The Saga of Ragnar Lodbrok, Viking Invasions

After the horrors of Lindisfarne, Viking raids continued across the British Isles. Our sources are scant for the Viking Age, but we do have one important contemporary account - the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Written, compiled, and updated over centuries by a variety of hands in Britain’s monasteries, the Chronicle traces the history of Britain and the Anglo-Saxon people year by year, from the landing of Julius Caesar in 55 BC to the first decades after the Norman conquest in 1066. The work is terse, bureaucratic, and often tedious to read. It’s also largely a summary, lacking the detail and drama that make for an engaging historical account. 

The written sources we have from the Viking side are far more entertaining and far less reliable. They come largely from the sagas - poems, mainly from Icelandic skalds (Viking poets) written in the 13th century, that describe famous Vikings and their great deeds. From these sagas, we have the tale of Ragnar Lodbrok, a fierce, heroic, and probably mythical Viking lord whose end will have consequences for the people of the British Isles that are still felt today.

Ragnar was born sometime in the early 9th century to the king of Sweden (or, in other sources, Denmark), Sigurd Ring. He lived the typical life of a Viking prince, gathering as many followers as he could, and building up a war chest by raiding and warring. During one of his adventures, he travelled with his men to Gotland, an island in the Baltic Sea. Here lived a princess named Þóra, whom Ragnar wished to marry, and a great serpent, which had taken to terrorising the people, who could not raise arms against it.

Ragnar decided to kill the serpent. In preparation, he had ‘‘shaggy-breeches and a fur-coat (...) boiled in pitch” to protect him from the serpent’s poisonous blood. Then, he took with him a long spear, so that he could keep his distance from its sharp, curved fangs. 

Ragnar found the serpent on the beach, slithering around the strange chimney-shaped rock formations that litter that part of the Gotland coast. He rushed at it and plunged his long spear deep into its belly. As it thrashed and writhed, the spear’s head snapped off, and it spat its burning venom at Ragnar in revenge. The hero stood over the beast as it finally died, unharmed thanks to his pitch-soaked cloak and breeches.

The next day, the Jarl found the serpent dead and Ragnar’s spearhead embedded in its body. He called a thing (or parliament) of all the men on the island and asked each one if they possessed the broken spear. Ragnar presented his shaft, and the Jarl fitted the spearhead on top, proving to all that Ragnar had slain the serpent. He told the tale of the battle, and from that moment on, he was known as Lodbrok, or “hairy breeches”.  

The Jarl asked Ragnar to name his prize, and he replied that he wished to have Þóra’s hand in marriage. Ragnar and Þóra returned to the mainland, and had two sons before Þóra died of an illness. Driven by grief, Ragnar left his kingdom and travelled to Norway, where he met a peasant woman named Kraka (meaning ‘Crow’, known also in other sources as Aslaug), whose “hair was so long that it went down to the ground, and was as beautiful as the most beautiful silk”. All of Ragnar’s followers were entranced by this dark-haired beauty, and when he ordered them to make bread for a feast, the loaves came out burned, as none of the men could take their eyes off the beautiful Kraka as they worked. 

Ragnar married Kraka, who bore him a son named Ivar. The Saga tells us he was born with cartilage instead of bones, and so was named ‘Boneless’. Then came Ubba, Hvitserk, and Sigurd. As they grew up, the brothers accompanied their father on raids, fighting the Finns in the north, who shot like lightning across the snowdrifts, firing arrows from their skis. Then, braving the Saxons' shieldwalls, and sailing the Volga, plundering the villages of the far-off Rus.

Ivar could not walk and had to be carried around on wooden staves, but he quickly showed himself the most fearsome and cunning of Ragnar’s sons. He led raids on the Saxons and Irish, sacking their monasteries, carrying off their women, treasure, and livestock, and becoming like his father - a terror to his enemies, and an inspiration for the Skalds’ poems all across the Norse lands.

One year, Ragnar set off to raid the Saxon lands and came into conflict with Aella, the king of Northumbria. Aella was a blasphemous and tyrannical ruler who was said to have won his kingdom by usurping the rightful king, and plundering monasteries, taking their lands and wealth for himself. Ragnar fought a battle against the Northumbrians and was defeated and captured. He was brought before the Saxon king and stripped of his tar-soaked coat and breeches. Then, he was bound and thrown into a pit of poisonous snakes that bit and tormented him until he died in agony. 

News of Ragnar’s death travelled across the rainswept Northern seas until it arrived at the longhouses of Ivar and his brothers. They sent a call across their lands, asking their many allies to join a great army they would take to strike at the hearts of their father’s murderers and carve out kingdoms for themselves.

That’s a pretty tall story that I just told you. Can we really believe that Ragnar slew a dragon? Did Aella really have a pit of snakes ready and waiting? Where did he even get the snakes from - did he have a team of his men collect them? How long would that take in cold, gloomy England? Or did he buy them? And if so, then why? Just to have in case he needed to give a legendary Viking an end that just happened to mirror his rise?

In truth, Ragnar’s saga is a myth. It’s a good story that helps us fill the gaps in our knowledge about a time when little was written down. The tale helps us explain why, in 865, a huge Viking warfleet arrived on the shores of East Anglia. It helps us make narrative sense of a great transition; that the Vikings were now more than raiders; they were invaders. This was the Great Heathen Army, and they were about to ravage Britain, settle the lands, and, as the Saxons began to unify against them, go some way in creating the Anglo-Saxon identity that would eventually form the English people.