The Pagan Earl: Hákon Sigurðarson and the Medieval Construction of Old Norse Religion by Nicholas Meylan (review)

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• The Pagan Earl: Hákon Sigurðarson and the Medieval Construction of Old Norse Religion by Nicholas Meylan
• Manu Braithwaite-Westoby

Meylan, Nicholas, The Pagan Earl: Hákon Sigurðarson and the Medieval Construction of Old Norse Religion ( The Viking Collection, 26), Odense, University Press of Southern Denmark, 2022; paperback; pp. 264; R.R.P US $30.00; ISBN 9788740834246.

The earls of Lade (Old Norse Hlaðir), the area now comprising Trøndelag and Hålogaland, were one of the strongest dynasties in medieval Norway, which produced several well-known figures associated with the Norwegian court. One of these, Hákon Sigurðarson, who ruled Norway from 975 until he died in 995, is the principal subject of Nicolas Meylan's book The Pagan Earl. Meylan charts the arc of Hákon's political life through an examination of many texts, mostly kings' sagas (konungasögur) that mention him, emphasising the ways his well-known belief in the old gods informs and frames his depiction. As such, The Pagan Earl not only [End Page 327] increases our knowledge of one of Norway's seminal rulers but also reflects on the use of the category 'pagan/heathen' as a discursive tool by thirteenth-century Christian authors for whom Hákon was a divisive figure.

Meylan begins with an intriguing explanation of his methodology. After discussing the usual source-critical problems associated with the recording and transmission of Old Norse religion, he introduces the relatively new concept of memory studies, which has proven to be quite fruitful, promulgated chiefly by Danish scholar Pernille Hermann. At this point Meylan asserts his independence from traditional memory studies theories, instead choosing to focus on individual sources as discourses or what he calls, quoting Deborah Schiffrin, 'language in use' (p. 19). The other major methodological consideration Meylan highlights is the use of comparison: in this case of the same story or phenomenon by multiple authors. According to Meylan, such an approach can reveal intriguing insights at a subaltern or subtextual level of a society or individual's conflicting agendas. Finally, Meylan also discusses the kings' sagas' use of skaldic poetry and accords it no special status in terms of veracity, which is an interesting position given that is typically regarded as a comparatively reliable source.

Many of the chapters focus biographically on a central aspect of Hákon's life. These include his divine genealogy, birth, and upbringing (Chapter 1); his father Earl Sigurð's life and subsequent murder and the family's custom of human/animal sacrifice (Chapter 2); and the aggressive campaign to rebuild pagan temples following Hákon's revenge killing of Harald Greycloak (Chapter 4), to name a few. In each of these chapters and others, Meylan carefully examines the key elements that define a version of the event or story, noting any political or religious agenda that the author may be harbouring. For example, on the subject of temple-raising in 'conversion era' Norway, Meylan discusses four medieval histories that mention Hákon, frequently in the context of Olaf Tryggvason's efforts to convert the population to Christianity. As we would expect, texts that lionise Olaf tend to play up Hákon's pagan qualities, while others, such as the Kringla transcripts of Heimskringla, emphasise the materialistic subtext of Olaf's destruction of pagan temples, hardly mentioning the diabolic nature of the old religion at all. According to Meylan, while both types of texts stand roundly against paganism, they convey different messages regarding 'the nature of the state, what it should be and how it should work' (p. 101). By using the comparative method in this way, a more nuanced view of the thirteenth-century political landscape begins to emerge, one in which the ideology of kingship comes to the fore.

In Chapter 7, in a rare foray into literary analysis, Meylan analyses the poetic formula vargr í véum ('wolf in the sanctuaries'), applied to Hákon by a Swedish ruler following his invasion of Gautland. Meylan contextualises vargr í véum in the well-known story of the binding of Fenrir, the wolfish son of the god Loki. The comparison between Hákon and a wolf 'in the...