Dr. Wayne Bartlett

But there are other Scandinavian territories which are also attractive outside of Norway, in particular Denmark.

Denmark and Norway have always had a fairly complicated history, and at various times Denmark's owned large parts of Norway and vice versa.

So he kind of thinking as a good opportunist, well, ideally, I'd like to be king of Norway.

But hey, that may not be immediately possible.

But there might be something else for me here.

So he then makes his way back north, originally to Sweden.

Again, you know, a nice bolt hole sort of on the sidelines a bit where he could make his plans closer to home before he then introduces himself to affairs in Denmark.

He now finds himself caught up in a three-way fight, basically, involving himself, his nephew Magnus, and the current claimant to the King of Denmark, a guy called Sven.

For a few years now, there's this ongoing kind of menage a trois in a military sense, where Harold is quite cleverly or deviously, depending on which way you want to put it,

taking sides in this dispute and changing sides from side to side at any given moment, depending on what's to his immediate best advantage.

So this is what he does.

He goes back.

He's on the lookout for an opportunity.

And it's really Denmark initially, which is the battleground by which he starts to stake his claims to be a Scandinavian king.

Yeah, that's very much the case.

And I think he's also seeing himself as the guy who holds the balance of power in Scandinavia.

Because Sven, for example, the guy who wants to be king, who is king by some measures in Denmark, he's an amazingly persistent character.

He keeps getting beaten in battle.

Down but not out, I think, is the best way of putting it.

He's never quite eliminated from the struggle completely.