At the beginning of this personal union of kingdoms, Norway was deemed the more important as it was hereditary whereas Sweden and Denmark (Denmark entered the Scandinavian union later) were both electoral. However, the balance of power would tip and even though the King would favour the Arms and Supporters of the kingdom he was doing business for, Norway seems not to have favoured Supporters until the beginning of the 19th Century when, on very few rare occasions, the Swedish Supporters appear to have been used as shown above. The Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Section for Humanitarian Affairs) suggests that this might have been done to equal the Swedish Coat of Arms in prestige, Sweden then being the more dominant kingdom. However, this soon fell out of fashion.
An authorised design for the Norwegian Coat of Arms was established for the first time by Royal decree on 10th July 1844 under King Oscar I and has been re-established by subsequent decrees on 14th December 1905 and 19th March 1937. Whilst these decrees have more to do with design and appear to concentrate on elements such as the shape of the Shield and the form of St. Olaf's Axe, no mention is ever made of Supporters.
Supporters, anyway, were reserved for the nobility, which was effectively abolished by law in 1821. Whilst many Norwegian family Arms are those of former noble families, there are today comparatively few personal Coats of Arms in active use there. Many Norwegian family Arms have been created and established by private individuals and needed no grant or confirmation by any official authorities. Very, very few Coats of Arms in Norway make use of Supporters nowadays