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incidents both of her mother’s life and her own, as
they are represented in the old Volsungasaga. In
proof of the truth of her story, she predicts that
the son of whom she is pregnant, will be born with
the mark of a snake round the eye, which
accordingly came to pass. Ragnar believed her; and
nothing came of the Swedish marriage, but a war
instead with king Östen. This is carried on by
Eric and Agnar, sons of Ragnar by his first marriage,
of whom the latter falls in battle; the former
is made captive, and by his own desire thrown
upon spear-points, on which he sings his death
song. Their loss is avenged by the other sons of
Ragnar, conjointly with Aslaug; she herself takes
part in the war, which ends with the fall of king
Östen. Ragnar’s sons next spread desolation far
and wide in the southern lands, and their renown
is noised throughout the whole world. They molest
even Italy, and plan a march to Rome, but turn
back, deceived by erroneous information. Ragnar
is incited by the fame of his sons’ actions to
repeated voyages of adventure; and in order to
augment his own glory by braving dangers, he
attempts a marauding enterprise on the English
coast with only two ships. Here his crew are cut
off in a fight with king Ella; he himself is taken
captive, refuses to tell his name, and is thrown into
a pit of snakes, where he chants a song on his own
deeds and on the expected joys of Valhalla, and
dies smiling under the bites of the serpents. His
sons, of whom Biörn Ironside reigned in Sweden,
exact revenge for his death, and die in a manner
worthy of their sire; one causing himself to be
burned on a pyre made of the sculls of his
slaughtered foes, the other ordering his barrow to be
erected on that coast of his kingdom which was
most exposed to hostile assaults.
The poetical contexture of this saga discovers
itself at once by the circumstance, that Ragnar
Lodbroc, by marrying the fair unknown, is made
the good-son of Sigurd Fofnisbane, an old champion
celebrated in fable, while the songs of the Edda
and the Volsungasaga give us stories respecting
another daughter of Sigurd Fofnisbane [1], which
with nearly the same circumstances and names are
found in Jordanes, taken from old Gothic legends.
The death-song ascribed to Ragnar, and mentioned
betimes by Saxo, is still extant, but disagrees with
the saga in many particulars. Saxo, who has
devoted wellnigh a whole book of his history to the
actions of Ragnar, also differs considerably,
although, no doubt, in this as in other cases, the
popular legends so rife in his time lie at the
foundation of his highly decorated narrative. Scattered
fragments of legends relating to this hero long
continued to dwell in the popular memory. In the
southernmost part of Norway, where Spangarhed,
the place at which Ragnar found Aslaug, is situated,
Torfæus and Schöning heard ballads on their
story. The hill on which she is said to have
tended her flocks bears her name, and the people
of the Feroe islands in the present day still sing
lays of Ragnar and Aslaug [2].
If we compare the northern saga with the accounts
which foreign chronicles give us of more
than one Ragnar, of a Lodbroc who was killed in
England, and of the terrible and protracted devastations
inflicted by Lodbroc’s sons both in France
and England, the memory of the most destructive
period of the expeditions of the Northmen in the
ninth century appears, in these countries as well as
in the north, to be bound up with this name;
while the impossibility of chronologically
reconciling the different narratives, shows at the same
time that the exploits of several persons have been
cumulatively ascribed to one. Ragnar himself
probably belongs to the eighth century, towards
the end of which, a statement in the English
chronicles gives some reason for supposing that his
dismal end may have happened [3]. The name and
exploits, however, have been transplanted likewise
to that which succeeds, while the saga, on the other
hand, places him in connexion with the heroes of
a bygone age. It is also easy to conceive that the
wars waged by his sons, or other descendants so
termed, might have been incessantly retold anew,
since the desolating incursions of the Northmen
continued for so long a period to harass Europe.
In the ninth century the terrors of these inroads
were at their height. Their causes were partly
the weakness and divisions of the European states
in that age, and partly the foundation laid about
the middle of this century for an extension of
monarchical power in the northern kingdoms, which
drove out larger swarms of warlike adventurers.
The evil, however, was in its essence one of far
higher antiquity. It had already found a channel
in the great national migrations, until when these
ceased, and Christianity began to change the
manners of the barbarians, while the north remained
as of old, the warlike attitude of Scandinavia
towards the rest of the world became more
conspicuous and alarming.
Earlier probably than to France, England, and
Ireland, countries in which the Northmen
eventually attained more or less sway, their expeditions
were directed to Scotland, where the dialect of the
Lowlanders still bears the most striking
resemblance to the northern tongues. Yet the
inhabitants of that region cannot be derived from any
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