|
Ragnar Lodbrok or Lothbrok (, "Ragnar Hairy Breeches") was a legendary Norse ruler, king, and hero from the Viking Age described in Old Norse poetry and several sagas. In this tradition, Ragnar was the scourge of France and England and the father of many renowned sons, including Ivar the Boneless, Björn Ironside, Halfdan Ragnarsson, Sigurd Snake-in-the-Eye, and Ubba. While these men are historical figures, it is uncertain whether Ragnar himself existed or really fathered them. Many of the tales about him appear to conflate the deeds of several historical Viking heroes and rulers. According to legend, Ragnar was thrice married: to the shieldmaiden Lagertha, to the noblewoman Þóra Borgarhjǫrtr, and to Aslaug. Said to have been a relative of the Danish king Gudfred and son of the Swedish king Sigurd Hring, he became king himself and distinguished himself by many raids and conquests until he was eventually seized by his foe, King Ælla of Northumbria, and killed by being thrown into a pit of snakes. His sons bloodily avenged him by invading England with the Great Heathen Army. ==Historicity== As a figure of legend whose life only partially took place in times and places covered by written sources, the extent of Ragnar's historicity is not quite clear. In her commentary on Saxo's ''Gesta Danorum'', Hilda Ellis Davidson notes that Saxo's coverage of Ragnar's legend in book IX of the ''Gesta'' appears to be an attempt to consolidate many of the confusing and contradictory events and stories known to the chronicler into the reign of one king, Ragnar. That is why many acts ascribed to Ragnar in the ''Gesta'' can be associated, through other sources, with various figures, some of which are more historically certain. These candidates for the "historical Ragnar" include: *King Horik I (d. 854), * King Reginfrid (d. 814), * a king who ruled part of Denmark and came into conflict with Harald Klak, * one "Reginherus" who attacked Paris in the middle of the ninth century, * possibly the Rognvald of the Irish Annals, and * the father of the Viking leaders who invaded England with the Great Heathen Army in 865. So far, attempts to firmly link the legendary Ragnar with one or several of those men have failed because of the difficulty in reconciling the various accounts and their chronology. Nonetheless, the core tradition of a Viking hero named Ragnar (or similar) who wreaked havoc in mid-ninth-century Europe and who fathered many famous sons is remarkably persistent, and some aspects of it are covered by relatively reliable sources, such as the ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle''. According to Davidson, writing in 1979, "certain scholars in recent years have come to accept at least part of Ragnar's story as based on historical fact". Katherine Holman, on the other hand, concludes that "although his sons are historical figures, there is no evidence that Ragnar himself ever lived, and he seems to be an amalgam of several different historical figures and pure literary invention." 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Ragnar Lodbrok」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|