Bjorn "Ironside" Ragnarsson

• General Notes
  • A powerful Viking chieftain and naval commander, Bjorn and his brother Hastein  conducted many (mostly successful) raids in France in a continuation of the tradition initiated by their (possibly adoptive) father Ragnar Lodbrok. In 860, Bjorn led a large Viking raid into the Mediterranean. After raiding down the Spanish coast and fighting their way through Gibraltar, Bjorn and Hastein pillaged the south of France, where his fleet over-wintered, before landing in Italy where they captured the coastal city of Piza. Proceeding inland to the town of Luna, which they believed to be Rome at the time, Bjorn found himself unable to breach the town walls. To gain entry, he sent messengers to the Bishop that he had died, had a deathbed conversion, and wished to be buried on consecrated ground within their church. He was brought into the chapel with a small honor guard, then amazed the dismayed Italian clerics by leaping from his coffin and hacking his way to the town gates, which he promptly opened letting his army in. Flush with this victory and others around the Med (including in Sicily and North Africa) he returned to the Straits of Gibraltar only to find the Saracen navy waiting. In the desperate battle which followed Bjorn lost 40 ships, largely to Greek fire launched from Saracen catapults. The remainder of his fleet managed to return to Scandinavia however, where he lived out his life as a rich man.