Vikings in the East: From Vladimir the Great to Vladimir Putin

The Origins of a Contested Legacy in Russia and Ukraine

In Western Europe, we typically associate Vikings with the storm-tossed waters of the North Sea and the North Atlantic, the deep Scandinavian fjords and the attacks on the monasteries and settlements of northwestern Europe. This popular image rarely includes the river systems of Russia and Ukraine, the wide sweep of the Eurasian steppe, the far shores of the Caspian Sea, the incense and rituals of the Eastern Orthodox Church and the high walls and towers of the city of Constantinople. Yet for many Viking raiders, traders and settlers, it was the road to the East that beckoned.

These Viking adventurers founded the Norse–Slavic dynasties of the ‘Rus,’ which are entangled in the bitterly contested origin myths of both Russia and Ukraine. The Rus ruler, Vladimir (Ukrainian: Volodymyr) the Great, converted to Christianity – in its Eastern Orthodox form – in 988, on Crimea, and so they are at the heart of the concept of ‘Holy Russia’.

Martyn Whittock explains.

Martyn’s new book, Vikings in the East, is here: Amazon US | Amazon UK

A depiction from the Radziwiłł Chronicle.

Go East!

The East played a major part in the start of the so-called ‘Viking Age,’ in the middle of the eighth century. Alongside various suggested causal factors such as population growth in Scandinavia, cultural conflict with the expanding Christian Frankish Empire, the beginnings of kingdom building in the northern homelands, and agricultural disruption due to volcanic activity, changes taking place in the distant Islamic Caliphate (as the centre of political power there shifted from Damascus to Baghdad) disrupted the flow of silver to Scandinavia. For years, this silver had reached northern Europe, traded for slaves, furs and amber. Facing this change, raiding in the West offered Norse elites an alternative way to get their hands on precious metals and slaves. At the same time, the forest products of the eastern Baltic and the supply of slaves from there drew Swedish adventurers eastward on the austrvegr (the Eastern Way), as it was known in Old Norse. This involved interactions with indigenous Balts, Finns and Slavs that were, at time, mutually beneficial and, at other times, ruthlessly exploitative. No one scenario sums up the complex interactions over several centuries.

The key thing is that the Viking phenomenon increasingly had an Eastern Front. Utilising the river systems, these Vikings soon became active on the Black Sea, the Caspian Sea and in the Byzantine Empire. As a result, vast streams of silver once again flowed north as evidenced by hordes of Arab dirham coins unearthed on Gotland and in Sweden. By the 790s, merchants from the Islamic Abbasid Caliphate (now centred on Baghdad) were expanding their trading journeys up the River Volga and bringing with them good-quality silver again, much of which ended up in Scandinavia. The revival of the flow of silver had a huge impact on Norse trading activities, including slave trading.

From the year 800, huge numbers of silver coins struck in Islamic mints (especially in Central Asia) began to enter Russia and the Baltic region. While this flow of silver appears to have once more slowed dramatically in the 830s (due to renewed turbulence in the caliphate), it picked up again between about 850 and 900 (with a temporary slowing down once more in the 880s). It slowed again in the 970s, before picking up again in the 990s and finally ended in about 1030. When the silver was flowing north, much was funnelled via Gotland.

A striking example of the wide-ranging character of the Baltic trading hub can be found in the thirteenth-century Icelandic Saga of the People of Laxárdalur (Laxdæla saga). In this, an Irish princess, captured as a teenager, is sold to an Icelandic chieftain by a Rus merchant operating on the Swedish island of Brännö. It is an example of slave trading which united the west and east of the Viking world.

Written evidence regarding the Vikings of the East

Evidence for this eastern Norse movement survives on a number of runestones in Sweden. A very important one is located beside the driveway of Gripsholm Castle. When translated, it bears witness to an adventure that went terribly wrong, a very long way from home. The runes in question were carved within the body of a snake that follows the edge of the stone and then curls into the centre. This runic inscription reads:

   Tóla had this stone raised in memory of her son Haraldr, Ingvar’s brother. They

   travelled valiantly far for gold, and in the east gave (food) to the eagle. (They) died

   in the south in Serkland. 

The ‘Serkland’ that is referred to on this and on four other runestones was the name used by Scandinavians for the Islamic Abbasid Caliphate and other Muslim areas of the East. The term was either derived from the word ‘Saracen’ (so meaning ‘Saracen-land’) or from ‘serkr’ (gown), referring to the distinctive robes worn by the Muslims living in the East. Either way, it was a long way from home, back in Scandinavia.

This runestone is known today as Sö179, and is one of about twenty-six so-called ‘Ingvar runestones.’ Most of these are found in the Lake Mälaren region of southern Sweden; specifically in the provinces of Södermanland, Uppland and Östergötland. They are named from a Swedish Viking named Ingvar the Far-Travelled, who led an expedition to the Caspian Sea.

This single expedition is mentioned on more runestones that any another event in Swedish Viking history. This points to its importance to contemporary society in the eleventh century. Other evidence indicates that he and most of his companions died in 1041. Some of them died in a fierce battle fought at Sasireti in Georgia, to the west of the Caspian Sea. This battle involved Byzantines (from the Eastern Roman Empire, with its capital in Constantinople), Georgians and Scandinavian mercenaries. The battle was fought in a Georgian civil war. Those that did not die in the battle itself later succumbed to disease far from Scandinavia. These included Ingvar himself.

A twelfth-century Icelandic saga called Saga of Ingvar the Far-Travelled (Yngvars saga víðförla) states that some survivors made it back from the Caspian to Russia.  Others travelled on to Miklagarðr, the Scandinavian name for Constantinople. Viking sieges of that great city eventually gave way to more mutually advantageous trading arrangements, even if these were tightly controlled by the Byzantine authorities. In time, many Norse warriors also served in the imperial Varangian Guard.

With regard to the Islamic caliphate, in the late 840s, the Director of Posts and Intelligence in the Baghdad caliphate’s province of Jibal (in north-western Iran), Abu’l-Qasim Ubaydallah ibn Abdallah ibn Khordadbeh, recorded that a group of newly arrived foreign traders, who he called the ‘ar-Rus,’ had brought merchandise to Baghdad on camels. Rus traders had also been noted further east, in Persia. Sailing through the Persian Gulf, they had also reached lands described as ‘Sind, India, and al-Sin’. There are debates over whether the last place named represented Tang China or the khaganate of the Uyghurs. Either way, the route to the East took Norse traders far from home. Islamic travellers also wrote dramatic accounts of meeting Norse traders and slavers of the Rus on the River Volga, in the first half of the tenth century.

The East in the mental world of Norse mythology

Intriguingly, the East also loomed large in Viking-Age mythology, as it did in Viking-Age economics and politics. In this area of life, East met West in the world of the gods and goddesses of Norse mythology. The key source for this is the Saga of the Yngling Family – usually simply referred to as Ynglinga Saga. This is the first part of the Icelandic historian Snorri Sturluson’s history of the ancient Norwegian kings, which is titled Circle of the World (Heimskringla). The earliest part of this saga claims to deal with the ‘arrival’ of the Norse deities in Scandinavia. In this section, it is explained that they originated in a part of Asia to the east of what is called the Tana-kvísl river. From Snorri’s explanation, this river is what we now call the River Don. The River Don flows from south of Moscow to eventually reach the Sea of Azov, which is linked to the Black Sea. Now in southern Russia and eastern Ukraine, this region borders the Caucasus to the south. Snorri also knew the river in question as the Tanais (Tanais being a settlement in the delta of the River Don). The region east of the Tanais was, according to Snorri, the location of the original city of the gods.

The ‘geography’ of this account in Ynglinga Saga was clearly inspired by knowledge of strange lands in the East that had actually been explored by real-world Viking-Age traders. However, it had later been reinvented in twelfth- and thirteenth-century Norway and Iceland as a fabulous ‘never-never land’ that was situated far-far away. This is revealed by the fact that, in Snorri’s account, Odin’s eventual journey to Scandinavia is described as being via the Don and Volga rivers and through Garðaríki, the Old Norse name for the lands of the Rus (the ‘Kingdom of the Towns’). Odin’s route in the mythological story was, in reverse, the historic Viking routeway to the Byzantine Empire and Serkland, the Norse name for the Islamic Abbasid Caliphate. In other words, the Viking-Age divinities were described as traversing the very same river routes as the real-life traders of the ninth and tenth centuries.

Many Norse traders and adventurers used this eastward route and, in time, plugged into the western end of the Silk Roads that stretched across Eurasia as far as Japan. Trade routes which started in Scandinavian trading centres such as Birka (Sweden), Hedeby (Denmark, now Germany), and Gotland (Sweden’s largest island), extended far into western Eurasia along the river systems of the modern nations of western Russia, Belarus and Ukraine. Many Norse travelled the rivers to the Black Sea and the Byzantine Empire; others journeyed to the Caspian Sea and beyond.

The Norse and origin stories in Russia and Ukraine

In the twelfth century a source of information known as the Tale of Bygone Years (Pověstĭ Vremęnĭnyhŭ Lětŭ) was compiled in what is now Ukraine. It is now generally known as the Russian Primary Chronicle or the Tale of Bygone Years. According to this account, Viking adventurers (called the Varangian Rus) used force to subjugate the Slavic and Finnish tribes living south-east of the Baltic. But, the chronicler tells us, they were then driven out. However, once free of the Rus, warfare broke out between the indigenous tribes and they decided that, perhaps, the rule of the Rus was not so bad after all. Consequently, they invited them back to bring order. This is clearly later spin designed to enhance the prestige and legitimacy of those ‘invited back.’ It has a rather modern – colonialist – feel to it.

The curious thing is that the original ‘colonial perspective’ was penned by one of those colonised, not by one of the outside colonisers. This, though, is readily explained. Whoever wrote this interpretation of the foundation of the Rus state was one who was heavily invested in it. Therefore, although the spin was sharply patronising in tone regarding the capabilities of the indigenous Slavic and Finnish peoples, its purpose was to trace the arc of history in a providential way. As a result, it was narrated in a way that revealed the ‘good order’ brought by the newcomers, who would eventually be founders of the state and – crucially – converts to the Orthodox Christian faith.

The three brothers referred to in the Russian Primary Chronicle (and the towns they were credited as founding) were: Rurik (or Riurik) in Novgorod, Sineus in Beloozero and Truvor in Izborsk. The last two may be Slavic versions of original Old Norse names: Signjotr and Thorvar. Rurik, who was to give his name to the Rus dynasty itself (the Rurikid), represents a name that was originally something like Old Norse Hrøríkr or Rorik.

According to the Russian Primary Chronicle, the Viking brothers were of the Varangian tribe of the Rus. This is a designation designed to clearly signal that they were the people who eventually gave rise to the state of the Kyivan Rus, using the ethnic names known to both Slavs and Byzantines for the Norse in, what is now, Russia and Ukraine. Their return as rulers, the chronicler suggests, occurred sometime around 860/862. When Sineus and Truvor died, Rurik amalgamated their lands under his rule and so was formed the nucleus of what would become the princedom of the Rus. The source now called the Novgorod First Chronicle (Novgoródskaya pérvaya létopisʹ), describing events from 1016 to 1471 and drawing, in part, on eleventh-century sources, also records this story of an invitation to foreign rulers to come and bring order and law.

The Russian Primary Chronicle also claims that, while Rurik was establishing himself at Novgorod, two other Rus leaders – Askold and Dir – travelled southward down the river Dnieper and established their rule in the settlement later known in Russian as Kiev (Ukrainian: Kyiv). It is likely that they took control of a trading post of the Khazars, who were already exploiting a favourable position on the Dnieper river route to the Black Sea.

If the Russian Primary Chronicle’s dating is correct, this set up two rival Rus mini-states: Novgorod in the north and Kiev/Kyiv in the south. Rurik ruled until c. 879. His successor, named Oleg or Oleh (a Slavic form of the Old Norse personal-name Helgi) then struck south and seized Kiev/Kyiv in c. 882 and relocated his capital there. The Russian Primary Chronicle says that, in so doing, he killed Askold and Dir, the Viking chieftains who had established their rule there a little earlier.

In this way, the new state of (what is often called) the Kyivan Rus was traditionally established. It would last until the 1240s, when it fell to the Mongols. Over time it became increasingly Slavic in culture, since the Norse were always a minority. However, the last Rurikid (the dynasty claiming descent from the Viking Rurik) to rule Russia did not die until the late sixteenth century. After a time of extreme turbulence, the next Russian dynasty, in the early seventeenth century (the Romanovs), manufactured connections with the older royal line stretching back to the Norse founders of the Rus state. Rulers after them continued to reference these ancient roots, as rulers of Muscovy sought to extend their authority south into, what is now, Ukraine. This, they claimed, was a ‘gathering in of the Rus lands.’

A contested legacy

After the destruction of the Kyivan Rus state, by the Mongols in the 1240s, Russian rulers (based in Moscow) have frequently referenced these Norse origins when trying to enhance their power and secure control over the Ukrainian lands.

Since the eighteenth century the credit that foreign Viking incomers were accorded in the formation of Kyivan Rus has fluctuated over time, in line with changing Russian politics. This is sometimes termed the ‘Normanist debate.’ In the mid eighteenth-century, foreign involvement in the formation of Russia became intellectually unacceptable. However, it became more fashionable again in the nineteenth century as tsars married into German royal families and relished tales that Russians needed the strong hand of autocrats to bring order.

Under Stalin, in the 1930s, promoting the idea of foreign founders of Russia would – and did – bring a death sentence. It hardly helped that Hitler claimed, with predictable Nazi racism: “Unless other peoples, beginning with the Vikings, had imported some rudiments of organisation into Russian humanity, the Russians would still be living like rabbits.”

Under Vladimir Putin the wheel has turned again. The Rus origin story is central to his insistence that Russia and Ukraine are one people, with Moscow now the dominant force. In 2015, when Putin sought to justify his annexation of Crimea from Ukraine, in 2014, he asserted that Crimea has “sacred meaning for Russia, like the Temple Mount for Jews and Muslims,” and, furthermore, that Crimea is “the spiritual source of the formation of the multifaceted but monolithic Russian nation.” He added: “It was on this spiritual soil that our ancestors first and forever recognized their nationhood.” He was referring to the Christian baptism of the Rus ruler, Vladimir the Great, in 988.

In 2016 a massive statue of Vladimir the Great was erected in Borovitskaya Square, in central Moscow.  It was unveiled by his namesake: Vladimir Putin. The erection of the statue was immensely controversial because St Vladimir – called St Volodymyr in Ukrainian – is claimed by both Russia and Ukraine as a founding father and many Ukrainians considered it a provocative gesture. It was highly significant that the statue was unveiled on National Unity Day in Russia – a national holiday revived by Putin in 2005. At the time, many Ukrainians felt that the action was a deliberate attempt to challenge the idea of Ukrainian sovereignty and cultural independence.

In 2021, prior to the 2022 invasion of Ukraine by Russia, Putin once more referenced the ancient Rus as founders of a united state (a view which denied Ukrainian sovereignty). Then in 2024 – in conversation with the US conservative commentator Tucker Carlson – Putin explicitly referred to the Norse roots of the Rus as a way of claiming that Russia is now the legitimate heir of ancient European traditional culture, not the Liberal West.

In conclusion, the Vikings of the East have been on a journey over time that is comparable to the immensity of their geographical journey in the ancient past. And, in the conflicted world of the twenty-first century, it is clear that the ‘journey’ of the Vikings of the East is far from over!

Martyn’s new book is Vikings in the East: From Vladimir the Great to Vladimir Putin – The Origins of a Contested Legacy in Russia and Ukraine. It is available here: Amazon US | Amazon UK

What Alcohol did the Vikings Drink? The Importance of Alcohol in Viking Culture

Alcohol was very important to Viking culture, and it was not uncommon for some people to drink every day. Here, Zack Ward tells us what alcohol the Vikings drank, the uses and prevalence of alcohol, and references in Norse Mythology and Sagas.

A Faroe Islands stamp depicting life in Viking times.

Most of the alcohol consumed by the people of Scandinavia in the Middle Ages consisted of ale, mead, and wine, with ale being the most common of the three. Beekeeping was not brought into the mainstream until the later part of the Viking Age, meaning for much of the period, mead would have mostly been enjoyed by the rich and ruling peoples. Ale at the time was made from barley, which was one of the staple crops. Barley could be eaten, as well as fermented, making it a very useful crop for the majority of people living in Scandinavia. Making ale from barley only requires yeast, gruit (a herb mixture used for flavoring beer) or hops, water, and malt, and the entire process only takes about a week.

Uses of Alcohol

Alcohol was a necessary component of feasts and various religious gatherings and sacrifices. During “entrepreneurial feasts” an abundance of alcohol and food was used to build and maintain friendships between groups as well as raise spirits during hard times. “Patron-role” feasts were a way for chieftains to show off their wealth and solidify loyalty from their followers. Large cult feasts took place in Uppsala in Sweden as well. Nearly every person in Sweden would attend these events every nine years which culminated in the sacrifice of nine of all kinds of living males, including humans, to the gods.

Alcohol was often used as an offering to the gods. Ibn Fadlan (a member of an embassy sent to the Volga River area by the caliph of Baghdad) detailed his encounter with a group of Rus (Vikings that had settled roughly in the Slavic territories) merchants. He wrote that immediately after arriving at the trading station, they gave an offering of bread, meat, onions, milk, and alcohol to a type of totem that symbolized Odin, and several smaller figurines that were likely images of the other gods. This was done in the hope that they would have their god’s help in selling merchandise.

Alcohol also played an important role in burial ceremonies before the mass conversion to Christianity in the area. Fadlan noted that when a rich man dies, his belongings were split into thirds, one-third for his family, one for his funeral garments, and one for the purchase of alcohol to drink on the day he was cremated. During the ceremony, he was placed in his ship with alcohol, food, several animal sacrifices, and his slave girls before they were all burned. The slave girl spent days preparing for the ceremony drinking, singing, having fun, and being waited on by two other slave girls. Before being killed, she would chant over two separate cups of alcohol, and then drink them both, which was only one step in a fairly complex funeral procession that mostly focused on her, and the tidings she would bring to her master upon their reunion.

Prevalence of Alcohol

Drinking was a daily activity for most of the people living in Scandinavia before the conversion to Christianity. The practice was so widespread that Fadlan went so far as to say that every Rus he met was addicted to alcohol. This statement carries inherent bias, being from a different culture, but it also means that their collective drinking habit was enough to leave an impression on a foreigner; an impression strong enough that he felt compelled to write it down and preserve it in his manuscripts.

References in Norse Mythology and Sagas

The Viking Sagas and Mythology are ripe with references to alcohol and provide insight into their attitude surrounding it. In the Volsung Saga, Borghild attempts to kill Sigmund by poisoning his ale. Sigmund’s father keeps taking the drinks because he is suspicious of Borghild’s intent, but after having his manhood insulted over and over for not drinking, Sigmund takes the ale and is killed. This shows that it was considered abnormal, or even shameful to deny alcohol at a feast.

Snorri’s Prose Edda gives several insights into the Norse people’s reverence for alcohol. In the story, The Fooling of Gylfe a giant named Utgard-Loke challenges Thor and his companions to prove their worth, and Thor chooses a drinking competition. He is handed a drinking horn and after three draughts he fails to empty it. Later it is revealed that the horn was connected to the oceans and that Thor had emptied so much that it created the tides. The Norse were seafaring people and had respect for the ebb and flow of the ocean. Thor was the everyman’s god and his hammer was one of the most widely used symbols of protection in their society. The connection between his love of drinking and the tides of the ocean speaks volumes about their feeling surrounding alcohol consumption.

The same story contains a description of Valhalla. It reveals that Odin does not require food. He gives his share of the daily feasts to his two wolves and instead lives entirely on wine. In this story, Ganglere asks Har if the people in Valhalla are drinking water and Har finds this laughable. He then explains that there is a she-goat that eats the leaves from the world tree Yggdrasill and that because of this she produces so much mead from her teat that every warrior in Odin’s great hall can drink as much as they want. This shows that the Norse believed a great man, one worthy of Valhalla, should be rewarded with as much food and mead as he wants. Not only are they promised alcohol, but mead in particular, which was a luxury item at the time, and a large step up from the ale that was consumed regularly.

What do you think of alcohol in Viking culture? Let us know below.

References

The Saga of the Volsungs. Translated by Jesse L. Byock. 1st ed. California: University of California Press, 2012.

Trans. Montgomery, James. “Ibn Fadlan and the Rusiyya.” Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies. 3 (2000): 1-25.

Roesdahl, Else. The Vikings. Translated by Susan M. Margeson, and Kirsten Williams. 2nd ed. London: Penguin Books, 2016.

Serra, Daniel & Tunberg, Hannah. An Early Meal: A Viking Age Cookbook & Culinary Odyssey. Chronocopia Publishing AB, 2013.

Somerville, Angus, and McDonald, Andrew  The Viking Age: A Reader. 2nd ed. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2014.

Sturluson, Snorri. The Prose Edda. Translated by Rasmus B. Anderson. Project Gutenberg, 2006.

Zori Davide, Byock Jesse, Erlendsson Egill, Martin Steve, Wake Thomas  & Edwards, Kevin. “Feasting in Viking Age Iceland.” Antiquity Publications 87. (2013): 150-165.

Commander of the North: Ivar the Boneless, the Disabled Viking Warrior

Ivar the Boneless, youngest son of Ragnar Lothbrok and Princess Aslaug, was a powerful Viking leader.  He was considered to be the wisest, strongest and most skillful of warriors; in fact, despite an inability to walk, he led raiding conquests across Northern Europe… The mind of Ivar was considered a much stronger weapon than those swords and shields carried by other Vikings. Bakhtawar Jamil explains.

A 12th-century illustration depicting Danes invading England.

The saga behind his name

The origin of the nickname ‘boneless’ is uncertain and historians have long been arguing over what it actually means. The Danish historian Knud Seedorf enlivened this debate with the convincing theory that the signs and symptoms of Ivar’s condition, as described in the Scandinavian sagas, are consistent with ‘brittle bone disease’. The disease is a dominant congenital disorder that causes the bones to become extremely fragile and is most frequently caused by a defect in the gene that produces collagen, an important building block of bone. Knud Seedorf wrote of his theory:

Of historical personages the author knows of only one of whom we have a vague suspicion that he (Ivar) suffered from osteogenesis imperfecta. He is reported to have had legs as soft as cartilage (lacking bones), so that he was unable to walk and had to be carried about on a shield. There are less extreme forms of this disease where the person affected can lack use of their legs, but be otherwise normal, as was probably the case for Ivar the Boneless. (1)

Another theory by Celtic lecturer Clare Downham from the University of Liverpool explains when translated from Latin, Ivar’s sobriquet could have been described as ‘despicable’ and not ‘boneless’ as the two Latin words are very similar. But, another theory suggests that the epithet is interpreted as ‘the hated’, which when translated into Latin would mean ‘exosus’. When this word is further simplified syllable by syllable it is deciphered as ‘ex’ meaning without and ‘os’ meaning bone, thus ‘without bones’.

However, more prosaic explanations that account for Ivar's nickname can be found in Nordic legends and traditions. To further emphasize, some traditions narrate that the Vikings were well-known in giving ironic names to their warriors. In much the same way as we may, cynically, would call a short man ‘gigantic’ or a tall man ‘tiny’, a larger than average person - say seven-feet with a huge bone structure - might be called ‘boneless’. (2)

A mid-twelfth-century poem called Hattalykill explains he was actually without bones and it also narrates that Ivar was a skilled warrior with a physical form as flexible as a snake. (3) Keeping these two interpretations of Hattalykill in mind, one can say Ivar gave the impression that he lacked bones. Yet according to sources Ivar died childless, so perhaps he was impotent — that is, unable to have an erection — therefore, ‘boneless.’ According to a different legend, it was believed that Ivar’s epithet was the result of a curse foreseen by his mother who had the power of foresight. It is written that Aslaug warned Ragnar to wait three days before consummating their marriage, disclosing that the gods would be displeased and their child born would be cursed: 

Three nights together, but yet apart,

Shall we bide, nor worship the gods as yet

From my son this would save a lasting harm,

For boneless is he thou wouldst now beget (4)

Ragnar refused to believe in the curse and immediately made love to his new wife; hence, Ivar was born bearing legs without a bone structure. Ivar grew up unable to walk and had to be carried everywhere on poles or on the back of a shield. Consequently, during his childhood he was often ridiculed by his own brothers for his disability. His siblings were Bjorn, Halfdan, Ubba, Hvitserk and Siggurd. Aslaug was known to be over protective of him while Ragnar always saw the true warrior that Ivar was. Ragnar favored him just as he did his other sons, and he always believed that Ivar’s greatest weakness could be turned into his greatest strength. The lore narrates his crippled condition, but in battle Ivar was cunning and strategic – in a way unlike any other Viking of his era.

A berserker among Vikings

Berserkers were Viking warriors who went into a state of fury when they fought and Ivar was known for transforming into such a state. One could argue that his rage originated from his childhood when people mocked him for his crippled body, and he would respond with sheer anger and violence.
Norse sources mention Ivar being carried on a shield by his army, leading to speculation that he was lame. This however is unlikely considering Ivar was a renowned warrior; other sources from the period mention chieftains being ceremonially borne on the shields of enemies following victory. (5)

In 865 AD the mighty Viking army appeared out of the mists of the North Sea from Scandinavia and landed on the East Anglian coast in England. Their aim was nothing less than the total conquest of Anglo-Saxon England and the British Isles. Numbering some 10,000 to 15,000 men the Great Heathen Army was the largest invasion force since Roman Legions had landed on the shores of Britannia back in 43 AD. During a fourteen year reign of terror they left a brutal trail of destruction in their wake. At its head the army was led by the vengeful sons of Viking adventurer, Ragnar Lothbrok. The mastermind behind the invasion became one of the most feared and cruel generals of the Viking age - none other than Ivar. His stature was such that he dwarfed all his contemporaries and in battle he was always in the vanguard. So strong were his arms that the bow and arrows he used in battle had to be made heavier and more durable than those of his companions. His shadow cast a dark cloud over the British Isles that ultimately led to the unification and creation of the state of England. The Norsemen were well aware of the civil war that had weakened the great northern kingdom in England and as warriors they were extremely opportunistic.

While the East Anglians made peace with the invaders and provided them with horses, the Norse consolidated their forces as they came in and wintered in East Anglia. To protect their realm and as an opportunity to see their rivals in Northumbria attacked, East Anglia made a peace agreement with the Norse army. They allowed the Norsemen to use their land to prepare their army and provided them with horses. The Norsemen, then, used it as a staging point for their invasion into Northumbria. (6)

The legend in the sagas of Ragnar claims the attention towards England by Ivar was because of the death of his father, who was killed by King Aelle of Northumbria. During a raid Ragnar was taken prisoner and thrown into a snake pit and in his dying breath, the Viking declared ‘the little pigs would grunt now if they knew how it fares with the old boar’. (7) His words prophesied the violent revenge that would be exacted by his children. Bloody retribution was, indeed, forthcoming.

On March 21, 867 the Vikings stormed the city walls of York and gained entry to the city. They then slaughtered those in the city and routed those who were outside. Upon capture, King Aelle was subjected to the agonizing death of the Blood Eagle, a gruesome Viking method of torture; mentioned in the Nordic sagas. (8) It was performed by breaking his ribs, so they resembled blood-stained wings and pulled the lungs out through his back. Salt was sprinkled in the wounds and in the end the Northumbrian king suffered till his dying breath. What was left of the Northumbrian court fled north, and Ivar installed Egbert as the puppet king.

Marching forward

The Great Heathen Army progressed into Mercia fixing their winter-quarters at Nottingham. Burgred, the King of Mercia, sought aid from Ethelred the King ofWessex and his brother Alfred, who had led an army into Mercia and besieged Nottingham. However the Vikings, who were heavily outnumbered, refused to fight. Henry of Huntingdon, wrote almost 250 years later regarding the situation at Nottingham:

Ivar then, seeing that the whole force of England was gathered, and that his host was the weaker, and was there shut in, betook himself to smooth words — cunning fox that he was — and won peace and troth from the English. Then he went back to York and abode there one year with all cruelty. (9)

The Mercians settled on paying the Vikings off, who agreed to leave and returned to Northumbria in the autumn of 868. They spent the winter in York and then returned to East Anglia. When King Edmund of East Anglia led resistance against the Norse he was captured and brutally executed in the village of Hoxne. Viking religious beliefs encouraged cruelty towards the followers of the 'White Christ' who they saw as cowards. King Edmund bravely refused to become the vassal of pagans or renounce his religion, declaring that his religion was dearer to him than his life. He was beaten with clubs as he called upon the name of Jesus, and then tied to a tree where the Vikings shot arrows into him until he died. It is narrated in the 10th-century Passio Sancti Eadmundi that Edmund’s body was thoroughly scourged and then used for target practice by Danish archers ‘until he was all covered with their missiles as with bristles of a hedgehog’. (10)

The warriors left Edmund's corpse unburied and his head was thrown into deep brambles. Monasteries were razed to the ground, monks slaughtered and plundering took place on a massive scale. 

Fury from within

One of the reasons for Ivar’s infamous status is the brutal way in which he led his attacks. He is described by many as a merciless, cruel and unconquerable leader with his army using brutality to force their victims into submission. The religion of the Anglo-Saxons was a complete culture clash with that of the Vikings too. The belief in ideas such as ‘help for one’s neighbor’ contrasted with the worship of a war god. For the Vikings, the sacrificing of prisoners was needed to please their god. This can be seen when looking at Ivar’s revenge on King Aelle. However, it is not just the barbarity for which Ivar is known. Many of his battles used innovative strategies that did not rely on sheer force. In many instances, Ivar is said to have employed concepts such as using half of his armed forces in upfront battle. To the competitors, this would make the army seem small - an easy defeat. But, little did they know that the other half of the soldiery would sneak up and attack them from behind. (11) Historians have contrasting views about whether Ivar’s tactics should be seen as a good reason for him becoming a commander of the Viking army because many believed his disability rendered him unable to do so. What can be concluded, however, is that Ivar the Boneless was indeed one of the greatest Viking warriors to have ever lived and whose tales are told to this day…

Let us know what you think of this article below…

References

1.     Knud Seedorf , Osteogenesis Imperfecta: A study of clinical features and heredity based on 55 Danish families.

2.     http://www.timelessmyths.com/norse/sagas.html

3.     http://shootingparrots.co.uk/2013/03/13/i-is-for-ivar-the-boneless

4.     https://www.timelessmyths.com/norse/volsunga.html

5.     Benjamin James Baillie,The Great Heathen Army: Ivar the Boneless and the Viking Invasion of Britain.

6.     Jan Kallberg , Leadership Principles of the Vikings

7.     Schlauch, The Saga of the Volsungs: The Saga of Ragnar Lodbrok together with the Lay of Kraka, 1978

8.     http://www.orkneyjar.com/history/saga.htm

9.     Huntingdon, The Chronicle of Henry of Huntingdon

10.  Hervey,  Corolla Sancti Eadmundi ‘The Garland of Saint Edmund, King and Martyr’, 1907

11.  Ferguson, The Hammer and the Cross: A New History of the Vikings. London, 2009

12.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivar_the_Boneless

What you didn’t know about the Vikings

Vikings conjure up certain images in the popular imagination; however, those images are often incorrect. In fact, the truth about the Vikings is even stranger than you might believe!

Following his recent piece, Captain Max Virtus (aka Adrian Burrows) returns again to the site and tells us about the Vikings in his own unique way…

PS – Max has just released a new book, Escapades in Bizarrchaeology (Amazon US | Amazon UK).

Leif Ericsson on the shore of Vinland (Newfoundland). From a book by Mary McGregor, Stories of the Vikings.

Vikings. Brilliant weren't they?

Stinky, bloodthirsty, horned helmet wearing barbarians.

Only that sentence is depressingly untrue.

Firstly, Vikings were not stinky. In fact they were considered a fragrant bouquet of delight compared to their Saxon neighbors. Vikings bathed once a week and fashioned beauty products out of small animal bones, tweezers to pluck out unwanted hair and ear spoons to scoop out gunk from the lugholes of even the most fearsome warrior.

Secondly, Vikings weren't all that bloodthirsty. In fact, their raiding hobby fast moved on to rather more boring interests, such as trading, settling and exploring (YAWN!).

Thirdly, there's no evidence to suggest that Vikings wore horns on their helmets. After all, why would anyone think it would be a good idea to stick two big easy to grab horns on the side of their head? It would allow a quick thinking opponent to either yank your head in position for a well-timed slash of a broadsword or simply pull your helmet over your eyes and provide chortlesome fun for all their friends as you stumble blindly around the battlefield. In fact, there's very little evidence to suggest that Viking wore helmets AT ALL. Illustrations from the period show them wearing lousy leather caps or being boringly bare headed.

So if Vikings aren't stinky, bloodthirsty, horned helmet wearing barbarians then doesn't that make them rather boring? Oh no dear reader, Vikings did plenty of bizarrely brilliant things.

Vikings loved Skiing

Who doesn't love Skiing? The answer is not Vikings. They loved it. Their skis were about 2 meters long and made of pinewood. However, Vikings didn't just ski, they also went ice-skating. The skates were made from the foot bones of horses, cows or elks and were strapped to the feet of the Viking as they propelled themselves over the ice with two short sticks.

Are you thinking about a giant bearded Viking warrior involved in a pretty spectacular and surprisingly flexible ice skate dance routine whilst clad in horribly florescent and skin tight lycra? If not, you are now.

Wee Dye

Vikings considered the ideal hair color to be blonde. They could also suffer from horrible infestations of lice and nits in their finely combed (yes, they had combs too) hair.

So what better solution than dunking your head in a month old bucket of wee?

Not only would it eliminate any rogue lice if would also lighten the color of your hair.

However, having to keep month old buckets of wee could clutter up even the longest longhouse. So Lye Soap was developed instead. The key toxic ingredient of yee olde Lye Soap? Wee.

Vikings had a Weird Sense of Humor

Vikings took their reputations very seriously indeed. An insulted Viking would often respond to the verbal bashing by challenging the bully to a physical bashing instead. Duels would be held (not always resulting in death, sometimes the warrior who managed to disarm the other or draw first blood would be the victor) but what happened to the person who lost? Well, they were given a rather odd challenge. A wild cow would be brought into the hall where the duel had taken place. The cow’s tail would then be shaved and coated in grease. Then the Viking who had lost the duel would have their feet covered in grease too. Then the cow would be made angry (calling it names or poking it in the eye with a stick should do the trick). Then the loser would have to grip the cow's tail (can you tell where this is going yet?).

On a given command the Viking would then have to pull the cow's tail 0- which would make the cow go WILD! Bucking and stomping, kicking out with its hooves like a whirlwind of death. The poor Viking would simply have to keep hold of its tail until it calmed down. If he succeeded, then not only could he keep his life, he could also keep the cow as well!

Secret Bonus Fact: Viking warriors wore eyeliner! It was called kohl and it was a dark colored powder that kept the harsh light of the sun from damaging sensitive eyeballs.

We do hope you enjoyed the article! You can read Max’s new book Escapades in Bizarrchaeology: The Journals of Captain Max Virtus (The History Book For People Who Don't Like History - Yet!) - available in both print and electronically.

Book available here: Amazon US | Amazon UK

And if you want to find out more, you can Tweet Max @adeauthor.