Hamble River, close to where the ship belonging to the sons of Ragnar was captured by King Alfred
Ragnar Lodbrok, or Lodbroc,
or Lothbrock, was a Viking, a prince, a warrior, a huntsman, a legend. He left his mark across
Europe, his adventures taking him from Denmark to Ireland, to Britain, to
France, across the continent to Russia. This tale tells of the events leading
from ninth century Denmark to... Manor Farm Country
Park, Bursledon, Hampshire.
1 The Family
Tree
In the beginning, there was
Adam, and Adam did beget Seth, Seth begat Enos, Enos begat Cainan, Cainan begat
Mahalaleel, Mahalaleel begat Jared, Jared begat Enoch and Enoch did beget
Methusalah, father of Lamech, Lamech the father of Noah.
And
Noah did beget Scaef, Scaef begat Bedwig, Bedwig begat Hwala and Hwala did beget
Hathra. Hathra was father to Itermon, Itermon was father to Heremod, Heremod
begat Sceldwa and Sceldwa was father to Beaw.
And
Beaw did beget Teatwa, the father of Geat. Geat begat Godwulf, Godwulf was
father to Finn, Finn fathered Frithwulf, Frithwulf begat Freotholaf who was the
father of Woden. Woden, King of Sweden, had a son Gauti, his son Hring was King
of East Gotaland and married to the beautiful Sylgja (daughter of Earl Seafarer,
sister of Dayfarer and Nightfarer).
Amongst the many sons of
Hring and Sylgja was Herrauld. His daughter Thora was the first wife of
Ragnar Lodbroc, the son of Sigurd Ring.
2 Ragnar Lodbroc - the early
days
From the first his fate was
to be the stuff of romance, tragedy, magic and bravery. His father was Sigurd
Ring and his mother Alfild. Following the death of Alfild, when Ragnar was just
a boy, Sigurd sought a new wife - the beautiful Alfsol, a princess of Jutland.
Her family were against the union and so a great battle was fought at which
Sigurd was victorious. However, Alfsol’s father would rather lose his daughter
to Valhalla than to Sigurd Ring and gave to her a cup of poison. Sigurd declared
that he could not live without Alfsol and arranged for her lifeless body to be
placed on a funeral pyre on board his finest ship, “then when the fire had been
kindled and the ship cut adrift from its moorings Sigurd sprang aboard and,
stabbing himself, was consumed by the side of the fair maiden he
loved”.
So, at the tender age of
fifteen, Ragnar became King of Denmark.
3 How Ragnar became
Lodbroc
Ragnar was a serial husband
and father to a large number of children. His first wife was Logerda whom he
left for Thora
... According to legend, a small snake was found in a vulture’s
egg which King Herraud had fetched from Permia. It was golden in colour, and
King Herraud gave it to his daughter, Thora Town-Hart, as a teething gift. She
put a piece of gold under the snake and after that it grew and grew until it
circled her bower. The snake was so savage no one dared come near it except the
King and the man who fed it. (Maybe, stop feeding it?) The snake ate an old ox at every meal, and
everyone thought it a thoroughly nasty creature. King Herraud made a solemn vow
that he would only allow Thora to marry the man brave enough to go into the bower to
destroy the snake, but no one had enough courage for this until Ragnar appeared
on the scene.
When Ragnar heard the tale
of Thora and the snake (whose powerful jaws were said to emit fire, venom and
noxious vapours) he vowed to rescue the maiden. He clothed himself in a garment
of leather and wool, smeared with pitch, and the slaying was no sooner said than
done.
“Nor long before
in arms I reached the Gothic
shore,
To work the loathly
serpent’s death.
I slew the reptile of the
heath.”
(Death Song of Ragnar
Lodbroc)
From then on Ragnar was
known as Ragnar Lodbroc, meaning Leather-Hose, or Hairy-breeches.
My prize was Thora; from
that fight
‘Mongst warriors am I
Lodbroc hight
I pierced the monster’s
scaly side
With steel, the soldiers
wealth and pride
(Death song of
Ragnar Lodbroc )
Ragnar and Thora were
blessed with two sons, as brave as they were handsome, named Agnar and Erik.
Sadly their happiness was shortlived - Thora soon fell ill and died.
Years later, when Ragnar was
under attack by the Swedish king Eystein, Agnar and Erik persuaded their father
to let them fight, which they did bravely, but, unfortunately, due to Eystein’s
use of an enchanted cow, both were slain.
Ragnar married again,
Krake, the daughter of a king who wowed him with her womanly whiles. She also
had a neat line in bird impressions. They had a number of sons who were as
brave as they were stupid, as skilled as they were Danish and very probably the
roll models for the Ferengi. When these sons went into battle they flew a a
giant pennant depicting a crow.
4 Ragnar Lodbroc - retired
Last
from among the Heroes one came near,
No god but of
the hero troop the chief -
Ragnar, who swept the
Northern Sea with fleets,
And ruled over
Denmark and the heathy isles
(Mathew Arnold)
Having lived a full and busy
life as a Viking warrior - no room here to speak of Ragnar’s sallies into
Europe, the taking of Paris, etc - Ragnar decided to live out his remaining
years in a form of retirement. He had always been a keen huntsman and one foul
day was teaching his falcon, Finist, to fish. A storm blew up and his small boat
lost first its sail, closely followed by the wooden mast, then the rudder was
torn away and finally t’oars splintered into matchwood. For three days Ragnar,
Finist and their boat were thrown mercilessly by the waves, blown helplessly
across the North Sea before beaching on the Norfolk coastline. Thought to be a
spy or part of a Viking raiding party he was taken to King Edmund. Edmund
recognising a warrior of royal birth (and “being struck by the manliness of his
form”) gave him a position as the Royal Falconer.
5 Death of Ragnar
The existing Royal Falconer,
a man named Berne, was put out and tricked Ragnar into accompanying him on a
hunting trip. To cut a long story short, Berne forced Ragnar into a snakepit
where he received a fatal snakebite. Berne buried the body and returned to the
king, telling him that Ragnar was lost.
The Disir call me back home, those
whom Odin
has sent for me from the Hall of the Lord of Hosts.
Gladly will
I sup ale in the high seat with the Gods.
The days of my life are finished. I
laugh as I die.
(Death Song of Ragnar
Lodbroc)
There
is another Scandinavian legend concerning Ragnar’s death in a snake pit - at the
hands of a Saxon king named Aella. However, the historian FM Stenton points
out:
“The
contemporary account of ... events in the Anglo Saxon Chronicle shows that
(Aella) had barely come into power before the Danes were on him and, if disproof
were necessary, would disprove the famous Scandinavian legend that as King in
York he had killed Ragnar Lothbrok, the father of Ivar and Halfdan, by throwing
him into a pit infested with snakes.”
That evening Finist the
falcon flew into the King’s chamber - and flew off again. The following evening
it happened again, although this time the falcon landed alongside the King
before flying off. The third time this happened the King decided to follow
Finist, so follow he did, ending up deep in the forest where in a shallow grave
he found the slain Ragnar.
Putting two and two together
Edmund realised Berne was responsible and ordered his execution. It was the
tradition amongst the norsemen at this time that a condemned man could choose
the manner of his death. Berne asked that he put in a small boat without food
or water and left to the mercies of God and the seas. Edmund agreed and with
one good push the slayer of Ragnar was gone.
6 Betrayal
He drifted for some time and
then a storm arose which pitched and tossed his boat like a child’s plaything
but Berne held fast and eventually ended up in Denmark where he was brought
before the sons of Ragnar.
Sons of Ragnar
Sons of Ragnar and
Thora:
Agnar,
Erik
Sons of
Ragnar and Krake (Aslaug)
Ivar, (aka Hinguar,
Ingware the Boneless, Hungari) eldest son of Ragnar and Krake, known as ”the
boneless” and is described as being crippled at birth. Legend tells how he
would be carried into battle on a shield, from which vantage point he would
shoot arrow after arrow, with fatal accuracy of aim.
Bjorn, (aka Ubba, Hubba, Habbae)
Halfdane, (aka Halfdan of the wide embrace)
Hvitserk
Rogenwald
Sigurd the Snake
Eyed
Three daughters
Erika, Afasig,
Aolsig
Berne lied to the sons of
Ragnar as he had lied to his King before. He told them that Edmund had put
their father to death and that he - brave Berne - had escaped to tell them of
Edmund’s foul deed! They were taken in by Berne’s lies and they vowed to avenge
their father’s death. So they put together a fleet and set sail for England.
There is not room to tell of all their adventures, the ritual murder of King
Edmund, the burning down of London Bridge, the taking of London with a
cow-hide. Suffice to say the sons of Ragnar left their mark on history as
indelibly as the eagle they carved on Edmund’s back.They worked their way down
thecoastline and by 897 were off the coast of Hampshire. Here the Anglo-Saxon
Chronicle can be called upon to give an eye witness account of what happened
next.
7 The Anglo Saxon Chronicle - 897 and all
that ...
1
In 897 - The same year the Danes in East Anglia and Northumbria greatly
harassed Wessex along the south coast with predatory bands, most of all with the
warships they had built many years before.
2
Then king Alfred ordered warships to be built to meet the Danish ships:
they were almost twice as long as the enemy, some had sixty oars, some more:
they were swifter, steadier, and with more freeboard than the Danes’; they were
built neither after the Frisian design nor after the Danish, but as it seemed to
him that they might be most serviceable.
3
Then on one occasion the same year came six ships to the Isle of Wight,
and did much harm there, both in Devon and almost everywhere along the coast.
Then the king ordered nine of his new ships to be put out, and they blockaded
the entrance from the open sea against their escape.
4
Then
the Danes sailed out with three ships against them, and three of them were
beached on dry land at the upper end of the harbour, and the crews had gone off
inland.
5
Then the English seized two of the three ships at the entrance to the
estuary, and slew the men, but the other escaped; in her all but five were
slain; and they escaped because the ships of the English were aground, very
awkwardly aground.
7 Local tradition has it that ...
1
the ‘entrance from the open sea’ that was blockaded were the entrances to
the Solent,
2
the ships ‘beached on dry land’ were beached on Hamble Spit
3
the one that got away at ‘the entrance to the estuary’ sailed up the
Hamble River where it was caught and set alight opposite what is now the Manor
Farm Country Park and
4
rather than ‘all but five’ being slain the only survivors were a boy and
a cat, who swam ashore landing at what is now called Catland Copse (there was
even a dreadful poem written about this by eminent Victorian Charlotte
Yonge)
5
Krake, waiting at home for her sons to return, changed her daughters into
magpies and sent them to find her three sons - and not to return unless they had
good news. But the news was not good so they stayed - even now the magpies
remain in the woods near where their brothers were slain - in fact, these
magpies have given their name to Pilands Wood, Pylands Copse and Pylands
Lane.
Proof - if proof were
needed! - of the accuracy of this interpretation includes not only the crystal
clear narrative of the Anglo Saxon Chronicle detailed above but also . . .
. . . in 1888, when the foundations
for the new vestry at St Leonards church, Bursledon were dug, what was obviously
a common grave was discovered, containing the skeletons of large men who had
apparently died in battle. Mr CF Fox (of the Hampshire Field Society) after many
conversations with Barney Sutton, who helped dig the foundations and remembered
the skeletons vividly, was convinced they were Vikings defeated by Alfred in
897, and not victims of the plague. (Susannah Ritchie, The Hamble River,
1984)
. . .
and, of course, the wreck of the Viking Ship. The wreck - 125 feet long, 48
feet across the beam - lies opposite Catland Copse, and was known for many years
as the wreck of a Viking ship. Indeed, Southampton’s Maritime
Museum has possession of an inkwell stand, carved into the shape of a Danish longboat,
with a plaque reading “Carved from the timbers of the Viking Ship on the Bursledon River”. (The wreck turned out to be something else altogether - the wreck of
the Grace Dieu - but that is another story)
