The Saga of Ragnar Lothbrók

If you haven’t already, I highly recommend you give the episode a listen so you can hear all those names pronounced!

https://www.buzzsprout.com/1685008/episodes/8307225-the-saga-of-ragnar-lothbrok-pt-1

There are many stories in this world from many cultures. Few cultures have captured the imagination of the human race like that of the Norse. These stories have hit a resurgence lately in popular culture. Thanks to Marvel’s Thor and Video games like the most recent God of War, which I have slowly been working on and Assassin’s creed Valhalla, which I have been playing pretty much nonstop. As well as shows like Netflix’s The tLast Kingdom. Though one of the Stories which has most captured the imagination of our generation are the adventures of Ragnar Lođbrök (luth- broke) as told in the popular show Vikings. This is the true tale of Ragnar, at least according to the Icelandic sagas, his life and loves, his children and what the heck does “Lođbrök” even mean anyway???

I became formally introduced to the Nordic people in college when, on a whim I took a class on the Icelandic sagas as an elective. After that I was hooked, taking classes in old Norse Icelandic, and on Nordic mythology. I then made Celtic and Norse cultures the focus of my anthropological studies. But enough about me.

First off, who were the Scandinavians? We see evidence of early Scandinavians showing up in the Stone Age on the Scandinavian peninsula, comprised of Sweden, Denmark and Norway. Archaeology suggests that this culture remained unbroken in this area since then at least. Some of these people break off and leave Scandinavia, losing their Scandinavian identity. These migrants include the Burgundians, Lombard’s and the Goths. In those days, they spoke a language that would come to be known as proto-Germanic. This language would split apart to become west, east and North Germanic. West Germanic would split apart to become Netherlandic -German and Anglo-Frisian, further splitting up to become modern Netherlandic and German, our English and Frisian respectively. Frisian by the way is the language spoken by the Frisians, what a shock, of the coastal Netherlands and northern Germany.

East Germanic becomes gothic, the language of the Goths. The Germanic people that would sack Rome in 410, not the kids all in black with the makeup and stuff who would like to read you their morbid poetry.

For the sake of this episode we are focusing on Northern Germanic which split into East and West Scandinavian, to become our modern Danish and Swedish as well as Icelandic, Faroese and Norwegian respectively. Sometime around 400 AD we see the early evidence of a written language appearing in the form of runes.

As I mentioned here, up to this point the Scandinavians are pretty sedentary. Somewhere around 700 we see them stepping out on holiday, meeting new and exciting people, killing them and taking their stuff, but they always returned home. At this time there was more of a tribal structure. As time went on, some people came to amass more wealth than others and kings begin to emerge.

With this inequal distribution of wealth, as is so often seen around the world, changing economics leads to leisure activities. Among these activities that emerge is the art of storytelling. The mythology of the people begins to be set in rough poetry. These stories answer the questions of the people like how the earth was created, the roles and activities of the gods and goddesses and where do we go when we die.

According to the sagas, around 872 Haraldr inn Fárhagri, (ha-ra-l-dur f-ow-r-ha-gree)commonly translated now as Harald Fairhair united the peoples of Scandinavia into one country, Norway, with himself as king. Perhaps it was because some were unable to put aside feuds with other clans that they would now have to call brothers, or a loss of livelihood or tribal identity and an ever increasing lack of arable land, (when one people inhabit the same area for a thousand years or so, conditions can get a little cramped due to population growth over time. This was a problem when there weren't many supermarkets around so the people had to farm their own lands to survive. Additionally, when the owner of the farm dies, the farm would be left to his descendants, often divided up between siblings. As time goes on, the individual area owned by any one descendant is a fraction of what it once was. If this goes on long enough, you'd be lucky to have a scrap of land large enough to stand up in.) It is likely a combination of all these things and more, but we see a mass exodus of people from Scandinavia, as many of the best, brightest and most notable move away from home to establish themselves elsewhere, giving birth to the Nordic lands. This exodus brought about the settlement of Iceland. This accounts for the dispersal of Nordic people into other lands outside of scandinavia. Technically only those that stayed could truly be called Scandinavian. That is why nordic territories like Iceland were not included in our original definition at the top.

Under the rule of Fairhair, the stories begin to become more formalized, becoming known as Eddaic verse. Harald reigns until circa 930 when he passes on his crown to Eríkr(air-eek-er)Haraldsson, popularly called Erikr Blóđøx, (bl-oath-eux, like the French 'eu' sound. Kinda like if short 'e' and short 'up had a baby.) or in english, Eric Bloodaxe. Eríkr does not sit the throne long though for he is succeeded by his brother Hákon Aðalsteinsfóstri,(how-kon athel-stine-foe-stree) or Hákon Góđi, (go-thee) Haakon (hawk-kon) the Good. He begins the conversion of the Nordic peoples to christianity. Because of this, Eddaic (ed-day-ick)verse in large part falls to the wayside.

In Iceland, conversion happened a little differently. Iceland was a free state. Viewed from the outside, it's government functioned similarly to a democracy. They are considered the oldest still operating parliament. In truth the Icelanders had a decentralized government, with no overseeing executive body.

Iceland was divided into four regions which were further broken up into 3 districts. Or þings, (things) decisions were made and disputes managed by gođar (go-thar) at the þing. There was a great gathering or Alþing (all-thing) where the individual þings would come together every summer at þingcöllr thing-cutler) for the Alþing. The traditional center of this was the lögberg, (lug-burg) or law rock.This was presided over by a lögsögumađr (lug-sug-gum-mother) or lawspeaker. This position had no deciding power, rather it was their job to memorize the law, weigh in on matters and in general keep things running smoothly. Weighty matters that concerned everybody or the rare dispute that could not be decided locally were addressed here. This was a public event and all were invited. It had a festival air. According to tradition, in the year 1000 the matter of christianity was brought up and it was democratically decided the country would convert. On reaching a decision the lögsögumađr knocked his staff against the lögberg which split in half, marking the end of the old ways.

Due in large part to this peaceful conversion, things were a lot less strict than was seen elsewhere. The old ways could still be followed, as long as it was recognized that the country as a whole was christian. The two ways of life were not seen as necessarily mutually exclusive. One example of this can be seen in a mold used by a silversmith. One side was a cross, while the other side of the same mold had mjölnír, (me-yol-near)Þor's hammer.

This atmosphere of acceptance allowed the stories of the people to not only persist but to flourish. Storytelling became an art with the storytellers or skalds (scowleds) developing a complicated system of verse where daily things were referred to by poetic allusions based on their commonly understood mythology. For example, a ship might be poetically referred to as a steed of the sea or further as Ægir's (eye-gear) steed, Ægir being a sea giant and considered a god of the sea. So a "horse" you would ride over Ægir's territory would be a ship.

These allusions are called kennings. To keep things interesting, any given object could have countless kennings that were commonly understood by the people. Some of these were put together and explained in the younger or prose edda of Snorri Sturlusson around 1200. Though some of these kennings were explained, this was far from all of them and even in this work which has been theorized to be a primer to help outsiders understand the stories, Snorri relied on his audience having some working knowledge so some kennings that modern researchers can't figure out now were likely taken to be so commonplace at the time that Snorri felt they required no explanation. In many cases Snorri also references older works that no longer exist to us today. Much knowledge of the nordic mythology has been lost to us. The complex web of story we see today is likely only a fraction of the whole. A window through which we can see perhaps into one room of the greater house.

In fact, we don't even KNOW what we know about nordic mythology. The myths that we have now weren't recorded until sometime after conversion to christianity and likely many of the stories were altered to make them more palatable to a Christian audience. An example of this is the story of ragnarök, the twilight of the gods. It has been theorized that this story was created or at least altered to resemble passages from revelation. The popular theory is that it was written after hearing a fire and brimstone sermon.

It is in Iceland that we see the rise of the saga. Sagas are unique in that they are part legendary, part historical accounts. They were often commissioned to honour one particular family or another and would focus on the heroic deeds of members of that family. This explains why part of the formula of the sagas includes a genealogy as its introduction. Poetic license was likely taken to make these deeds grander and smoothly melded the legendary and the historical. These stories were transmitted orally for probably hundreds of years in some cases before being put down to paper. Icelanders became renowned internationally as wordsmiths and storytellers. Stories can be understood to be a national export, hence the need for a book like Snorri's to help outsiders understand the popular kennings from these stories. It is largely from the accounts of these sagas that our modern understanding of the nordic people comes from.

As these sagas usually honoured one family or another, events tend to be viewed from a certain perspective. It would also hold the flavour of the individual skald who crafted it as well as the character of subsequent retellers. So the same events can appear in multiple sagas but may be drastically different. Say an event involves conflict between persons from 2 different families. Both of these could end up with a saga portraying their given perspective and be told in such a way as to make themselves and/or their family look good. This would likely involve their given protagonist being in the right in the conflict and may end with themselves coming out ahead. So the same event from two different perspectives, with potentially two different motivations and two different results. Throw in hundreds of years of telling and retelling and this can create two very different accounts, leading to contradictions and discrepancies.

This has led many scholars to dismiss them as historic material. After all, how can you know which version is the right version or whether either one is a reliable account at all. In addition to all this, to further muddy the waters, many of the sagas have mythic and legendary elements in them. For example, a given saga may be focused on a particular historic battle but the participants are made out as legendary heroes armed with magical weapons and armour and may involve magic, mythical creatures or even the gods themselves. So you can see where this can make things difficult for modern researchers. All of this has led many to categorize them as either or. Either they are legends or they are historical accounts. But this dichotomy is not the correct way to view these. They are both legendary and historical and should be read and enjoyed as such, just as Iceland was both pagan and christian. They seem to have always been something in between.

Now that you understand a little about sagas and how they work, let's look at the story of Ragnar Lođbrók. The story of Ragnar is told in a few different sagas, each telling it slightly differently though some aspects may appear identical across different versions. For example, portions of two versions where a given character is speaking may use exactly the same quote, whether this was actually said by the person or one is quoting the other or whether both are retellings of an older account will likely never be known. This has led some to wonder whether Ragnar and his sons actually ever existed at all or whether all of them are mere contrivances, characters in a story. All of this is to say that these are not necessarily hard facts as we see it today. As a result i do not endeavour nor presume to present a factual historical narrative of events. Rather i try to portray it as the rich story that it is. Whenever possible and applicable I do point out differences between versions as I have done in previous episodes.

Ragnar is the son of Sigurđr Hringr, (sig-earth-er h-ringer) son of of Randver (rond-ver) king of Denmark, and nephew to Haraldr Hilditǫnn (hill-dit-on) that is Harald Wartooth. Randver was son of Ráđbarđr, (r-ow-berth-er) king of Garđaríki, (gerther-eek-i) the old Norse name for Rus. (Roose) Rus was an eastern European territory which while ruled by Nordic kings, it also contained slavic, baltic and finnic tribes. Over time Rus becomes more slavic and old east slavic would become the common tongue, replacing old Norse. This was the building block on which our modern eastern europe was built. Vestiges of Rus can still be seen in Русская земля (Russkaya zemlya) (roose-ky-ah zem-lie-ya) the land of the Rus and Belaya Rus. (Bella-ya roose)(white Rus) these would later be truncated to Russia and Belarus respectively. Randver was grandson to ívarr inn Viđfađmi, (ee-var inn vith-fath-mi) king of Sweden and half brother to Haraldr Wartooth.

Ragnar's mother was the Norwegian princess Álfhildr, (owl-f-hilder) who was by tradition of the Álfar, (owl-fer) or elves. The Álfar seem to be part myth, part historic people. They are apparently known for their size, strength and beauty. Ragnar is supposed to take after his mother's people being bigger, stronger and better looking than all other men. Ragnar himself succeeds his father as king of Denmark. Or Sweden. Or by some accounts:both.

In Götaland (gyut-a-land) there was a jarl (yar-l)named Herrauđr, (hair-author) he had a daughter named Þóra Borgarhjǫrtr. (Thora burg-are-he-yurter) In old Norse Icelandic, Borg can be translated as a dome shaped hill, a fortress or a walled town or city. While hjǫrtr means hart or stag. Her name is commonly translated as Thora Town-Hart or Thora Fortress-Hart. Herrauđr loves his daughter and dotes on her immensely. He gives her her own Bower and everyday would give her a different gift. One morning he presents her with a small snake whose bright scales made it exceedingly beautiful. This snake was a baby lindworm. A mythical two legged snake creature like a wingless wyvern. Þora is delighted with this gift and makes up a home for it in a box which she furnishes with a gold coin. Under her care, the snake begins to grow. Soon the snake outgrows the box and instead coils itself around it. As the serpent grows, the coin Þora had given it multiplies so now where once there was a single coin, the serpent is now laying on a small pile of coins.

The snake continues to grow. When it is full grown it has not only outgrown its box, but also the bower entirely so that it now lays wrapped around the house in a ring, its head on its tail. The coin is now a full horde of gold on which it lays. Þora is left inside her bower and no one will go near for fear of the lindworm. It is fed its dinner each day by a servant. The menu: a large ox which it swallows whole. In addition to its size and ferocity, the wyrm can also spit venom and if a hero were able to pierce its scales to damage the creature, its blood is acid and would kill its attacker. At this point, Þora has become an exceptionally beautiful young lady of marriageable age but no one can pay her suit with a giant lindworm in the way. Jarl Harauđr sees nothing good coming of this but no one is brave enough to get near the serpent, not to mention kill it. So Harauđr has it declared that anyone who can kill the beast can have his daughter for his wife and the horde of gold as a dowry to boot.

Baby Ragnar at this point has grown into a teenager. Though young he is already larger and stronger than most adults. Despite his young age he is already considered one of the best fighters in the land. He has his own ship and crew of warriors. While out raiding, he hears stories of the beauty of þora and the promise of her father regarding the creature. He acts all nonchalant but he goes and has special clothes made. These clothes are all hairy and shaggy. He coats them with tar and rolls around in the sand on the beach until they are all covered.

They go to the lands of Harauđr that night, to the bower of Þora, there to do battle with the serpent. He dons his new hairy suit and a massive spear most men cannot even pick up, not to mention use. Ragnar removes the pin holding his spearhead to the shaft.

He approaches the serpent alone. It spits venom at the young warrior but he blocks it with his shield. He thrusts in with his heavy spear, wounding the creature. The battle is fierce, this is the first time the snake had been wounded and he is not happy. Snapping and biting at Ragnar and spewing its foul poison at him. Seeing an opening, Ragnar thrusts home with his spear. Some say thrust into the creature's spine, severing it, some that he pierced its heart. Either way, that wound was the serpent's death. Ragnar twists the shaft of his spear so that it comes free of the head which stays lodged in the creature as it begins its death throes. Ragnar, like a hero in an action movie, just turns and starts to walk away. As he turns, a jet of the wyrm’s hot blood gushes out, blasting him in the back, between his shoulders. The blood hits the shaggy clothes and drips harmlessly to the ground. As Ragnar is leaving, þora wakes and rushes to the window to see what all the commotion was. She sees the shadow of a large man silhouetted there and she calls out, asking who he is and why he has come. Ragnar replies with a verse.

I've gambled my glorious life

Girl of fair complexion

Fought the fish of the land

Though fifteen winters old

I have conquered, cleaving

The coiled heath-salmon to the heart

Unless its bale should bite

Bringing me sudden death.

Without another word, he turns and leaves þora to ponder this.

This Is a perfect example of a kenning. The lines "fish of the land" and "heath-salmon"are both referring to the serpent who, though on land is covered on scales like a fish.

In this poem, though not revealing his identity, he tells her his age and his motivation for coming. With this he shows off his intellect, which is greater than that of your average person, coming up with that poem on the fly seconds after killing a legendary monster. Þora is left wondering just who this youth is and if he is even human. He is already huge and not yet full grown, she thinks he seems as big as a monster out of legend.

The next morning Harauđr steps out to see the carnage. He notices the spear head sticking out of the serpent, now gone cold. He has his men lift the spear out which they do with difficulty for it is so large and heavy. When Harauđr sees the size and weight of it he feels it could not have been wielded by a human.

He consults his people and decides to hold a party and invite everyone around. On the invite he makes a point of saying he would take it as a personal insult if anyone is not in attendance. So needless to say, a lot of people rsvp yes and among them was little Ragnar, 15 years old yet towering above everyone. One by one Harauðr has the spear presented to those gathered there, asking if it belonged to them. They all said no. Ragnar Sat in the back of the room watching. Finally the spear head was brought to him and he claimed it, presenting the shaft that fit it as proof.

From then on Ragnar Sigurdson becomes Ragnar Lođbrók, that is Ragnar shaggy breeches. So yeah, far from being some cool, glamorous title or even a family name, his name is literally Ragnar Hairy-Pants because of his lindworm proof clothes.

Ragnar and þora were married and they have two beautiful children, Eirek (eye-rick) and Agnar. They all live happily ever after in Ragnar’s kingdom where he rules with wisdom and goodwill. This lasts for a while but one day þora falls sick and suddenly dies. Ragnar is devastated by this. He leaves the kingdom in the hands of his advisers and his sons while he returns to his old life of raiding. Everywhere he goes he is victorious, gaining greater renown.

On one of these journeys he is traveling to Norway to visit family. He pulls into a harbor near a farm called Spangareiđ. (Span-ga-wreath)They berthed there overnight and the next morning he sent his men in to the farm to bake their bread there. They were greeted by an old lady who was the lady of the house. Her name was Grima. (Greema) She invites them in but when they ask for her help to knead the dough to make the work go quicker she protests, saying she is too old and decrepit but she has a young daughter who would be quite able and willing. Her name was Kráka. (Kr-ow-kah) it means crow.

At this moment Kráka was out bathing, which was forbidden by mamma Gríma. More on that later. Anyway, she had heard there were strangers running about so she decided to freshen up. When the men had heard the girl was a daughter of the old lady they were expecting a younger version of their hostess who was the most hideous of women. What they saw made their jaws drop. Far from being ugly, or even plain. Standing before them was the most beautiful woman they had ever seen. They even remarked on this to Gríma saying they were as unlike as night and day. She was horrible and ugly while the daughter was hot. Like really hot. Gríma gives them a big old wink and tells them they should have seen her when she was younger. Actually, when she was younger she looked about how she did bow but ah, the lies we tell. The men are like sure, whatever and just keep eyeing Kráka up and down. In fact, after the girl had helped them knead the dough they kept staring at her, drooling like schoolboys instead of watching the bread. What they took back to the ship, let's just say you could have bagged it and labeled it kingsford. The crew called for the men to be punished for bringing back these inedible lumps they called bread.

Ragnar says hold on a minute. Let's hear your excuse. The men tell him it wasn't their fault, they were trying to do a good job but she was just so hot… Ragnar is like whoa, she? And they're like yeah, she was the most beautiful girl you have ever seen. Which is crazy because her mother is a total hag. On a scale from one to ten this girl was like a solid 20 and her mom was somewhere in the ballpark of negative one hundred. Ragnar asks even more beautiful than þora? I'm sure the men thought long and hard before responding ,maybe not MORE beautiful but she isn't LESS beautiful. They're pretty equal on the hotness scale. Ragnar says now this I've gotta see. But if she is not at least as beautiful as þora, he was handing them over to the crew who were none too happy with their charcoal they were given for dinner. Ragnar sends the men back to fetch the girl so he can see for himself but he gives this curious little addendum. The men are to tell her to come meet Ragnar unclothed yet covered up, that nobody was to come with her but she couldn't come alone and she must be neither hungry nor to have eaten.

The men return and tell the girl and her parents this. Gríma exclaims about what an idiot this Ragnar was, ordering the impossible like that. The guy must not be quite right in the head. Þora on the other hand figures that if Ragnar said it, it must be possible, realising it was a test. Ragnar didn't want just another pretty bimbo, he wanted a girl with a mind to match the body. He was looking for a beautiful mind if you will.

The next day the girl agrees to go meet Ragnar but first she talks to dear old ugly dad. She asks him if she could borrow his fishing net and his dog. He confusedly agrees. A little later the girl comes out in her new couture. She was wrapped in the fishing net and covered by her long, luxurious hair which reached the floor and she had the dog next to her. She ate a special kind of leek called a wine leak which was apparently the old Norse slimfast. One bite of that could keep you satisfied all day. Like lembas. So it was that she presented herself to Ragnar in all her fishnet finery being unCLOTHED yet all covered up, with a companion yet no PERSON came with her and she was neither hungry nor full. He sees her coming and calls out to her,, asking who she is.. she replies

I don't dare refuse

The decree that I must come

Nor break with your bidding

To be here, lord Ragnar.

No man stands before me,

And my skin is not bare;

I had my fine following,

Though I fared here alone.

Ragnar was immediately smitten. He could not deny her great beauty nor her agile mind. He asks her to come aboard. She tells him she will do no such thing unless her and her companion are granted safe conduct. He agrees and she comes aboard. Once she is on board, Ragnar reaches out a hand to touch her. The dog springs to the girl's defense and bites Mr Grabbyhands. The crew rushes in and beats the dog to death in retaliation. So much for safe conduct. Anyway, Ragnar brings her over to a secluded corner of the ship and the two talk. Wanting to get in her fishnet, Ragnar says

If the fatherland's defender

To the fine lady were kind,

Truly she would take me

Tenderly in her arms.

To which she replied

If you respect safe conduct,

surely you will let me go

Home from here, unblemished-

Though a helmsman I have sought.

Fatherland's defender and helmsman are both kennings for a king. Just so you know.

Playing hard to get. Ol' Hairy-Pants was hooked. He asks her to come with him and keep him company during the raiding season. She says yeah- no. So he pulls the I'm a soldier shipping out tomorrow, who knows what might happen while I'm gone so you should sleep with me tonight. She says yeah, you're going off tomorrow and who knows what might happen. You might meet another girl while you're out and forget all about me. Then where would I be? But she tells him if he still wants her by the end of his time overseas then to come back and they'd talk. Ragnar has one of þora's fancy shirts, sewn with gold and silver brought out. and tries to give it to her. She says that it wouldn't be fitting for her to wear his dead wife's clothes, she worked on a farm. I mean, seriously? What did he think farmers did all day? She said she couldn't wear fancy clothes as long as she lived with the old people. She tells him she's had a great time but she really must be going. But if he hadn't changed his mind, she would be seeing him later. Ragnar promises to be back asap.

True to his word Ragnar rushes through what he needs to do and comes hurrying back. He arrives in the middle of the night and sends men to fetch her and bring her back. She tells the men she wouldn't leave until morning and goes back to sleep. She wakes up early to prep. She knocks on the old couple's door and let's herself in. She tells them she knows what they did last summer. Or when she was a baby, whichever, and she would be revenged on them. They would spend the rest of their miserable lives well…more miserable. Why did she want revenge? What did the old couple do? And would Kráka become the next top fishnet model? Stay tuned!