Harald the Younger (from "Herioldus iunior", how he is named in the Annales Xantenses) was a Viking leader and a member of the Danish royal family.
He has sometimes been mistakenly identified with Harald Klak, who was in fact his uncle and probable namesake.
[4] Between 840 and 843 Lothair was engaged in a civil war with his brothers Louis the German and Charles the Bald, and Nithard records that Harald was present in his army in 842.
[4] Not long thereafter Harald died and his brother was forced to flee to the court of Louis the German, where he spent several years.
Although later sources unambiguously describe Harald as a pagan—Prudentius of Troyes, author of the Annales Bertiniani, regarded him as a "persecutor of the Christian faith and a demon-worshipper" and his receipt of a benefice as an "utterly detestable crime"[5]—he may have been baptised as a young man at the imperial court.