Large Fierce Mammal

“Haakon Haakonsson (c. March/April 1204 – 16 December 1263) (Old Norse: Hákon Hákonarson; Norwegian: Håkon Håkonsson), sometimes called Haakon the Old in contrast to his son with the same name, and known in modern regnal lists as Haakon IV, was the King of Norway from 1217 to 1263. His reign lasted for 46 years, longer than any Norwegian king since Harald I.[2] Haakon was born into the troubled civil war era in Norway, but his reign eventually managed to put an end to the internal conflicts ….

“Under Haakon’s rule, medieval Norway is considered to have reached its zenith or golden age. His reputation and formidable naval fleet allowed him to maintain friendships with both the Pope and the Holy Roman Emperor, despite their conflict. He was at different points offered the Imperial Crown by the Pope, the Irish High Kingship by a delegation of Irish kings, and the command of the French crusader fleet by the French king. He amplified the influence of European culture in Norway by importing and translating contemporary European literature into Old Norse, and by constructing monumental European-style stone buildings. In conjunction with this he employed an active and aggressive foreign policy, and at the end of his rule added Iceland and the Norse Greenland community to his kingdom, leaving Norway at its territorial height. Although he for the moment managed to secure Norwegian control of the islands off the northern and western shores of Great Britain, he fell ill and died when wintering in Orkney following some military engagements with the expanding Scottish kingdom.” ~ Haakon IV of Norway

Not a bad CV for someone who, at the tender age of 2, was being headhunted across a frozen wilderness in the dead of a Norwegian Winter —

“According to legend, the top two Birkebeiner skiers, Torstein Skjevla and Skjervald Skrukka, took Håkon Håkonsson (the king’s son) to safety with King Inge II at Christmas. To avoid the expected Bagler opposition, they avoided the normal way through Gudbrandsdalen, but instead moved in frost, snow, and bad weather on Østerdalen into the mountains. In memory of this particular act, in 1932 the Birkebeinerlauf was lifted from the baptism. (“Birkebeiner” called themselves rebels in the time of the Norwegian Civil War in the 13th century. The name comes from the propaganda of their political opponents, the Bagler, because the rebels had fled after an initial defeat in the woods and had wrapped their calves with birch bark as protection from the cold. The Bagler sought the king’s son Håkon Håkonsson, who later as King Håkon IV of Norway would govern from 1217 to 1263, for life.)” ~Source here.

The 2016 Norwegian film Birkebeinerne, released in North America as The Last King, is a dramatization of this tumultuous period, complete with many a gripping ski borne death race. Readers familiar with Game of Thrones will recognize one of the intrepid Birkbeinerne as Kristofer Hivju, bearer of one of the finest manes in all the seven kingdoms, in the role of Torstein.

Kristofer Hivju also did a most entertaining and suitably bloodthirsty featurette on the subject of the film, aimed at the North American audience. He may get the timing of events wrong, but we’ll forgive that.

Divine Norwegian singer and actress Helene Bøksle sang a song called Bifröst for the film’s soundtrack, and that plays with the film’s end credits. Sung in Old Norse, according to one translation, it says in part —

One time for war, one time for peace,
We mourn the blood-splattered snow.
Come and show me, what is the way?
One King, still just a small spark.

Soon to be our one bright light,
Ignite a light in the winter night,
There shimmers a cord like white linen
In an arch under the starlight.

Time for war, and time for peace,
Sword and hope to fight against.
See a sign in one heavenly bridge,
One king, and one people of faith.

Heimdallr, guardian of gods
Sits at the ends of heaven.
What is the path to heaven from earth?
The gods made Bifröst
Bridge at the end of heaven
Bifröst, three colors
Bifröst, strong.

Pour something suitable and settle back. No better way to round out this long winter’s night than the beauty you’re about to see and hear.