The battle of Bravalla
Harald had inherited Sweden from his maternal grandfather Ivar Vidfamne, but ruled Denmark and East Götaland, whereas his subordinate king Sigurd Ring was the ruler of Sweden and West Götaland. According to legend Harald Hildetand realised that he was growing old and may die of old age and so never go to Valhalla. He consequently asked Sigurd if he would let him leave this life gloriously in a great battle.
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According to Saxo Grammaticus, both hosts prepared for seven years, and mustered armies of 200,000 men! Harald was joined by the legendary heroes Ubbe of Friesland, Uvle Brede, Are the One-eyed, Dag the Fat, Hroi Whitebeard and Hothbrodd the indomitable as well was 300 shieldmaidens led by Hed, Visna and Hedborg. Sigurd recruited the legendary heroes Starkad, Egil the Bald, Grette the Evil (a Norwegian), Blig Bignose, Einar the Fatbellied and Erling Snake. They were joined by scores of Norwegians, Saxons, Angles, Frisians, Irish, Rus', Finns, etc. Whole forests were chopped down in order to build 3000 longships to transport the Swedes. Harald's Danes had built so many ships that they could walk across The Sound!
The 200,000 warriors met at Bråvalla, and when the kings had sacrificed to Odin the battle commenced. Ubbe slew three princes among whom were the legendary warriors Agnar and Ragvald the Wise Counselor. Ubbe broke through all the Swedish lines, but fell at last riddled with 144 arrows during a duel with Starkad. Then Starkad fought savagely against the shieldsmaidens whereupon his jaw was cut off. However, biting his own beard he managed to keep it in place. He then cut the arm off Visna who held the Danish flag. Vedbjorg fell fighting Thorkel the Stubborn, who won after "a lot of wounds and talking". The 157-year-old Harald, led his Danish and Geatish allies on the line of battle in a chariot, cutting wildly with swords in both hands. Finally, Odin himself came down to take Harald home to Valhalla.
Ragnar Lodbrok was a semi-legendary king of Sweden and Denmark who reigned sometime in the eighth or ninth centuries. According to the Danish chronicler Saxo Grammaticus, Ragnar belonged to the Swedish Yngling Dynasty. Both Saxon and Icelandic sources describe him as the son of Sigurd Ring, a king of Sweden who conquered Denmark, but they are divided on whether Ragnar mainly resided in Sweden or in Denmark.
Although he is something of a hero in his native Scandinavia, reliable accounts of his life are very sketchy and heavily based on ancient Viking sagas. Even the dating of his reign is not certain; there are sources that date it from 750–794, and others from 860–865. Neither matches with what we know of him, and he probably held power as a warlord from approximately 835 to his death in 865, perhaps only being recognized as king in the last five years of his life.
Ragnar was a pagan who claimed to be a direct descendant of the god Odin. One of his favorite strategies was to attack Christian cities on holy feast days, knowing that many soldiers would be in church.
He spent most of his life as a pirate and raider, invading one country after another. He would generally accept a huge payment to leave his victims alone, only to come back later and demand more riches in exchange for leaving. But as the extent of his realm shows, he was also a gifted military leader.
By 845, he was a powerful ruler and most likely a contemporary of the first ruler of Russia, the Viking Rurik. It is said he was always seeking new adventures because he was worried that his freebooting sons would do things that outshone his own achievements. In that year, he sailed southward, looking for new worlds to conquer. With 120 ships and 5,000 Viking warriors, he landed in modern France, probably at the Seine estuary, and ravaged West Francia, as the westernmost part of the Frankish empire as it was then known.
Also in 845, Paris was captured and held ransom by a Viking raider, whom the sagas say was Ragnar Lodbrok. The traditional date for this is March 28, which is today referred to as Ragnar Lodbrok Day by certain followers of the Asatru religion. The King of West Francia, Charlemagne’s grandson Charles II "The Bald", paid him a fantastic amount of money not to destroy the city. Ragnar Lodbrok, according to Viking sources, was satisfied with no less than 7,000 pounds of silver in exchange for sparing the city. However, that did not stop Ragnar from attacking other parts of France, and it took a long time for the Franks to drive him out.
After he was done with France, he turned his attention to England. In 865, he landed in Northumbria on the northeast coast of England. It is claimed that here he was defeated in battle for the only time, by King Aelle II of Northumbria. Aelle's men captured Ragnar, and the King ordered him thrown into a pit filled with poisonous snakes. As he was slowly being bitten to death, he was alleged to have exclaimed "How the little pigs would grunt if they knew the situation of the old boar!"
One Viking saga states that when his four sons heard the manner of his death, they all reacted in great sorrow. Hvitserk, who was playing tafl, gripped the piece so hard that he bled from his fingernails. Björn Ironside grabbed a spear so tightly that he left an impression in it, and Sigurd Snake-Eye, who was trimming his nails, cut straight through to the bone. Ragnar’s fourth son, Ivar the Boneless soon learned the details of his father’s death and swore that he would avenge his father’s killing, in time-honored Viking tradition. In 866, Ivar crossed the North Sea with a large army, met King Aelle in battle, and captured him. He sentenced him to die according to the custom of Rista Blodörn, an exceedingly painful death.
Although this story may not be accurate, like virtually all tales concerning Ragnar Lodbrok, his death had serious consequences. Ivar was the mastermind behind the attacks on the English mainland in the final quarter of the ninth century. He invaded East Anglia, and the following year attacked York. He was aided by the internal struggle for power in Northumbria—which he was of course responsible for by killing Aelle. These wars were a prelude to the long struggle of the Saxons of Alfred the Great against the Danes a generation later.
Meanwhile, in France, the Vikings kept coming back for more booty. Among their feats was destroying the city of Rouen several times. Ultimately, many of them settled there permanently, in a land that became known as Normandy (for "Northmen", as the Franks called the Scandinavians).