[1][2] Håkon Galen was the son of Folkvid the Lawspeaker and Cecilia Sigurdsdotter, an illegitimate daughter of king Sigurd Munn.
After Sverre succeeded in winning the throne of Norway, Cecilia had her marriage to Folkvid annulled, claiming she had been forced to marry him against her will.
[3][4][5] Håkon Galen is first mentioned in the Sagas as one of the prominent men among the Birkebeiner fighting for King Sverre in 1193 against a force led by Harald Maddadsson, the Earl of Orkney.
When Guttorm suddenly died in August the same year, Håkon was the favored candidate among the Birkebeiner military leaders, the lendmenn, to become the next king.
[10][11] From 1204 until 1208, Inge and Håkon fought the Bagler rising, under the pretenders Erling Steinvegg and Philippus Simonsson, until the warfare was ended by the settlement of Kvitsøy.
After the death of Håkon, Kristina took their son Knut with her and returned to Västergötland, Sweden where she married Swedish nobleman, Eskil Magnusson.
During this time, a series of civil wars were fought between rival kings and pretenders to the throne of Norway.
In the first decades of the civil wars, alliances frequently shifted, and centered on the person of a king or pretender to the throne, but eventually, towards the end of the 12th century, two rival parties emerged, known as the Birkebeiner and the Bagler.
After these two factions were reconciled in 1217, a more ordered system of centralized government was gradually able to bring an end to such frequent uprisings.