Recent specialist scholarship appears to be taking a more nuanced view
than was usual not long ago about the historicity of Harald Fairhair -
for example, Bruce Lincoln in /Between History and Myth: Stories of
Harald Fairhair and the Founding of the State/ (Chicago & London, 2014)
wrote in the introduction (pp 2-5):
'I was drawn — no doubt, for idiosyncratic reasons—to the Old Norse
sagas and, more particularly, to the subgenre of Konunga sögur ("Kings'
Sagas"), which treat the institution of the state as a series of royal
lives. And most particularly of all to the stories of Hálfdan the Black
(said to have ruled ca. 839-58) and his son, Harald Fairhair (ruled ca.
858-930, as king of a unified Norway from the mid-870s), for these two —
and the space in between them — mark the transition from legendary
prehistory to that which modern scholars regard as history proper. The
distinction between the two figures is not made primarily on evidentiary
or epistemological grounds, for we do not know much more of Harald than
of his father. Rather, it is the sagas themselves that construe the
difference as ontological, even cosmogonic, for they recount how Harald
changed existence itself and created a new world by consolidating
monarchic power, unifying the Norwegian nation, and establishing a
modern state.'
and
'Stories of Harald's state-founding activities began to circulate more
or less contemporarily with the events themselves. This was not a
spontaneous reaction to the unfolding drama, however, for Harald
employed a number of skalds as his propaganda corps. He is said to have
valued them most highly among his retainers, and he placed them in
positions of signal honor. In turn, they were expected to bestow still
greater honor upon him, for it was their task to transform the king's
accomplishments into unforgettable verse and undying fame. Their poems
circulated widely, as did other accounts of royal deeds that gradually
took the shape of legends, tales (þættir, sing. þáttr), and sagas. One
of the earliest of the Kings' Sagas gestures toward the abundance of
material in circulation, stating, "Many things and wondrous ones are
remembered of [King Harald], but now it would take too long to narrate
these individually." ... All told, we have fewer than a dozen variants
of Harald's story ... The chief surviving sources include Theodricus
Monachus, Historia de Antiquitate Regum Norwagiensum Chapter 1, Historia
Norwegiæ 10–11, Ágrip af Noregskonunga sögum 1–4, Fagrskinna 1–3, the
"Tale of Hálfdan the Black" (Þáttr Hálfdanar svarta, in Flateyjarbók
1.561–67), the "Tale of Harald Fairhair" (Þáttr Haralds hárfagra, in
Flateyjarbók 1.567–76), Hálfdan the Black's Saga, and Harald Fairhair's
Saga (the second and third sagas included in Heimskringla). Pieces of
the narrative and allusions to it are also scattered in other sagas,
including Orkneyinga Saga, Egil's Saga, Laxdæla Saga, Flóamanna Saga,
Barð's Saga, and others. We should not, however, mistake this dossier
for the full body of evidence. As we have seen, all of these sources are
relatively late and all drew on prior variants — written and oral,
poetic and prose, learned and popular, Norwegian and Icelandic — some of
which survive, some of which are known only by name, and many of which
are lost altogether. What each version could assume, however, was an
audience already familiar with the story and keenly interested in it.
They could address themselves to readers (or hearers) who could
recognize modifications to the conventional shape of the story and
appreciate such nuances as these innovations conveyed.'
Peter Stewart