On Friday the 28th of August, His Majesty Harald V, King of Norway, died at the Oslo University Hospital in the nation’s capital. Aged 89, he had recently celebrated his 35th year upon the throne, which he inherited from his father, King Olav V, himself the son of Haakon VII, who ascended the throne upon Norway’s declaration of independence in 1905.
King Harald, or Harald Rex as he was sometimes called, was, in line with his father and grandfather, an immensely popular public figure, both for what he represented and for who he was. Born in 1937 at the royal estate of Skaugum, Harald was forced to flee his homeland alongside his family upon the German invasion of Norway during World War II. He spent the following five years under American protection in Washington D.C. and Maryland, where he spent much time at the household of President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
It is tales like this one, alongside factoids such as that King Harald was the first Norwegian monarch born on Norwegian soil since the 14th century, that made him feel like a larger than life figure, the living representative of a historical and cultural heritage binding the nation together. His extensive family tree was another aspect that anchored King Harald’s kingship into the depths of history. Through his Danish and Swedish ancestors, he was linked to just about every noble and royal house of Europe, as well as, if medieval and Viking Age sources are to be believed, the pre-Christian Norse Gods.
King Harald V of Norway. Picture by Flickr user Tor Atle Kleven used under CC BY-SA 3.0 Licence.
Despite this alleged Heathen ancestry, King Olav remained a steadfast Lutheran for his entire life. Like his father and grandfather before him, King Harald began his rule as the head of the national Norwegian Lutheran Church, of which the majority of Norwegians are members. When, in the late 2000s, the government sought to reform the way the church and the state were interwoven, King Harald directly involved himself in the process. As a result, plans to abolish the requirement that reigning monarchs must be members of the national Lutheran Church were dropped.
However, even when it came to affairs of the state, King Harald did not always espouse strictly conservative views. He, for instance, became the first Norwegian monarch to marry a commoner, Sonja Haraldsen, despite his family’s reservations. In 1997, he also took the initiative, during a visit to the Norwegian Sámi parliament, to ask representatives of the indigenous Sámi people for forgiveness for the Norwegianization policy the state had enacted towards them.
Although barred from expressing personal political opinions, King Harald routinely made use of his station to champion an inclusive and tolerant idea of what it meant to be Norwegian. In a much publicized speech in 2016 in particular, he stated loud and clear that, among other things, someone’s faith, ethnicity, or sexual orientation did not make them more of less Norwegian than anyone else.
The king’s ability to bring the nation together was similarly demonstrated in the aftermath of the 2011 Norway terror attacks where 77 people were murdered in what constitute the deadliest tragedy in modern Norwegian history. His speeches on the 23d of July, the day following the massacre, and on the 21st of August, one month later, put into words feelings of sorrow and disbelief, but also solidarity, felt by all.
Flower tribute in front of Oslo’s royal palace. Courtesy of Genevieve Gornichec.
As a monarch who never stopped to actively embrace his role as a national unifying symbol, King Harald symbolized more than his person, his actions, or even his lineage. As Norwegian author and artist Erik Storesund put it in a special sending of his Brute Norse Podcast:
« To some degree, the King has been something of a domestic deity, an object of civic worship, who in return provides moral support in times of need and crisis and thus has this kind of mythological, like an ancient ruler, overseer of the prosperity of the country like we see for example in skaldic poetry […] and in a country as secular as Norway, the King is kind of a surrogate deity. Many people don’t identify with the church of Norway, don’t see themselves as Christians – even though they might say that they are spiritual and they don’t necessarily have issues with the morals of Christianity, they don’t identify with Christianity as a religion – and as such the King serves as a replacement for state religion. »
The crypt of Akershus fortress with the sarcophagi of King Haakon and King Olav. Picture by Flickr user Eje Gustafsson used under CC BY-NC 2.0 Licence.
As for established Norwegian religious organizations, nearly all of them posted public statements and tributes to the memory of King Harald shortly following his passing. Among them, Pagan, polytheist, and minority faith groups such as the Asatru organization Åsatrufellesskapet Bifrost, the Norwegian Buddhist Union, the Sikh group Gurduara Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji, and the Hindu religious community Sanatan Mandir Sabha all joined in celebrating the life of the late monarch.
King Haakon VIII in 2018, when he was still crown prince. Photo courtesy of Lyonel Perabo.
On Tuesday, 1st of September, as these lines were written, the mortal remains of His Majesty King Harald were taken to the royal palace’s chapel. There, Norwegians will be able to pay their respects until their transference, the following week, to the crypt in the ancient Akershus fortress where Norway’s previous two monarchs already lay entombed. This Tuesday also marks King Harald’s son and heir King Haakon the VIII’s formal swearing of oaths to the Norwegian parliament. In his declaration, King Haakon swore to uphold the country’s laws and constitution before announcing his royal motto, the same, incidentally, that his father, grandfather and great-grandfather had chosen:
Alt for Norge – All for Norway.
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