Håkan the Red

[1] A papal letter from Gregory VII is addressed to Inge together with either Håkan or Halsten Stenkilsson as kings of the västgötar, ordering them to collect tithe and send priests to Rome to educate themselves.

Describing this period for Sweden as a whole in a linear translatio imperii kind of regnal succession, can then only be achieved at least partially based on speculative historical reconstruction, which appears to have happened in diverging directions from the early 13th century on, at the latest.

A scholion in Adam of Bremen's History of the Archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen (written 1070s–early 1080s) says that Håkan was elected king after Stenkil's son Halsten had been deposed, and after Anund Gårdske also had been rejected.

It is not clear from Adam's text which Olof is meant, but it has been suggested that he might be King Olav Kyrre of Norway, whose mother Tora Torbergsdatter was a cognatic descendant of the Norwegian branch of the Yngling dynasty.

[9] Historian Sture Bolin has argued that the passage about Olof's mother in fact refers to Tora Torbergsdotter marrying the Danish King Sweyn Estridsen, and has nothing to do with Håkan.

Another Swedish king list from the 13th century has the sequence Stenkil - Halsten - Näskonung - Blot-Sweyn - Håkan the Red (Haquinus rufus) - Inge the Elder.

I Magnus Barfots saga omtalas H. som konung efter Stenkil, och där plägar man också vanligen inpassa honom i konungalängden.