The Saga of Ragnar Lođbrók and His Sons pt. 3

To hear the episode check it out at: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1685008/8560755

Thank you so much for much for coming back for the third and final installment in the saga of Ragnar!!! And a special thanks goes out to Toni Raptor for subscribing on patreon!!! I truly and deeply appreciate everyone who subscribes and helps to keep this podcast alive!! I'm not going to lie, this is a daunting task sometimes and it is because of support from people like Toni that I am able to keep it up!! Also, in addition to keeping this show alive you are gaining access to recipes from the different cultures where the stories originate as well as upcoming bonus content! I am also slowly adding merch as I am able to get it designed,, so check it out!

Ok, Where we left it last time: Ragnar had tried to show off and conquer England with only two ships. King Ælle captures him and throws him in a pit of vipers where he dies. What will Ælle do next? Let's find out!!

Only after Ragnar had died did Ælle figure out it really was him laying lifeless in the snake pit there. Then Ælle is like 'oh crap, how do i spin this so his sons don't come at me…'

I mean, what did the guy expect? Who tortures someone to find out their name by feeding them to poisonous snakes? Especially when they are pretty sure that that person they are torturing is the last person in the world they want to harm. 'Hmmmm… let me see if you're the person i shouldn't hurt, not to mention kill by killing you…' that makes a ton of sense….

So Ælle comes up with a plan and sends a man to tell the sons of Ragnar the bad news. This guy is supposed to tell them what happened and pay careful attention to their reactions, to gauge just how much trouble they were in. Now, you may be wondering, why say anything at all? I mean before the internet news didn't travel near as fast, maybe they wouldn't find out. it's not like Ragnar updated his status to 'hanging with poisonous vipers in Ælle's snake pit, tots bummed' or something. This was actually a pretty shrewd, calculated move on Ælle's part.

It all goes back to what i was saying before about blood feuds. In Norse culture, killing people happens. There is a dispute, someone calls you a mean name or in some way insults your honour you fight and one of you will likely die. It happens. So by law you then report the death to the next person you see so they can be witness to the fact that it was legit and that you didn't try and hide it. You then offer compensation to the family of the deceased and they agree not to take revenge. That way it stops the cycle of inevitable revenge killings right there. Otherwise society would be torn apart by constant blood feuds. someone gets killed then their kin is obligated to do a revenge killing from the other family who then is obligated to kill someone from the first family and such and so on so a simple dispute could become an all out war between families. Then they bring their friends into it and the whole thing just gets crazy go nuts. So you report it and pay compensation and nip the whole thing in the bud. It's only when you don't report it and flee or try to cover it up that a killing becomes murder.

So Ælle, instead of hiding it, makes Ragnar’s death known to the brothers and offers compensation. The messengers find the brothers relaxing in Denmark. When they arrive Ivarr is lounging on a throne while Bjorn is making a spear shaft. Hvitserk and Sigurd are playing a board game. The messengers tell them what happened, leaving nothing out, while Ivarr occasionally interrupts with a question. When Bjorn hears Ragnar's "piglets would grunt" line he grips the spearshaft he was working on so tightly that he left a handprint in the hardwood. When they had heard the whole Bjorn shook the metal spearpoint for the spear he was making to pieces. Hvitserk squeezed a game piece so hard "blood spurted out from under every nail." Sigurd had been trimming his nails with a knife but he was so absorbed in the news that he didn't even notice that he had gone through the nail, cutting through the finger until the knife was lodged in the bone. Ivarr just kept asking his questions but his complexion kept changing colour from pale with shock, to red with anger to black with fury.

The brothers wanted to start the revenge killings with the messengers but Ivarr stopped them saying the men were to be allowed to go free wherever they wanted and if there was anything they needed, just let him know so they could be on their way.

The messengers return to England and tell Ælle the news. When they told the king about the brothers' reaction he responded by saying they must either fear Ivarr or no one. He thought the other brothers were "soft hearted" and ineffectual. They may come and bluster but the Britons could easily defend their lands from them. Ivarr was another story entirely though. Ivarr was cunning. If he was coming for you, watch out, because Ivarr would do whatever it took to get at you. His enemies had a way of turning up dead.

Meanwhile, the brothers are in the middle of a disagreement. The younger brothers all want to set out immediately with every ship in the land, crewed with every fighting man and lay waste to Britain. Ivarr on the other hand said he would not co tribute a single ship. He said he knew Ragnar’s plan was stupid from the beginning but his father refused to listen to advice and got himself killed. For Ivarr’s part, he would sail to England, but not to attack, rather he would accept compensation and be done with it.

The other brothers are not happy. They had always blindly followed Ivarr, trusting in his cunning and wisdom to see them to victory but they could not bring themselves to accept compensation for their father. They got together what men they could but when many of the people hurt Ivarr was not going, they opted to stay home so the force the brothers DID manage to get was much smaller than they would have liked. This didn't stop them though, they still set sail, hungry for revenge.

The Ragnarsons sailed over to England. Ivarr went with them in his own ship. Sailing was smooth and they made it to shore without incident.

When Ælle heard they were coming he gathered a huge army to defend his land. It is said "He assembled such a great host that no man could count them." He met the brothers in battle but when Ivarr would not take the field, the Norse were routed.

After the battle Ivarr tell his brothers that he is on his way to collect compensation from Ælle. When they refused to go with him he told them to go home and rule their lands but made them promise to send him money whenever he asked for it.

With the brothers on their way back home, Ivarr pays Ælle a visit. He tells the king that he just wants peace and to collect compensation. Ælle is skeptical. He had heard about Ivarr. He is known for being tricksy and false. He will say one thing and sound fair but mean another and do harm. Ivarr says look, i just want a piece of land no larger than what a single oxhide can cover to build a town of my own then I pinky swear I will never ever attack you.

Ælle is like well, I guess i can't see the harm in that… So Ivarr gets the largest oxhide he can find. He has it softened and stretched repeatedly to make it larger. Then he has it sliced into ribbons. Then he splits the hide ribbons. Splitting by the bye is a process wherein a thick leather like cow or ox is split apart, separating the top layer, where the hair is and the softer under layer, essentially making two hides out of one. So by doing this, Ivarr now has double the amount of ox ribbon. He has all these ribbon attached, end to end and spread out in a giant circle. In this way the single oxhide was made to encompass a chunk of land large enough for a city. He called it London town.

Now you might be saying, whoa, whoa, whoa, hold up a second. London??? And you would be right. London is on the site of Londinium. A first century (circa ad 47-50) Roman settlement. So it would be a little hard to digest Ivarr founding it in the 9th century. The saga of Ragnar’s Sons gives the name of the town as York. Again hard to swallow as York was another Roman city originally called Eboracum, founded by Quintus Petillius Cerialis in the 1st century, this one circa 71 ad. It sprang up around a Roman fort on the site. The whole story of the act of founding by asking for as much land as could be covered by an oxhide itself goes back at least to the negative 1st century. It is taken directly out of Virgil's Aeneid from 29 to 19 bc wherein Dido founds Carthage using this exact ploy. We also see this same tactic in the interactions between Hengist and Vortigern in Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae or in english: History of the Kings of Britain from around 1136. This is part of a trope where a person asks for something seemingly small but by cunning they get something much larger. This is a perfect example of the colourful embellishments added over the years before recording that makes this so hard for historians to stomach as a historical account.

Anyway, Ivarr 'founds' London and starts freely giving lavish gifts to the other rulers and nobility and making friends with everyone. Word of his famed wisdom got out and soon people were coming from all over to have him be the judge in their legal affairs. The saga says "...he settled all cases in such a way that each party thought that he came out on top." Even King Ælle goes to him and basically has him handling a lot of the responsibility for the kingdom without oversight. He pretty much has the country under his thumb. He sends messengers back home, calling in the promise from his brothers to send as much gold and silver as he asks for. No one can figure out what is going on but the brothers say to themselves, this does NOT sound like Ivarr, so they figure it must be a strategy of some kind and go along with it. He distributes this money out to all the important people who had fighting men, telling them that next time Ælle calls the levy, that they and their men should stay home.

This done, Ivarr sends another messenger home, telling his little brothers to muster as many men as possible and attack.

When Ælle sees this massive viking horde on his doorstep, he calls for his armies to assemble but hardly anybody shows up. In a pickle, who do you think he turns to if not his trusted friend and advisor Ivarr Boneless. Ivarr tells Aelle that he doesn't know if it will do anything but he'll go talk to his brothers and see if he can persuade them to just go home. So Ælle sends Ivarr yo represent him as a negotiator.

When Ivarr gets to the invading army he gives them the old locker room pep talk. He tells them look, the king doesn't have an army, go attack now! He encourages them to advance and they tell him, you don't have to tell us twice!

Ivarr goes back to Ælle and tells him his brothers are crazy and foaming at the mouth, wanting violence. When he tried to talk peace, they didn't even answer, just started howling like animals. But he tells Ælle not to worry, he's got this! And proceeds to give him a peptalk saying there is no way the invaders will win against him. But they are his family, so his hands are tied, he won't contribute to their deaths or defeat but that being said, he will not break his promise to the king and attack him either. He swears to sits peacefully in London with his men and help nor hinder either side. Even though he can't fight, Ivarr is rooting for him!

Ælle personally leads what meagre troops he can get his hands on against the massive force of Ragnar's sons. The saga says the viking horde easily rushed right through Ælle's army but since they were intent on causing as much damage as possible, they drew the battle out so that what should have been over right away became a long, hard battle. Ælle's men turn and run, leaving Ælle to be captured by the avenging brothers.

Ælle now prisoner, Ivarr comes walking up and tells his brothers to kill the king. Saying "my advice now… ...is that we remember the sort of death that he ordered for our father."

Things get a little gruesome here. It is not for children or the faint of heart. If you're squeamish put your fingers in your ears and hum for a bit or something.

He has the best woodcarver from among their armies come and carve an eagle carefully into the King's back "and that eagle shall turn red with his blood." So the guy carves the eagle into Ælle's back and they watch as the king bleeds out.

Now some of you out there may be familiar with the term "blood eagle" and may be saying to yourselves wait, that's not what a blood eagle is… just bear with me.

In the Tales of Ragnar’s Sons, they tell it a little differently.

"They had an eagle carved on Ælle's back, and then had all the ribs severed from the backbone with a sword, so that the lungs were pulled out."

The author then quotes another work, the Praise poem for King Knut by the skald Sight.

And Ivarr

Who resided at York

Ordered Ælle's back

Carved by an eagle

Remember when I said one possible reason for the similarities and differences between the two accounts could be because they were both based on another, older work? Well this is some pretty solid evidence of that theory.

Ivar tells the brothers they can have the lands that they had all shared back home, but he wanted to rule England himself. The brothers agree and they return home while Ivarr rules in the English Kingdom of North Umbria where Ælle had been king.

According to this saga Ivarr would rule England until the day of his death and he would defend it even from beyond the grave. He became sick and on his deathbed he commanded that he be buried overlooking the most likely spot for invaders to put ashore. It is said that when King Harald Sigurđarsonn also known as Harald Harđráđi (harth-rowth-ee) literally 'Hard or stern-Ruler' tried to invade England in September of 1066 he was defeated at the place where Ivarr was buried. Some consider Harald to have been the last true viking leader and his death brought about the end of the age of the vikings.

In October of that year William the Bastard, better known now as William the Conqueror invades. By tradition he has the body of Ivarr disinterred. Ivarr’s body is completely undecayed or corrupted by time. He has the body burned, breaking the magic of Ivarr’s protection of the land, allowing William to successfully take control for himself. It is possible this story is derived from the story of Bran the blessed from the Celtic Welsh Mabinogian. Ivarr himself, according to the Tales of Ragnar’s Sons, was a wise but cold ruler. He felt no lust nor had any love in his heart. He died childless and was succeeded by Æthelmund, nephew to Saint Edmund.

When the brothers arrived home they divided up the territories of their father Ragnar. Hvitsetk takes the lands of Jutland and Wendland. (Venland) Wendland is in what is now Germany, on the south coast ofbthe Baltic sea. It Was peopled by the "wends" the germanic name for the slavic people. He goes off raiding in the "east realms" while he is off raiding he is captured. His captors allow him to choose the manner of his death himself. He chooses to be burned alive on a pyre of human head. His wish is granted and he dies there.

When his mother hears the news, she speaks this verse:

One son whom I suckled

Sought death in the East-realm

Hvitserk he was named,

Never hurrying to flee;

They heated him with hacked-off

Heads of the slain in battle;

My bold and brave prince chose

This bane, before he died.

They ordered countless heads

Heaped beneath the warrior,

So the flame would keen the dirge

Over the doomed folk-tree.

What better bed should a battle-oak

Spread beneath himself?

The powerful one dies proudly-

The prince chose this fall.

According to the histories of Saxo Grammaticus, a Danish historian active in the 12th and 13th centuries in his Gesta Danorum, the history of the Danes, Hvitserk is the King of Scythia an ancient region encompassing modern eastern Europe and central Asia, where he is minding his own business when he is attacked by Daxon, king of the Ruthenians, modern Ukraine. Hvitserk requests to be burned alive on a pyre, one assumes made of wood. Saxo also puts his death as before that of his father Ragnar who rushes in to avenge him.

Some sources mention a son of Ragnar named Hálfdan. (howl-f-den) Because he is never mentioned at the same time as Hvitserk, some scholars take that to mean that Hálfdan was his true name and Hvitserk was a nickname. Maybe he came down to breakfast one morning in a brand new, bright white shirt and his brothers teased him and the name stuck. Who knows. One problem with this is Hálfdan was supposed to have been a king of North Umbria before Ivarr and a pretender to the throne of Ireland. He is supposed to have died in Ireland while trying to convince the native Irish that he was in fact their king because he said so. And he was the king, so it must be true. But these two accounts put these two at opposite sides of the then known world. Problematic at best.

According to the tales of Ragnar's sons, Björn Járnsíđa, (bee-yearn yow-rn-see-tha) that is Bjorn Ironsides took Sweden for his own with Uppsala as his capital. He is reputed to have been the first ruler of the Munsö (m-you-n-sa) dynasty of Sweden. By tradition his grave is said to be on the island of Munsö in Lake Mälarenin (meh-lar-in) Sweden. The saga says that many people were descended from him and that he founded a great lineage. His heirs were said to have ruled Sweden for centuries after.

Then we come to Sigurd. What can be said for Sigurd Snake in the eye? According to the tales. He took the lands of Zealand, Skåne, (scone-a) Halland, Viken, Agder, and the greater part of Uppland. He marries the daughter of King Ælle, named Blaeja they have a son named Knut who rules after his father minus Viken who it says broke away after the death of Sigurd. After Knut comes Gorm Knutson. He is said to have been big and mighty and an accomplished warrior but not the brightest bulb of the bunch. The tales puts it charitably saying "he was not so wise as his forebears had been." Other sources give him the unfortunate monikers Gorm Løghæ,(la-guy) the lazy, Gorm Heimski,(hay-m-skee) the stupid and the Historia Norwegiae says he was "notably foolish."

More notable perhaps than his sons, according to the saga of Ragnar, a "great lineage is descended from Sigurd Snake-In-The-Eye. " not via his sons, but through his daughter. He has a daughter named Ragnhild and she was the mother of Harald Fairhair, whom you may remember as the first sole ruler of a united Norway. The tales tell the story of his female descendants like this:

Baby Knut has a twin sister named Aslaug after his mother. His mother become the girl's foster mother and she raises the child. This child later marries Helga the Keen and they have a son named Sigurd Hart, who is the same age as his cousin Gorm. Authentic age of twelve Sigurd Hart is said to have killed a battle hardened berserker in single combat as well as his eleven man warrant. So this prepubescent kid single handedly kills twelve warriors, at least one of which was a famous berserker. After this he marries Ingibjörg, and they have two children, Gudthorm and Ragnhild. One day while Sigurd Hart is out hunting he is ambushed by king Haki the Hadeland Berserk with a war party of thirty men it takes them all to defeat Sigurd who kills twelve of them and severely wounds Haki. Haki takes Sigurd's children and as much wealth as he can manage and runs home to Hadeland. He plans to marry the fifteen year old Ragnhild but he had to put it off because of his injuries from the battle.

King Hálfdan the Black heard news of this. He gathers a party of one hundred men, led by Harek Wand and charges them to rescue the Sigurd's children. They rush over stealthily through the night and come upon the household asleep. They take Ragnhild and Gudthorm as well as all the wealth they can find. The seal the doors behind them and torch the hall with all of Haki's men inside. Haki, injured and alone pursues them for a while until, giving up, he falls on his sword, choosing to end his life rather than bear the shame of his loss. Hálfdan marries Ragnhild and the have a son named Harald, to be called Harald Fairhair and the rest, as they say, is history.

Sigurd is said to have fallen in glorious battle defending his lands from Emperor Arnulf. This is Arnulf of Carinthia, he was the king of East Francia (you may remember my discussion of Francia from my episode on St. Patrick. If not I encourage you to give it a listen!) And later Holy Roman Emperor. It is written that he attacked a viking horde on the river Dijle (dial) in what is now Belgium. There were said to have been so many viking dead (the tales of Ragnar’s sons gives the count as a hundred thousand) that the river was completely stopped up. Among the dead is recorded one King Sigifridus.

On hearing of the death of her youngest, Áslög gives this verse:

The seekers of the slain

Sit on the fortress-neck;

A shame on the swart raven

Leaves Sigurd's namesake unavenged.

Let the body's blithe enjoyed

Blaze on the wood-chips around him;

All too soon, Odin let

The alf of the Valkyries die.

Seekers of the slain in this means ravens, fortress-neck are walls, body's blithe enjoyed are flames and alf of the valkyries is a warrior. If he thing where she calls him Sigurd's namesake is leaving you scratching your head thinking wait, wasn't he Sigurd? Who is she talking about? Remember that her son, Sigurd Snake-In-The-Eye is named after her father Sigurd Fafnirsbane.

That is how Ragnar and his sons met their ends.

After the last of Ragnar's sons had gone, those that had followed them could find no one who was their equal and considered it a disgrace to serve a lesser person. Two such men each took to wandering the world alone in search of a new master who could bring them honor again. One day, in a far off land, a king dies leaving behind two sons. The sons decide to hold a great celebration in their father's honour and they invite everyone who hears the news over the course of the next three years. Needless to say this was probably a mighty fine shindig.

As night's end on the first day neared, a man, massive, far larger than anyone there arrives. He approaches the table where the brothers are and ask where he might sit. He is well dressed and is clearly someone of means and importance so the make room for him at the highest bench where he takes the space of two people. Even the largest drinking horn he can drain in a single go. He is dismissive of everyone present, seeing no one of any worth.

Some time after he had seated himself, another man, half again as large as the first comes and asks for a seat. He is seated next to the first man and together they take up the space of five normal men. They had thought the first man a prodigious drinker, yet this second man blew him away. He drained nearly every horn in the hall and those there could not even tell he had drank a drop. He also is dismissive of his fellows, turning his back on them. The first man challenges the second to a flyting.

Flyting was a great pass time of the Vikings, a combat of words. They would take turns speaking verses insulting the other. The first would give his insult poem and the second man would return fire. similar to the improv game 'yes and…' "combatants could not deny insults or accusations against them or risk proving the accusations true by trying to cover them up shamefully. Instead they would build on the insult of the last man, deflecting the verbal blow upon its originator. This would continue on until there was an obvious victor or the two sheathed their verbal swords and drew steel. The only sure way to win a Flyting was to make an accusation of ergi. That is to challenge a man's manliness and sexuality. You could not deny the challenge without proving it true in the eyes of all those around but at the same time this most dreaded of accusations could not be passed on by the rules of the sport without some level of acceptance. The only answer to this insult on not just your honour but your very masculinity and self essence, was to challenge the originator of the accusation to Holmgang, a duel. This was an approved method for settling disputes and was considered the epitome of manliness. If the challenged party refused, they faced outlawry for being argr, one who is guilty of ergi. If the accused won the duel the loser was required to pay compensation for defamation under law. If he survived. So an accusation of ergi was a massive gamble. It may win the flyting but it could lose you your life or your wealth and reputation. To be declared outlaw by the way is to be literally outside the laws it meant you were outside of society and anyone could do anything they wanted to you, including killing you with no legal repercussions. So it is a decidedly bad thing.

The flyting between these two giants goes like this:

Man one:

Speak to us of your honour

Let's settle this, I ask you:

Have you seen the raven shiver,

Sated with blood, on its perch?

More often you sat at feasts,

Sprawled upon the high-seat,

Than you carved bloody carrion

For corpse-birds in the valley.

(Corpse birds are ravens)

Notice he is calling into question his honour, saying he was more at home stuffing his face at a feast than on a battlefield while not directly challenging his manhood. This toeing of the line was par for the course in a competition such as this.

The second man said:

Be silent, you sluggard!

Shabby wretch, what have you done?

You have dared no deeds that

Outdo my own glory;

You didn't sate the sun-seeker,

The batch, at the swords game;

You refused to give gore

To the giantess's steed.

A sun-seeking bitch and giantess's steed is a wolf, the swords game: battle.

The first retorted:

We pushed the sea-prancer's

Strong prow through the surf

As bright byrnies' sides

With blood were spattered;

The she-wolf was slavering

As we sated eagles' hunger

With red gore from men's gullets

Winning grain of the fishes' heath.

A sea-prancer is a ship while the fishes' heath is the seafloor, its grain? Gold.

The second responded:

You never were found foremost

When Heiti's field we saw,

Spread before the white steeds

Of seagulls' wide journeys.

Against the latch you trembled

Before we turned to the land,

Brought the red prows around

Towards the raven's kingdom

Heitir is a sea king so his field is the ocean. Seagulls' wide journey also describes the sea while its white steeds are ships riding the waves. While the raven's kingdom is the land. So he is basically saying the guy was cowering and scared whenever he went to sea until they turned around to head home.

The first responded:

It's not fitting to fight over

The foremost seat at banquets

Over glory we've each gained

That's greater than the other's.

You stood there, as swells bore

The sword-hart through the sound;

I rested there, as the red prow

Rode into safe harbor.

Sword-hart is a ship.

The second acknowledged:

Bjorn we both once followed

Into every blades' clash

Firm and faithful champions

When we fought for Ragnar;

When the brave did battle

In the Bulgars' kingdom,

I suffered a wound in the side-

Now sit by me, neighbour!

They had at last recognized each other and greeted each other as companions and war brothers. They stayed then and enjoyed the feast together as friends.

Thus goes the saga of Ragnar Lođbrók and his sons. Now you may be asking what about Lagertha? Or what about Ubba or others you may have seen or heard called Ragnar’s son. They are not in the sagas, though that is not to say they did not exist, if Ragnar himself ever truly existed.

Regarding sons of Ragnar not mentioned. There are two main answers to this riddle. One theory is that they were illegitimate children and were therefore left out of the saga, though allowed to take their father's name. The other is that men, wanting to seem greater than themselves would sometimes take on the name of a legendary hero as their patriarch. So if someone wanted to make a name for themselves or seem greater than they were they may well have chosen Ragnar as their father so they could bask in his glory and use his laurels to promote themselves. Maybe it was just a different Ragnar, who knows.

One clue which seems in favour of the illegitimacy option is this: In the tales there is a single, solitary mention of an Yngvar and Husto who were said to Ragnar’s sons by a concubine. There is no other mention of these anywhere else. So who were these two and why are they important to a discussion of Ubba? For one, they rather strongly suggest the presence of illegitimate children out there in the world, left out of the saga. But also,, in this mention it is said that they tortured and killed king Edmund on Ivarr’s orders while Ivarr was king of England. If we look outside the box, in an Anglo Saxon account, the Life of St. Edmund Abbo of Fleury states that the deed was carried out by Ingware and Hubba. It is held that Ingware was Ivarr, though if that was the case, why would Yngvar be accounted as a separate entity under the command of Ivarr? Did Ivarr have multiple personalities??? I don't think so. I think that it is more likely that we can take this at face value. Yngvar and Husto were half brothers to Ivarr who ordered them to torture and kill St. Edmund. On the Anglo-Saxon account their names were anglicized as Ingware and Hubba. Hubba being perhaps synonymous with Ubba. Sometimes written as u-b-b-a or u-b-b-e or u-b-b-i. As I said, these stories were not written down for hundreds of years so spelling is fluid and can change from one account to another. This can sometimes make piecing the fabric of the sagas together into a cohesive tapestry difficult.

As to the topic of Lagertha I have seen it theorized in the show that this character was created as an amalgam of multiple people from the story but was herself fictional. To shed some light on this we must again look to other sources.

Which leads us to the account of Saxo Grammaticus once again. As we have already seen, Saxo's accounts can be derivative and are problematic and often in opposition to events as laid out by the sagas but there is an episode that is of interest here. The event in question takes place shortly before the events of the saga.

According to Saxo, King Frø of Sweden invades Norway, killing King Siward, grandfather of Ragnar. After killing Siward, Frø has the women of his family put in a public brothel to humiliate them. Hearing of his grandfather's death, young Ragnar comes rushing in to avenge him. Several of the women escape the brothel, dress as men and fight beside Ragnar. Chief among these is one Lagertha. Ragnar is amazed by her ferocity and skill, as well as her beauty and pays her court. Likely not in a hurry to be used by men again she sets her pets, a giant dog and a bear on Ragnar. Yeah, this woman keeps a pet bear which she has trained to defend her home. Ragnar kills the animals and she apparently turns 180 and throws herself on him the two are married and have three children, a boy and two girls. Ragnar is still resentful of the fact that she had told her dog and bear. Let me say it again, her BEAR to kill him so the first he hears of an eligible Bachelorette, on Þora, he divorces Lagertha and rescues and marries þora.

Modern researchers consider Lagertha to be fictional, merely an illustration, the embodiment of all warrior women, or else a misguided personification of the goddess Thorgerd. Little is known of this deity. Which would e plain why she was left out of the sagas and every other account except Saxo's.

One thing to keep on mind when considering this account. It will be remembered that Ragnar was married to Þora when he was 15. So for him to have previously been married to another woman for a period of years and have multiple children with her he would have had to have married Lagertha and started producing children when he was twelve or thirteen at the latest. I mean, I suppose it is conceivable if Ragnar started getting at it the second he hit puberty but I don't know. I will leave that for you to decide, I am just the story teller.

Thank you for coming with me on this long and colourful adventure through this saga. It was a long and winding road getting here. I have poured myself into researching this story for the past two months now, writing 30 some odd pages on the subject. After spending so much time beside these legendary heroes, I am somewhat saddened to see them go yet I am excited to see where our next tale takes us! Takk fyrrir. Bless!