There are stories that are born to be told, there are legends that deserve to be known in every corner of the world and, in this case, there is a legendary Viking king who deserves his own article: Ragnar Lodbrok (Ragnarr Loðbrók), also called Ragnar furry leggings. Those who have seen the “Vikings” series will know part of its history, but what is real about the character that they show us in the series? Who was Ragnar Lodbrok?
The first thing to mention is that the figure of Ragnar moves between legend and reality. There are testimonies about him from various sources that shuffle different dates. In fact, his life would cover the period dated between 750 and 865, being practically impossible for a single person to cover all these years.
McTurk (Emeritus Professor of Icelandic Studies and author of the book “Studies in Ragnars saga loðbrókar and its major Scandinavian analogues”) sees Ragnar as a combination of historical figures: the Viking Reginheri, who belonged to the court of the Danish King Horik I and was the Viking who sailed up the Seine with 120 ships and sacked Paris on March 28, 845. In this attack the Vikings sacked the church of San Germán de los Prados and King Charles the Bald had to pay a sum of 7,000 silver pounds to get them out of there. On the other hand, he is also associated with the father of Ivar the Boneless and Bjorn Ragnarsson Iron arm.
According to the Danish chronicler Saxo Grammaticus, Ragnar would belong to the lineage of the Ynglings, one of the most prosperous dynasties in Sweden, also known as the House of Ivar Vidfarmne, House Munsö or Old Dynasty, presenting Saxo’s story offers numerous points of union with Icelandic storytelling. The son of Sigurd Ring and his first wife, Alfild, Ragnar ruled Sweden, conquered Denmark around 840, and took part in numerous raids on both mainland Europe and the British Isles.
Why furry leggings? As the Sagas tell us, Ragnar acquires that nickname because he boils his breas in pitch and pitch to give them greater resistance to the poison of the snake (a story that we will see later), thus being a product of the development of the legend of him. . McTurk, however, considers that it is a deformation of the name of Ivar’s mother and her brothers (a certain Lodbróka), being considered as his father’s surname and associating them with the Viking Reginheri because he lived in the first half of the century. IX.
Another halo of mystery surrounds the married and love life of Ragnar Lodbrok, as well as his offspring. Depending on the sources we consider, some marriages are omitted, others change their order… The same thing happens with his lineage, numerous children have been attributed to him whose mother would not always be clear and could even have been the same person under different names (as would happen with Hvitserk, associated with Halfdan, both sons of Ragnar).
Ragnar Lodbrok’s first recorded wife is Lagertha, a famous skjäldmo (shield-maiden) and warrior with whom he had a marriage. According to the chronicles, the fruits of this marriage would be three children, a boy and two twins, although other sources assure that they had no offspring. He met Lagertha fighting King Frodo in Norway and they married, later divorcing upon returning home. His second wife was to be Thóra, daughter of Jarl Herraud, and named Doe of the Fortress because her beauty stood out among the other women as the deer among the other animals. The Sagas narrate that Thóra lived in a cabin next to the king’s castle, it is said that one day they gave her a small snake, she liked it so much that she put it in her chest and deposited gold under it, then it began to grow in such a way so he curled around the hut and wouldn’t let anyone in or out. The jarl promised to give his daughter in marriage to whoever was able to kill the snake, but no one succeeded. Ragnar arrived with the peculiar outfits that he had prepared and that would give him his nickname, ready to face the poison of the snake and managed to kill the huge animal with a spear. In this way he married Thóra and acquired great fame. Descendants of this marriage were Agnar and Eric.
However, Thóra died of an illness and Ragnar met his third wife, Aslaug, in the following way: Aslaug was the daughter of Sigurd and Brynhild, the parents died and Heimir, a family friend, to prevent her from dying. assassinated the princess, hid her in a harp and traveled with her. They arrived at a farm where they found two peasants, who, believing that the harp kept a great treasure, killed Heimir, when they found the girl they decided to make her look as ugly as possible and hide her as if she were their daughter. After time Ragnar, on one of her trips, found her and was captivated by her beauty and intelligence, Aslaug discovered her lineage to Ragnar and they both got married. From this union the most famous sons of Ragnar were born, who would surpass his father as a legend and would go down in history: Ivar BonelessBjorn iron armHvitserk or Halfdan, Ubbe, Sigurd and Ragnvald.
Ragnar’s first campaigns had nothing to do with the English kingdoms and, despite what was shown in the series, he did not participate in the Viking landing at Lindisfarne ( which gave rise to the Viking Age. He began with raids across the Baltic, defeating the Semigallians and Curonians, as well as the Sambians. Around 845, he would be one of the greatest Viking chieftains, it was then that he decided to change his objectives and sailed down the Seine River to Paris, ravaging the western part of the Frankish Empire and receiving an economic ransom to return the city to Charlemagne’s grandson ( although later they would return led by Björn).
After leaving France, it was the British Isles that attracted his attention. In the year 865 he landed in Northumbria, the northeast coast of England, towards which he left with only two ships, wider than normal for a drakar and with the men who could fit in them, an audacity that Aslaug advised against. Despite the queen’s warnings, Ragnar set out. A storm made the ships unusable for a return trip, so, upon reaching the Anglo-Saxon kingdom, he fought and plundered harshly, facing King Ella in a battle in which he fell prisoner to the enemy, being the last Viking to survive. stood up fighting. King Ella was not sure if he was the famous King Ragnar, he wanted to avoid his death if it was so so as not to have to face the revenge of his sons, already famous as Ragnar himself. Since he couldn’t prove it, he threw it into a pit full of poisonous snakes. Then Ragnar said: “The piglets will snarl if they knew the boar’s misfortune, a terrible evil befalls me, the serpents pierce me with their jaws and bite cruelly, they have sucked my blood, now I will die with the beasts, soon I will be a corpse.” ”. With this he refers to how his children will seek revenge upon learning of his end.
At the end of the year 865, this prophecy was fulfilled. The largest Viking army seen to date is then created, which received the name of the Great Danish Army, or the Great Heathen Army. The sagas understand the invasion of England by this army as the revenge of Ragnar’s sons, a justification of uncertain historicity, although more poetic. The point is that it was Ivar the Boneless, Bjorn iron arm, Halfdan and Ubbe who led this great army with the aim of devastating and conquering England. We do not have specific figures for this force, but we could easily speak of hundreds of ships and several thousand warriors, what we do know is that it was a coalition of warriors from Denmark, Norway and Sweden, joined by the Vikings who they had been fighting and pillaging in France, whose power was enough to terrorize England at the time. The result of this campaign was the conquest of a large part of England and the origin of Viking settlements in the area, highlighting what would become the Viking kingdom of York.
The sagas describe how in the first battle of this great army, they defeated King Ella thanks to the cunning of Ivar, Northumbria was conquered and the king obtained the revenge of the sons of Ragnar, the worst of deaths, the Blood Eagle. Before continuing, I must point out that this practice does not seem true for historical purposes, rather it is considered a myth, but it consisted of (if you are sensitive, do not imagine the process too much): the victim, alive, was placed on his back and they practiced two cuts along the spine, after which the ribs were broken and the lungs were extracted from the chest cavity, leaving these suspended on the back as if they were “wings”. As I mentioned, dubious historical accuracy, but King Ella must have died an unpleasant death given that he was the assassin of Ragnar Lodbrok.
The adventures of the mighty Ragnar end here, but those of his children would continue, surpassing him in fame and glory. Of course they will have their own article too.
I hope you liked it and thanks for joining me in this cycle of articles about the Vikings, my passion.
-To Sol, who shares my passion for the Vikings and who made the “Vikings” series mean much more. Sköll.
“Man is the owner of his destiny, not the gods”
Ragnar Lodbrok in the Vikings series.
Bibliography:
Ibanez Lluch, Santiago. (Ed.). (2016). Saga of Ragnar Hairy Leggings. Tale of the Sons of Ragnar. Madrid, Spain: Editorial Miraguano Editions.
For the elaboration of this article, translations of the studies of Professor McTurk and the chronicler Saxo Grammaticus have also been used, as well as the sagas mentioned above.