Norway in the Viking Age is divided…

Norway in the Viking Age is divided into petty kingdoms ruled by chiefs who contend for land, maritime supremacy or political ascendance and seek alliances or control through marriage with other royal families, either voluntary or forced.

These circumstances produce the generally turbulent and heroic lives recorded in the Heimskringla.

Harald Fairhair, or Finehair, on the death in 860 of his father Halfdan the Black Gudrødsson, had succeeded to the sovereignty of several small and somewhat scattered kingdoms in Vestfold, which had come into his father's hands through conquest and inheritance, and lie chiefly in southeast Norway.

Harald in 866 makes the first of a series of conquests over the many petty kingdoms that will compose Norway, including Värmland in Sweden, and modern day southeastern Norway, which had sworn allegiance to the Swedish king Erik Eymundsson (Eric Anundsson).