General Notes

Flourished in the 9th century
Viking whose life passed into legend in medieval European literature.

In the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Ragnar was said to be the father of threesons, Halfdan, Inwaer (Ivar the Boneless), and Hubba (Ubbe), who led aViking invasion of East Anglia in 865 seeking to avenge Ragnar's murder.In the European literature of the several centuries following Ragnar'sdeath, his name is surrounded with considerable legend. In the GestaDanorum (c. 1185) of the Danish historian Saxo Grammaticus, he was a9th-century Danish king whose campaigns included a battle with the HolyRoman emperor Charlemagne. According to Saxo's legendary history, Ragnarwas eventually captured by the Anglo-Saxon king Aella of Northumbria andthrown into a snake pit to die. This story is also recounted in the laterIcelandic works Ragnars saga lodbrókar and Tháttr af Ragnarssonum. The12th-century Icelandic poem Krákumál provides a romanticized descriptionof Ragnar's death and links him in marriage with a daughter of Sigurd(Siegfried) and Brynhild (Brunhild), figures from the heroic literatureof the ancient Teutons. The actions of Ragnar and his sons are alsorecounted in the Orkney Islands' poem Háttalykill.