Ragnar Lodbrok

“ He then sent word all around the neighbourhood, and invited all the prominent men of Heidmork, and that day had a great feast and held his wedding with Ragnhild, and they then lived together for many days. Their son was King Harald Fairhair, who was the first sole king of Norway” (Ragnar Lodbrok’s Sons, c. 5) .
“There ruled in Denmark two kings, Sigrfrodi and Halfdan, and after them Helgi; the latter had a fight with Olaf King of Sweden in which he fell, and Olaf afterwards ruled long over Denmark (Danmork) and Sweden, dying on a sick bed. ”

“ Fafnir was the serpent who guarded the gold hoard on Gnítaheið till Sigurth slew him and carried off the treasure.
All too long, etc. In the Codex Regius of the Edda Poems this passage runs as follows: "For far too long a time (? for ever) will women and men be born into the world to overwhelming sorrow."
The Sons of Lothbrok. Ragnar Lothbrók was a famous king who flourished about the middle of the ninth century, and who, according to legend, obtained his name ('Shaggy Breeks') from the shaggy trowsers which he wore when he went to attack a serpent. ”

“ These words were related to Ælla, who thought from them that some of Ragnar’s sons, whom he called the “little pigs,” must still be alive: and he bade the executioners stop the torture and bring Ragnar out of the pit. But when they ran to do so they found that Ragnar was dead; his face scarred by pain, but steadfast as in life. Death had taken him out of the hand of the king.
In Ragnar Lodbrog’s death-song he recites in succession his triumphs and gallant deeds, his wars and battles, in England, Scotland, Mona, the Isle of Man, Ireland, and abroad. ”

“ Among them was Ladgerda, a skilled amazon, who, though a maiden, had the courage of a man, and fought in front among the bravest with her hair loose over her shoulders. All-marvelled at her matchless deeds, for her locks flying down her back betrayed that she was a woman.
Ragnar, when he had justly cut down the murderer of his grandfather, asked many questions of his fellow soldiers concerning the maiden whom he had seen so forward in the fray, and declared that he had gained the victory by the might of one woman. ”

“ The second story concerns another King, called Ragnar Lodbrog, which means Ragnar 'Shaggy-Breeches.' This is how he came to be known by his nickname, which was bestowed upon him by Herodd, King of the Swedes: Ragnar was in love with Thora, Herodd's daughter, who had received from her father two snakes to rear as pets. They had given to them daily a whole ox upon which to gorge themselves, so they ate and ate, and grew and grew, until at length they became a public nuisance, so huge were they, and so venomous withal that they poisoned the whole country-side with their breath. ”

“ This battle and the one which Angantyr and his brother Hlöth fought at Dunheith are the battles which have been most famous in stories of old. Never were any greater slaughters made.
[pg 140]
King Sigurth Hring ruled the Kingdom of the Danes till the day of his death; and his son Ragnar Lothbrok succeeded him.
Harold Hilditönn had a son called Eystein the Wicked, who succeeded to the Swedish Realm after his father, and ruled it until he was slain by the sons of Ragnar Lothbrok, as is related in the Saga of Ragnar Lothbrok. The sons of Ragnar Lothbrok conquered all the Swedish Kingdom ”

“ These also had brothers -- Siward, Biorn, Agnar, and Iwar.
Meanwhile, the Jutes and Skanians were kindled with an unquenchable fire of sedition; they disallowed the title of Ragnar, and gave a certain Harald the sovereign power. Ragnar sent envoys to Norway, and besought friendly assistance against these men; and Ladgerda, whose early love still flowed deep and steadfast, hastily sailed off with her husband and her son. She brought herself to offer a hundred and twenty ships to the man who had once put her away. ”

“ Ragnar Lodbrog’s Death-song
We hewed with our swords!
Life proves that we must dree our weird. Few can escape the binding bonds of fate. Little dreamed I that e’er my days by Ælla would be ended! what time I filled the blood hawks with his slain, what time I led my ships into his havens, what time we gorged the beasts of prey along the Scottish bays.
We hewed with our swords!
There is a never-failing consolation for my spirit: the board of Balder’s sire [Woden] stands open to the brave! Soon from the crooked skull-boughs5 in the splendid house of Woden we shall quaff the amber mead! ”

“ Thus saying Lonner with one hand seized the unlucky Fabian by the coat-collar, and brandished the horse-whip over his head with the other.
But as Mr. Fabian made no resistance, but wept and begged for mercy in loud and wailing tones, Ragnar released him, and, confused at the singularity of his own sentiments, he glanced towards Mrs. Ulrica, and said:
"He is so cowardly, that it seems almost as bad to whip him, as it would be to beat a hare. In giving him over to you I am fully revenged." ”

“ In the narrow waist of Athalbrand’s ship a mighty battle was fought, and here at last Ragnar and Athalbrand found themselves face to face.
They hacked at each other with their axes, till at length Ragnar, with a fearful blow, drove in Athalbrand’s helmet and clove his skull in two, so that he died. But even as he fell, a man, it may have been friend or foe, for the moon was sinking and the darkness grew dense, thrust a spear into Ragnar’s back, and he was carried, dying, to his own vessel by those who remained to him. ”

“ Upon these words Ragnar began to fear lest he should destroy his ancient name for courage by his womanish sorrow; so, shaking off his melancholy garb and putting away his signs of mourning, he revived his sleeping valour with hopes of speedy vengeance. Thus do the weak sometimes nerve the spirits of the strong. So he put his kingdom in charge of Iwar, and embraced with a father's love Ubbe, who was now restored to his ancient favour. Then he transported his fleet over to Russia, took Daxo, bound him in chains, and sent him away to be kept in Utgard. ”

“ The Carlovingian princes offered but a feeble resistance to these terrible invasions. The Normans themselves were surprised at the supineness of their victims. “The country is good,” said Ragnar Lodbrog to the Danish monarch, after returning from the sack of Paris, “but the people are tremblers. The dead there have more courage than the living, for the only resistance I met with was from an old man named Germanus, who had been dead many years, and whose house I entered.” ”

“ Rolf Ragnar's son had no strength even for that. He lay across. dead men, blue faced, breathing stertorously, and from his riven helm broke a dark mass of clotted blood. After nightfall, through the slumbering wood a woman came leading an ass. She took the Dane in her arms, and clasping him to her bosom, straining all her slight strength, laid him, unconscious still, across her beast, and made away.
When Rolf knew himself again he was lying in a cave of the chalk on a bed of beech-leaves, and he looked up at Morwenna's white brow. ”

“ Now, as there are reasons why Ragnar cannot go, and as I would send no mean man, I pray you to do me a favour. It is that you will take a boat and sail to Lesso, carrying with you as a present from me to Athalbrand’s daughter the skin of that white bear, which I trust will serve her and me as a bed-covering in winter for many a year to come. Tell her, thanks be to the gods and to the skill of Freydisa, my nurse, I live who all thought must die, and that I trust to be strong and well for our marriage at the Spring feast which draws on. ”

“ But though there is no thought of future life as a moral sanction, though personality has not yet passed beyond a sense of animal pains and pleasures, Lodbrok's song sets the person of the chief in the front and thrusts the kinsmen well into the background; and we could readily imagine the Heroes' Hall developed into the privileged paradise of the chiefs, while the body of the kinsmen, like the common herd in Mexico, remained in some dreary realm of Mictlan. ”

“ Help him!”
Answering a question from the King, Rothgar began to speak, his heavy voice seeming to fill all the space from floor to ceiling: “By all the laws of war, King Canute, the Odal of Ivarsdale should come to me. The first son of Lodbrok took the land before ever this Angle’s kin had seen it. He built the tower that stands on it, and the name it bears to this day is the name of his giving. Under Guthrum, a weak-kneed son of his lost it to the English Alfred, and we fell out of our fortunes with the tipping of the scales, and Angles have sat since then in the seat of Lodbrok’s sons. ”

“ Tostig Lodbrog was also called Muspell, meaning “The Burning”; for he was ever aflame with wrath. Brave he was, and cruel he was, with no heart of mercy in that great chest of his. Ere the sweat of battle had dried on him, leaning on his axe, he ate the heart of Ngrun after the fight at Hasfarth. Because of mad anger he sold his son, Garulf, into slavery to the Juts. I remember, under the smoky rafters of Brunanbuhr, how he used to call for the skull of Guthlaf for a drinking beaker. Spiced wine he would have from no other cup than the skull of Guthlaf. ”

“ To return, however, to the battle-fields given by Sjöborg. Figures 43 and 44 represent two groups of circles and Bauta stones near Hwitaby, in Malmö. These are said to mark two battle-fields, in which Ragnar Lothbrok gained victories over his rebellious subjects in Scania: Sjöborg says in 750 and 762, as he adopts a chronology fifty years earlier than Suhm. But be this as it may, there does not seem any [Pg 291] reason for doubting but that these stones do mark fields where battles were fought in the eighth century, and that Ragnar Lothbrok took part in them. ”

“ They rallied to the side of Harald, once an exile, and tried to raise the fallen fortunes of the tyrant. By this hardihood they raised up against the king the most virulent blasts of civil war, and entangled him in domestic perils when he was free from foreign troubles. Ragnar, setting out to check them with a fleet of the Danes who lived in the isles, crushed the army of the rebels, drove Harald, the leader of the conquered army, a fugitive to Germany, and forced him to resign unbashfully an honour which he had gained without scruple. ”

“ Ragnar had far fewer men. Many of Ragnar’s men fell after a short time, but where he went himself his foes drew back, and that day he walked through their ranks; whenever he cut or thrust at shields, coats-of-mail or helmets, his blows were so heavy that nothing stood against them, but never did any blow or shot harm him; he got no wounds, and slew many of King Ella’s men. In the end, when all Ragnar’s men had fallen, he was surrounded by shields and taken. He was asked who he was, but was silent and gave no answer. Ella said: ‘That man must be punished if he will not tell who he is ”

“ She maintained her influence over the sea-king for the rest of his life; and after his murder, by the English chief Ella, she composed a poem to his memory, which was called "The Lay, or Lament of Kraaka." This royal couple were among the earliest poets of Denmark, though it is a disputed point whether Regnar Lodbrok’s "Death Song" was his own composition, that of some Skald, or the production of the widowed Aslauga. ”

“ He was succeeded on the throne by RAGNAR. At this time Fro (Frey?) , the King of Sweden, after slaying Siward, the King of the Norwegians, put the wives of Siward's kinsfolk in bonds in a brothel, and delivered them to public outrage. When Ragnar heard of this, he went to Norway to avenge his grandfather. As he came, many of the matrons, who had either suffered insult to their persons or feared imminent peril to their chastity, hastened eagerly to his camp in male attire, declaring that they would prefer death to outrage. ”

“ Whereupon the king, repenting of his sluggishness, proclaimed that whosoever removed the pest should have his daughter.
Many warriors were thereto attracted by courage as much as by desire; but all idly and perilously wasted their pains. Ragnar, learning from men who travelled to and fro how the matter stood, asked his nurse for a woolen mantle, and for some thigh-pieces that were very hairy, with which he could repel the snake-bites. He thought that he ought to use a dress stuffed with hair to protect himself, and also took one that was not unwieldy, that he might move nimbly. ”

“ Lodbrog abode some time in the court of the monarch, and as the Danish tongue is very like English, he began to relate to the king by what chance he had been driven to the coast of England. The accomplished manners of King Edmund pleased Lodbrog, as well as his military discipline and the courtly manners of his attendants. Emulous of the like attainments, Lodbrog asked permission of the king to remain in his court, and having obtained his request, he attached himself to the king's huntsman, whose name was Bjorn, that he might with him exercise the hunter's art. ”

“ If they seek us they will soon find us."
"They are coming nearer," said Kenulf, and I heard the oars more plainly yet.
Now the thought of calling my men to arms came over me, but I remembered how Lodbrok had told me that resistance to vikings, unless it were successful, meant surely death, but that seldom would the unresisting be harmed, even if the ship were wantonly burnt after plunder, and the crew set adrift in their boat. ”