Talk:Harald Fairhair

message: Almost always known by a cognomen, so per Wikipedia:Naming conventions (names and titles) article should be so named. Google books results overwhelmingly favour Harald Fairhair, Harald I results usually referring to Harold Harefoot rather than the subject of this article. Angus McLellan  (Talk) 17:24, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Survey 1: [[Harald I of Norway]] → [[Harald Fairhair]]

message: This kind of formulation is hardly ever used in the course of articles or books, but it's very common in dictionaries. It could be a good compromise. Sigo 14:49, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The relevant guideline justifies this as "pre-emptive disambiguation". That's why the articles are so titled.  I'm not sure I agree, myself, but consensus seems to be clear; and it is certainly possible that we will have a Sigurd I of Denmark, sometime when Northern names are back in fashion. Septentrionalis 01:09, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Survey 2: [[Harald I of Norway]] → [[Harald I Fairhair]]

message: This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 05:10, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  WikiProject class rating 

message: Someone unilaterally changed Harald's birthdate; I reverted because it was inconsistent with the rest of the article, needs to be discussed here on the talk page, and because they had also changed Ole Bull's birth year, with no reason given. I'm not sure what the dates here are based on - they don't match the Encyclopedia Brittanica dates, for instance - but changing them unilaterally doesn't seem to be the solution. Brianyoumans (talk) 13:59, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dates 

message: Quote from the Orkneys article: "In response, Norwegian king Harald Hårfagre ("Harald Fair Hair") annexed the Northern Isles (comprising Orkney and Shetland) in 875". Orkney and Shetland, and possibly other insular possessions(?) should be included in the maps?  Narssarssuaq (talk) 14:55, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Maps are not complete? 

message: I added this section a little while ago, and it's just been the object of some edit-warring as an anonymous user tried to delete it. EdJohnston kindly looked into the matter and suggested a note here would be helpful.
I think that the level of academic referencing in the article demonstrates that doubt about the existence of this figure is widespread among professional historians, and has been for twenty-odd years. But I can extend the referencing if needed.
I'd also point out that the article doesn't categorically make a statement either way about Harald's existence: it just faithfully records the historiographical development on this topic, hopefully retaining a neutral point of view.
This study from last year discusses how important Harald has been to Norwegian nationalism and his prominence to some regional identities and heritage/tourism industry: Torgrim Sneve Guttormsen, 'Branding local heritage and popularising a remote past: The example of Haugesund in Western Norway', AP: Online Journal in Public Archaeology, 1 (2014), 45-60. I suppose that helps to explain why some people might get upset that Harald may not actually have existed. I've been meaning to add a reference to it and will try to get round to that soon! Alarichall (talk) 07:32, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: I added a section in the 'Appearances in popular culture' section, based on Guttormsen, describing Harald's prominence in Norwegian nationalism and the heritage industry. Alarichall (talk) 14:44, 31 July 2018 (UTC)

text: I find the historicity section highly biased for the view that Harald did not exist. The articles cited for a highly sceptical approach will agree that most historians believe that there was a Harald Fairhair, though discussion exists as to how reliable the Saga traditions for him are. Questioning the Skaldic poetry as unreliable, like Sverrir Jakobsson does, is something most historians find unconvincing which Jakobsson will admit historians do. These things should be pointed out in the article. Also, I would like to add that the discussion on the epithet is not really relevant for whether the idea of Harald Fairhair to be the first to begin the unification of Norway. NorwegianCross (talk)  —Preceding undated comment added 22:18, 16 October 2019 (UTC)
replies: text:  I agree that it would be good to indicate what opinions prevails in recent, university-level general histories of Norway or the Viking Age. Do you have any suggestions? The discussion of the epithet is important in the existing research so it deserves mention for that reason alone -- but part of the point here is that there are grounds to suspect that the Haraldr inn hárfagri character is based on the king now known as Haraldr inn harðráði (who is attested much earlier as having the name Haraldr inn hárfagri). Alarichall (talk) 19:21, 17 October 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: For god sake, at least move it to the end of the article. It looks very amateurish that the first thing that meets anyone is not his roles in the records but third hand modern sources telling you he is not real. 2A02:AA1:1016:68C8:E470:86BC:EB4D:AFCF (talk) 13:02, 7 December 2023 (UTC)
replies: text:  Conversely, I think it's weirder to have an article about a character who may not have existed (and almost certainly did not exist in the way that sagas talk about him) and to spend most of the article writing about him as if he was real, and then at the end say 'by the way, none of this may be true'. I think it's better to put the fundamental historical issues at the beginning. I'm not sure what you mean by 'third hand modern sources': the section cites professional academic research, in large quantities. This is what we expect Wikipedia articles to be based on. For the time being I'll revert the edit you've made, but would of course be very happy to see you start a proper discussion about whether and how we re-order the material in this article. Alarichall (talk) 21:22, 7 December 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Did Harald Fairhair exist? 

message: Hi, in the section on "Historia Norwegiae" is says Halfdan Svarte drowned in Rondevatn. The original text of HN names the lake as "Rond", of which there were several in Norway, including the Randsfjord, where he is (or at least may have been) buried ("Halfdanshaugen" at Stein). Hence, most saga translators and historians tend to give Randsfjorden, not Rondevatn, as the place where he died. Idk if there is any source for the claim that the HN Rond is Rondevatn; if there is any, it would be nice to see it. If not, I suggest to change it to Randsfjorden. T 84.208.65.62 (talk) 10:50, 28 July 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rondevatn?