The Vikings Author:A Mawer Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III THE VIKINGS IN ENGLAND TO THE DEATH OF HABTHACNUT The great development of Viking activity which took place after 855 was certainly not unconn... more »ected with the course of events in Denmark itself. Hslrekr ,/ was attacked by his two nephews in 850 and compelled to share the kingdom with them. In 854 large bands of Vikings returned to their fatherland after twenty years' ravaging in Frankish territory. Trouble now arose between Harekr and his nephew Godurm (O.K GuSormr), one of the returned leaders. Civil war broke out and ultimately, after a great fight, the kingship fell to a younger Hdrekr, a relative of the late king. A severe dynastic struggle of this kind must have been accompanied by much unsettlement and perhaps by an actual proscription. It would certainly seem that there was some definite connexion between these events and the coincident appearance of the sons of Ragnarr Lo5br6k as leaders of a more extended Viking movement both in England and in France. Three of his sons— Halfdanr, Ubbi and Ivarr—took part in the first wintering in Sheppey in 855, while in the same year another son Bjb'rn Ironside appeared on the Seine. in] RAGNARB LODBROK 23 The figure of Ragnarr Lo8br6k himself belongs to an earlier generation, and great as was his after-fame we unfortunately know very little of his actual career. He would seem to have been of Norwegian birth, closely connected with the south of Norway and the house of GuSrb'Sr, but like that prince having extensive interests in Denmark. He probably visited Ireland in 831, for we read in Saxo of an expedition made by Ragnarr to Ireland when he slew king Melbricus and ravaged Dublin, an event which is pretty certainly to be identified with an attack made on the Conaille district (co. Louth) by foreigners in 831 when ...« less