Thomas Carlyle 
Early Kings of Norway 

Till about the Year of Grace 860 there were no kings in Norway, nothing but numerous jarls, -essentially kinglets, each presiding over a kind of republican or parliamentary little territory; generally striving each to be on some terms of human neighborhood with those about him, but, -in spite of ‘Fylke Things’ (Folk Things, little parish parliaments), and small combinations of these, which had gradually formed themselves, -often reduced to the unhappy state of quarrel with them.