

The oldest material we have of Bjorn Ironside is in the Norman history of William of Jumièges. Bjorn was the son of Ragnar Lothbrok and was renowned for the raids he led on France, England and along the Mediterranean coastline.ījorn appears in various sources outside of the sagas such as Annales Bertiniani and the Chronicon Fontanellense, they depict him as a dominant Viking leader. This Ironside was a legendary Swedish king who may be familiar to fans of Vikings on the History Channel.
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No, not the wheelchair-bound detective from the 1970s TV show. In these sagas, which were based on real people and events, Ragnar’s many 9th century raids on Francia and Anglo-Saxon England earn him a legendary status that his nickname, “Shaggy Breeches”, doesn’t exactly convey. Image Credit: Image Credit: Matthew Corrigan / Alamy, Image ID: 2DDP8J2. Although the only source material we have on Freydís are the two Vinland sagas, legend has it that, while exploring North America with her brother, she singlehandedly chased off natives with a sword - while pregnant. Freydís Eiríksdóttirĭaughter of Erik the Red, Freydís proved she was just as much her father’s daughter as her brother, Leif Erikson, was his son. His crew set up camp in a place he dubbed “Vinland”, thought to be Newfoundland. The son of Erik the Red, Leif is thought to have arrived in the New World in around 1000, having ventured off course en route to Greenland. Leif is generally considered to have been the first European to set foot in North America, a full 500 years before Christopher Columbus.


Leif EriksonĪs claims to fame go, Leif Erikson’s isn’t half bad. Erik (real name Erik Thorvaldsson) owed his epithet to his violent temperament and flowing red hair. His father, Thorvald Asvaldsson, had previously been exiled from Norway - Erik’s birthplace - for manslaughter, so violence and exile clearly ran in the family. Named Erik the Red due to the colour of his hair, Erik ended up founding Greenland, but that was only after he’d been banished from Iceland for murdering several men. Erik the RedĮrik the Red, also known as Erik the Great, is a figure who embodies the Vikings’ bloodthirsty reputation more completely than most. But, as our list proves, many of the most famous Vikings were pretty brutal characters. Of course, such characterisations are never wholly accurate, the Vikings weren’t all vicious raiders many came to settle peacefully, trade or explore. Indeed, the word Viking means “a pirate raid” in Old Norse, so it’s fair to say that they were, by definition, a violent bunch. The age of the Vikings is generally considered to have been between 700 AD to 1100, during which time they packed in an impressive amount of raiding and pillaging, developing an unrivalled reputation for bloodthirsty aggression.
