Icelandic sagas . The man has been identified with Ragnar Lodbrok in an early Swedish version of the legend (
Schück). More recently, it has been interpreted as showing a Germanic initiation ritual in which shaggy trousers played a role and which may subsequently have contributed to the legend of Ragnar Lodbrok. According to the
Tale of Ragnar Lodbrok, ''
Tale of Ragnar's Sons, Heimskringla, Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks, Sögubrot af nokkrum fornkonungum'', and many other Icelandic sources, Ragnar was the son of the king of Sweden
Sigurd Ring. When Sigurd Ring's parentage is given in a saga, his father is identified as
Randver, who in
Hervarar saga is called a king of Denmark whose wife was Åsa, the daughter of King
Harald of the Red Moustache from Norway. According to
Sögubrot and the
Lay of Hyndla, Randver was the son of
Ráðbarðr the king of
Garðaríki. The accounts further tell that Randver was a grandson of the legendary Scandinavian king
Ivar Vidfamne by his daughter Aud (whom the
Hervarar saga calls Alfhild). After the death of King Ivar Vidfamne, Aud's eldest son by the Danish king
Hrœrekr Ringslinger, Harald, conquered all of his grandfather's territory and became known as
Harald Wartooth. Harald's nephew Sigurd Ring became the chief king of Sweden after Randver's death (Denmark according to the
Hervarar saga), presumably as the subking of Harald. Sigurd and Harald fought the
Battle of the Brávellir (
Bråvalla) on the plains of
Östergötland, where Harald and many of his men died. Sigurd then ruled Sweden and Denmark (being sometimes identified with a Danish king
Sigfred who ruled from about 770 until his death prior to 804). He sired a son with the princess Alfhild of the petty kingdom of
Álfheimr, Ragnar Lodbrok, who succeeded him.
Eysteinn Beli, who according to the
Hervarar Saga was Harald Wartooth's son, ruled Sweden sometime after Sigurd until he was slain by the sons of Ragnar and
Aslaug. In their accounts of his reign, the
fornaldarsǫgur (Legendary sagas, or sagas of Scandinavian prehistory), tell more about Ragnar's marriages than about feats of warfare. In the Saga of Ragnar Lothbrok, Ragnar is introduced by introducing his alleged father Sigurd Ring who, according to the Saga, ruled over Denmark. In the Saga, Ragnar is Introduced as a big man, handsome and well-provided with wisdom. He was good to his men and cruel to his enemies. Ragnar's first account in the saga was to assemble an army, a fleet of ships, becoming a great warrior and slaying a dragon in the Norse lands of Götaland. According to the
Sögubrot, "he was the biggest and fairest of men that human eyes have seen, and he was like his mother in appearance and took after her kin". He first killed a giant snake that guarded the abode of the
Geatish jarl
Herrauð's daughter
Thora Borgarhjort, thereby winning her as his wife. The unusual protective clothes that Ragnar wore when attacking the serpent earned him the nickname Lodbrok. His sons with Thora were
Erik and Agnar. After Thora died, he discovered
Kráka, a woman of outstanding beauty and wisdom living with a poor peasant couple in Norway, and married her. This marriage resulted in the sons
Ivar the Boneless,
Björn Ironside,
Hvitserk,
Ragnvald, and
Sigurd Snake-in-the-Eye. Kráka was later revealed to actually be Aslaug, a secret daughter of the renowned hero
Sigurd Fafnesbane. As the sons grew up to become renowned warriors, Ragnar, not wishing to be outdone, resolved to conquer England with merely two ships. He was, however, defeated by superior
Northumbrian forces and was thrown into a
snake pit to die. The
Saga of Ragnar Lodbrok, ''Tale of Ragnar's Sons
, and Heimskringla'' all tell of the
Great Heathen Army that invaded England at around 866, led by the sons of Ragnar Lodbrok to wreak revenge against King
Ælla of Northumbria who is told to have captured and executed Ragnar.
Danish sources The () mentions Lodbrok (Lothpardus) as a father to the utterly cruel Norse King Ywar (rex crudelissimus Normannorum Ywar) and his brothers, Inguar (a double of Ywar), Ubbi, Byorn and Ulf, who rule the northern peoples. They call on the various Danish petty kings to help them ruin the realm of the
Franks. Ywar successfully attacks the kingdoms of Britain, though not as an act of revenge as in the Icelandic sagas. The chronicle of
Sven Aggesen () is the first Danish text that mentions the full name, Regnerus Lothbrogh. His son Sigurd invades Denmark and kills its king, whose daughter he marries as he takes over the throne. Their son in turn is
Knut, ancestor of the later Danish kings. Neither of these sources mentions Ragnar Lodbrok as a Danish ruler. The first to do so is
Saxo Grammaticus in his work (). This work mixes Norse legend with data about Danish history derived from the chronicle of
Adam of Bremen (). Here Ragnar's father Sigurd Ring is a Norwegian prince married to a Danish princess, and different from the victor of Brávellir (who had flourished about thirteen generations earlier). Sigurd Ring and his cousin and rival Ring (that is, Sigfred and
Anulo of recorded history, d. 812) are both killed in battle, whereupon Ragnar is elevated to the Danish kingship (identified by Saxo with
Ragnfred, d. 814). His first deed is the defeat of the Swedish king Frö, who has killed Ragnar's grandfather. Ragnar is assisted in this by a ferocious
shield-maiden named
Ladgerda (Lagertha), whom Ragnar forces to marry him after killing a bear and a great hound to win her hand. In this marriage, he sires the son Fridleif and two daughters. Ragnar later repudiates his marriage to Ladgerda and marries
Thora Borgarhjort, a daughter of the Swedish king Herrauðr, after killing two venomous giant snakes that guard Thora's residence. His sons with Thora are Radbard, Dunvat,
Sigurd Snake-in-the-Eye, Björn Ironside, Agnar and Ivar the Boneless. From a non-marital relationship with an unnamed woman (described only as the daughter of a man named Esbjørn), Ragnar fathered
Ubbe. Another, final marriage to Svanlaug (possibly another name for Aslaug) produces another three sons: Ragnvald,
Eric Weatherhat and
Hvitserk. The sons were installed as sub-kings in various conquered territories. Ragnar led a Viking expedition to England and killed its king, Hama, before killing the earls of Scotland and installing Sigurd Snake-in-the Eye and Radbard as governors. Norway was also subjugated, and Fridleif was made ruler there and in
Orkney. Later on, Ragnar with three sons invaded Sweden where a new king called Sörle had appeared and withheld the heritage of Thora's sons. Sörle and his army were massacred, and Björn Ironside was installed on the throne. Sometime later Björn was put in charge of Norway, while Ragnar appointed another son, Eric Weatherhat, as ruler in Sweden; he was subsequently killed by a certain
Eysteinn. One of the sons, Ubbe, revolted against his father at the instigation of his maternal grandfather Esbjørn, and could only be defeated and captured with utmost effort. Saxo moreover tells of repeated expeditions to the
British Isles, one of which cost the lives of Dunvat and Radbard. Ælla, son of Hama, with the help of allies known collectively as the
Galli – possibly a group of
Norse-Gaels (who were known in Old Irish as
Gall-Goídil), expelled Ragnar's sub-ruler Ivar the Boneless from England and remained a persistent enemy. Finally, the
Scythians were forced to accept Hvitserk as their ruler. In the end, Hvitserk was treacherously captured by the
Hellespontian prince Daxon and burnt alive with his own admission. Hearing this, Ragnar led an expedition to
Kievan Rus' and captured Daxon who was spared and exiled. Unlike the Icelandic sources, Saxo's account of Ragnar Lodbrok's reign is largely a catalog of successful Viking invasions over an enormous geographical area. Among the seaborne expeditions was one against the
Bjarmians and
Finns (
Saami) in the Arctic north. The Bjarmian use of magic spells caused foul weather and the sudden death of many Danish invaders, and the Finnish archers on skis turned out to be a formidable foe. Eventually, these two tribes were put to flight, and the Bjarmian king was slain. The historical king
Harald Klak is by Saxo (based on a passage in Adam's chronicle) made into another persistent enemy of Ragnar, who several times incited the
Jutes and
Scanians to rebel, but was regularly defeated. After the last victory over Harald, Ragnar learned that King Ælla had massacred Ragnar's men on
Ireland. Incensed, he attacked the English king with his fleet but was captured and thrown to his death in the snake pit – the fate ascribed by tradition to the early
Burgundian king
Gunnar, as recounted in the Icelandic sagas. In spite of all his praise for Ragnar Lodbrok, Saxo also considers his fate as God's rightful vengeance for the contempt he had shown the Christian religion.
Poetic and epigraphic sources While the narrative Norse sources date from the 12th and 13th centuries, there are also many older poems that mention him and his kin. The
Ragnarsdrápa, ostensibly composed by
Bragi Boddason in the 9th century, praises a Ragnar, son of Sigurd, for a richly decorated shield that the poet has received. The shield depicts the assault on
Jörmunrek, the
Hjaðningavíg tale, the ploughing of
Gefjon, and
Thor's struggle with the
Midgard Serpent. Recent scholarship has suggested that the poem is in fact from c. 1000 and celebrates the Norse reconquest of England. The four tales depicted on the shield would then symbolize four aspects of the Lodbrok saga (the initial defeat of the sons of Lodbrok in England due to recklessness, Ivar the Boneless's deceitful approach to King Ælla, Ivar's cunning snatching of land from Ælla, Ragnar's struggle against the giant serpent in order to win Thora). The
Knutsdrapa of
Sigvat Thordarson (c. 1038) mentions the death of Ælla at the hands of Ivar in
York, who "carved the eagle on Ælla's back". From this, the story of the atrocious revenge of Lodbrok's sons already seems to be present. The reference to a "
blood eagle" punishment has, however, been much debated by modern scholars. Another lay,
Krakumal, put in the mouth of the dying Ragnar in the snake pit, recounts the exploits of Ragnar and mentions battles over a wide geographical area, several relating to the British Isles. The poem's name, "Kráka's lay", alludes to Ragnar's wife's
Kráka, though modern philologists commonly date it to the 12th century in its present form. The poem the
Lay of Kraka or
Krakumal tells the last words of Ragnar Lothbrok during his execution by King Aellla of the Kingdom of Northumbria. In the poem Ragnar makes its usual mentions of different Norse divinities and magical elements such as Valhalla as in the end of the poem Ragnar says: There is one runic inscription mentioning Lodbrok, carved on the prehistorical tumulus of
Maeshowe on Orkney in the early 12th century. It reads: "This howe was built a long time before Lodbrok's. Her sons, they were bold; scarcely ever were there such tall men of their hands". The expression "her sons" has given rise to the theory that Lodbrok was originally thought of as a woman, mother of the historically known sons. but the accuracy of this is disputed by historians. Ragnar Lodbrok is also sometimes identified with a Ragnar who was awarded land in
Torhout,
Flanders, by
Charles the Bald in about 841 but eventually lost the land as well as the favour of the King. Ragnar's Vikings raided
Rouen on their way up the Seine in 845 and in response to the invasion, determined not to let the royal
Abbey of Saint-Denis (near Paris) be destroyed, Charles assembled an army which he divided into two parts, one for each side of the river. Ragnar attacked and defeated one of the divisions of the smaller Frankish army, took 111 of their men as prisoners and hanged them on an island on the Seine to honour the
Norse god Odin, as well as to incite terror in the remaining Frankish forces. Ragnar's fleet made it back to his overlord, the Danish King
Horik I, but Ragnar soon died from a violent illness that also spread in Denmark.
Later continental accounts Among the oldest texts to mention the name Lodbrok is the Norman history of
William of Jumièges from c. 1070. According to William, the Danish kings of old had the custom to expel the younger sons from the kingdom to have them out of the way. It was during the time this practice was in fashion that King Lodbrok succeeded his unnamed father on the Danish throne. After gaining power, he honoured the said custom and ordered his junior son Björn Ironside to leave his realm. Björn thus left Denmark with a considerable fleet and started to ravage in West Francia and later the
Mediterranean. Roughly contemporary with William is
Adam of Bremen whose history of the
Archbishopric of Hamburg-Bremen contains many traditions about Viking Age Scandinavia. In a passage referring to the Viking raids of the late 9th century, he mentions the Danish or Norse pirates Horich, Orwig, Gotafrid, Rudolf, and Inguar (Ivar). This Ivar is, in particular, seen as a cruel persecutor of Christians, and a son of Lodbrok (Inguar, filius Lodparchi).
Anglo-Saxon and Irish accounts of the father of Ivar and Halfdan According to the contemporary
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and
Asser's
Life of Alfred, in 878 the "brother of Hingwar and Healfden", with a naval fleet, a contingent of the Great Heathen Army invaded
Devon in England and fought the
Battle of Cynwit. There the Vikings lost, their king slain and many dead, with few escaping to their ships. After the battle the
Saxons took great plunder, and among other things the banner called "Raven". The early 12th century
Annals of St Neots further state that "they say that the three sisters of Hingwar and Hubba, daughters of Lodebroch (Lodbrok), wove that flag and got it ready in one day. They say, moreover, that in every battle, wherever the flag went before them, if they were to gain the victory, a live crow would appear flying on the middle of the flag; but if they were doomed to be defeated, it would hang down motionless, and this was often proved to be so." This is among the earlier references to the legendary hero Ragnar Lodbrok. The Irish from the 12th century, with information deriving from earlier annals, mentions king Halfdan (d. 877) under the name "mac Ragnaill". The form Ragnall may refer to either Ragnvald or Ragnar and the entry is a strong indication that the name of Ivar's and Halfdan's father was really Ragnar or a similar name. The early 11th century
Three Fragments contains a passage that gives a semi-legendary background to the capture of York by the Vikings in 866. The two younger sons of Halfdan, King of
Lochlann, expelled the eldest son, Ragnall, who sailed to the
Orkney islands with his three sons and settled there. Two of the sons later raided the English and
Franks, proceeding to plunder in the Mediterranean. One of them learned from a vision that Ragnall had fought a battle where the third son had been slain and in which he himself had most likely perished. The two Viking sons then returned home with a lot of dark-skinned captives. It has been hypothesized that this is an Irish version of ''Ragnar Lodbrok's saga'', the Mediterranean expedition being a historical event taking place in 859-61. == Mythical accounts of Ragnar ==