Earl of Lade and de facto ruler of Norway (c. 975–995), the last great pagan lord of Norway, who governed independently before being overthrown by Olaf Tryggvason.
Håkon Sigurdsson, Earl of Lade, was the effective ruler of Norway for some twenty years, from about 975 to 995. Head of the great jarl dynasty of Lade in Trøndelag, he governed the country as an independent lord — nominally under the overlordship of the Danish king Harald Bluetooth, whom he soon threw off — and is remembered as the last powerful champion of the old Norse paganism against the coming of Christianity.
He came to power by helping to destroy the Christianising king Harald Greycloak, ruled through the loyalty of the pagan chieftains, and famously defended Norway against a great Danish-backed invasion by the Jomsvikings. His rule ended in revolt: hunted down after his overbearing conduct turned the country against him, he was killed by his own slave just as Olaf Tryggvason arrived to claim the throne.
Håkon was born about 937 into the jarls of Lade, the dominant family of Trøndelag in northern Norway, whose power rested on the loyalty of the region's pagan chieftains and the great temple cults they patronised. His father, Earl Sigurd, was killed by the sons of Eric Bloodaxe, and Håkon inherited both the earldom and the feud.
Driven from Norway by King Harald Greycloak, Håkon took refuge with the Danish king Harald Bluetooth, and it was with Danish help that he returned to overthrow Harald Greycloak and take control of Norway.
The sagas paint Håkon as a formidable and cunning ruler — a shrewd war-leader and politician, generous to his friends, deeply devoted to the old gods, and increasingly arrogant and predatory as his power grew. He is the great pagan antagonist of the saga tradition, set against the Christianising kings who followed him.
That tradition, written down by Christian authors, dwells on his devotion to heathen sacrifice and, in its hostile later phase, on his lust and high-handedness toward the wives and daughters of the free farmers — the conduct said to have finally turned Trøndelag against him. Beneath the moralising he emerges as a strong and capable lord of the old order, whose downfall came when the very chieftains whose interests he embodied would no longer tolerate his overreach.
For about two decades Håkon governed Norway from Trøndelag, not as king but as jarl, ruling through alliance with the regional chieftains rather than by imposing a centralised monarchy. He soon repudiated his nominal subjection to Harald Bluetooth of Denmark and ruled as an independent power, restoring and protecting the pagan cult against the Christian pressure the Danish kings represented.
His most celebrated feat was the defence of Norway against the Jomsvikings, the fabled Baltic warrior-brotherhood launched against him with Danish backing. In a hard-fought sea battle at Hjörungavágr, Håkon defeated the invaders and secured his hold on the country — the high point of his rule.
In his last years Håkon's conduct — above all, in the sagas, his seizing of free men's womenfolk — provoked a rising of the Trøndelag farmers just as Olaf Tryggvason, a claimant of the old royal line, landed to claim the throne. Deserted and hunted, Håkon hid in a pigsty on a farm at Gauldal with his slave Tormod Kark.
There, in 995, Kark cut his master's throat as he slept, and carried the earl's head to Olaf — who, rather than reward the betrayal, had the slave executed. Håkon's death cleared the way for Olaf Tryggvason's Christian kingship.
Jarl Håkon is remembered as the last great pagan ruler of Norway, the powerful lord under whom the old religion and the old decentralised order of the jarls had their final flourishing. His fall marked a turning point: with Olaf Tryggvason began the sustained, forcible Christianisation of Norway and the drive toward a unified Christian monarchy. In the saga literature he stands as the formidable heathen shadow against which the missionary kings defined themselves.