In his old age Harold abdicated in favor of his eldest legitimate son, Eric Bloodaxe, who was deposed by his half brother Håkon I after a few years of misrule.

He had four other sons besides Harald.287

Weis' "Ancestral Roots. . ." (243A:18). From Gwyn Jones" "A History of the Vikings" (pp 94-95): ". . . we can believe that he was the son on whom HARALD set his highest hopes, if only because of the Danish connection, which was strengthened when Eric married Gunnhild, daughter of GORM THE OLD, KING OF DENMARK. . . [upon his father HARALD FAIRHAIR's death] Eric, with most at stake, and the soubriquet of a man of action, seems to have moved briskly. But 'for a short while only hand is fain to blow.' In England, the 15 year-old Hakon [another of HARALD FAIRHAIR's sons, but by another mother] heard of his father's death and presumably with his fosterer's [King Athelstan of England] support sailed for Norway. . . With no battle joined, Eric, for reasons we do not know, recognized the weakness of his position and sailed west over sea with any who cared to follow him. With all his faults (and they have been greatly exaggerated by Icelandic tradition) he was his father's son, strong-willed, valiant, resourceful.
By 948 he was king in York in England. Within the year his subjects drove him out to placate the English King Eadred. In 952 he was back again, but was once more driven forth in 954, and soon afterwards he died with five other Norse kings in the skirmish at Stainmore in the kingdom of Northumbria. He left behind him a wife and a wolfpack of sons who would resume with skill and daring that power game in Norway which their father had somewhat inexplicably abandoned."