King Half
Warrior-king whose warband, the Halfsrekkar, followed strict discipline, attested in the Hervarar Saga.
King Half is attested in the Hervarar Saga ok Heidreks as a warrior-king whose name lived on through the Halfsrekkar, his chosen company of warriors. A ring that had belonged to King Half came to him "as forced tribute from King Halfdan Ylfing" (Hervarar Saga ok Heidreks, The Thattr Of Nornagest, Part I). King Half maintained a warband of about sixty warriors subject to strict discipline, which Professor Craigie suggested was "modelled on those of the Jomsvikings" (Hervarar Saga ok Heidreks, The Thattr Of Nornagest, Part II).
The Hervarar Saga ok Heidreks provides three citations across Parts I and II of the Thattr of Nornagest, painting a picture of Half as a figure remembered primarily through his warband and its customs. The mention of the ring establishes King Half within a web of tribute relationships, linking him to King Halfdan Ylfing. The warband's discipline is described in specific detail: "It was one of their customs always to lie off the ends of promontories" and they made "a rule of never pitching tents on their ships and never clewing up the sail on account of bad weather" (Hervarar Saga ok Heidreks, The Thattr Of Nornagest, Part II). These rules suggest an elite, hardened force whose customs later commentators compared to the Jomsviking code.
Appears in: Beings, Entities in Hervarar Saga ok Heiðreks, Norse Tradition