Ragnar Lothbrok
(c. 790 – 865 CE)
History buried him in a snake pit. Legend dug him back out.
“Cattle die, kin die, but cowardice lasts forever.” — attributed to Ragnar Lothbrok (or someone pretending to be him after mead #7)
The longship cuts through the fog like a knife through a monk’s conscience. The oars rise and fall, slick with seawater and maybe a bit of someone’s spleen. The men aboard are laughing — not that jolly, tavern-laughing sort, but the kind you hear before someone burns a village for sport. At the prow stands Ragnar Lothbrok: alleged son of a king, probable liar, and definite nightmare of the 9th century. His cloak flaps like wings of a carrion bird, his eyes glitter with the serene lunacy of a man who has realized that being terrifying is the closest thing to immortality the Dark Ages can offer.
Somewhere on the Northumbrian coast, a monastery full of unarmed men is about to learn what that looks like in practice.
Welcome to the Viking Age — the early medieval version of a rock tour where every encore involves decapitation
Act I: The Origins of a Headache
The sagas disagree on when Ragnar was born, because Vikings didn’t bother with calendars unless it was for raiding season. He may have been a Danish or Swedish chieftain; he may have been a myth stitched together from a dozen blood-drunk maniacs with similar haircuts. The tales claim his father was Sigurd Ring, his mother Alfhild, and that as a young man he wore trousers made from animal hides — loðbrók, literally “hairy breeches” — to protect himself while fighting a venomous serpent to win a princess.
Because when you want to found a legend, you don’t start with “he paid his taxes on time.”
Whatever the truth, by the 840s Ragnar was raiding everywhere from Paris to Wessex, setting fire to the notion that anyone could be safe just because they lived inland. He was that rare type of warlord who combined charisma with complete disregard for geography, religion, or mercy. He wasn’t just killing people — he was exporting existential dread as a lifestyle brand.
In an era when most men were named things like “Bjorn” or “Halfdan,” Ragnar made himself into something different: a story that could outlive his own bones.
Act II: Raid, Pillage, Repeat
Picture England in the 9th century: a bunch of squabbling kingdoms held together by fragile alliances, bad weather, and worse teeth. Into this waddling buffet of fear comes Ragnar, with ships sleek as sharks and men singing songs about how your god is next.
Lindisfarne was just the trailer. He and his band of enthusiastic pyromaniacs struck Paris like a migraine made of steel. The city, surrounded by its medieval walls and even thicker clergy, thought the Seine was protection. The Vikings thought it was a highway.
When the Franks refused to pay tribute, Ragnar simply flooded the streets with corpses until they reconsidered. Then he took the gold, mocked their god, and sailed off — the medieval equivalent of smashing a hotel room and sending the bill to the Pope.
His raids weren’t just brutal; they were marketing. Every monastery he burned was an advertisement: Ragnar was here. Pray harder.
Act III: The Snake Pit and the PR Campaign from Hell
Eventually, every badass discovers gravity. Ragnar’s came in the form of an ill-advised solo raid on Northumbria — the medieval equivalent of storming into Alabama armed with a butter knife and bad intel. Whether he got shipwrecked, betrayed, or just decided hubris was a fun experiment, the result was the same: he was captured by King Ælla of Northumbria, a man known for his piety and complete lack of chill.
Ælla, never one to let a teachable moment go to waste, sentenced Ragnar to die in a pit of snakes. A whole pit. Of snakes. Because hanging, stabbing, or decapitation were apparently too mainstream.
According to the sagas, Ragnar went down laughing. Literally. As the serpents coiled around him, he croaked out his famous death song — part boast, part prophecy, all insanity:
“The piglets will grunt when they hear how the old boar suffered.”
Translation: My sons are coming, and they’re bringing hell with them.
He wasn’t wrong.
Act IV: The Sons of Hysteria
The sons of Ragnar — Bjorn Ironside, Ivar the Boneless, Sigurd Snake-in-the-Eye, and other names that sound like rejected pro wrestlers — went on a vengeance tour that would make Metallica blush. The Great Heathen Army landed in 865 and carved England open like a roast boar. They captured Ælla, introduced him to the “blood eagle” (a method of execution involving artistic rearrangement of ribs and lungs), and proved that medieval revenge wasn’t just personal — it was generational.
Ragnar became the North Star of Viking ambition: the man who stared death in the face and told it to get in line. His sons didn’t just avenge him; they franchised him.
By the time Christian monks wrote down his story, they couldn’t decide whether he was real, mythical, or the medieval version of a meme that got out of hand. It didn’t matter. Ragnar’s legend became the blueprint for every future Scandinavian psychotic with a sword and an ego — from Ivar to Harald Hardrada to whatever guy decided to name his son Thorfin Skullsplitter.
Act V: Immortality via Television
Fast-forward a thousand years. Ragnar has become both history and entertainment. On TV he’s a sexy, moody philosopher-king with abs you could shave cheese on. The real Ragnar — if there ever was one — probably smelled like rancid fish and bad decisions. But that’s the point.
Legends aren’t biographies. They’re wish-fulfillment with body counts.
In truth, Ragnar Lothbrok might have been several warlords mashed together — one who raided Paris, one who fought in Ireland, one who died in England — but together they form something larger: the ghost of every man who ever thought he could outrun mortality by making the world bleed.
The irony? He succeeded.
Nine centuries later, we still know his name. We still tell his stories. We still cast handsome actors to make genocide look like destiny. Ragnar didn’t just raid Europe; he raided history’s attention span and won.
In the end, the great Viking died the way all legends should — surrounded by snakes, singing about vengeance, turning agony into myth.
And somewhere, deep in that pit, as the venom crawled through his veins, Ragnar probably smiled and thought: “This’ll look great in the saga.”
Sources (credible-ish):
Anonymous. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. c. 9th century.
(English translation by Michael Swanton, London: J. M. Dent, 1996.)Anonymous. The Saga of Ragnar Lothbrok and The Tale of Ragnar’s Sons. c. 13th century.
(English translation by Ben Waggoner, New Haven: Troth Publications, 2009.)Bartlett, W. B. Vikings: A History of the Norse People. Stroud, UK: Amberley Publishing, 2014.
History Channel. Vikings. Television series. Created by Michael Hirst. Aired 2013–2020.
(Part history, part hair-product advertisement.)My drunk uncle, who insists Ragnar invented the man bun.
Warrior Rank #134
