea, and escaped. This fact is remarkable, as showing that neither the rising of the land above the level of the sea which modern geologists suppose, nor any change in the features of the north sea-coast of Jutland and Sleswick which historians assume took place, owing to extraordinary inundations or high tides in the 13th or 14th century, had altered the shape or nature of this low feature of the country during 800 years. This low sandy neck of land was only washed away in our times, viz. about 1816 ; and there is now a channel with eight or nine feet depth of water where this narrow land-road, dividing the Lymfiord from the North sea, existed from the earliest historical times to 1816. 1062. The battle of Nizaa on the 10th August, when Harald captured seventy vessels from the Danes.