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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.