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10 Viking Kings And Their Epic Deeds
by David Hughes
fact checked by Jamie Frater
For the Vikings, reputation was the most important thing in life. In their eyes, a person’s deeds were the only thing that survived them long after they were gone, so they loved to celebrate the actions of their ancestors and friends while trying to make a name for themselves personally, whether that be by exploring, conquering, raiding, or patronizing the people who wrote the songs: the skalds.As such, we thought that a list retelling the grandest deeds of the Viking kings would be a great way to celebrate them (and to bring some entertainment value). After all, it’s what they would have wanted. Here, we learn about ten Viking kings and their epic deeds.
10
Harald Fairhair, The First King Of Norway
Photo credit: Wikmedia Commons
Any list covering the greatest achievements of the Viking kings wouldn’t be complete without mentioning Harald Fairhair.[1] Despite his pseudo-mythical status, most historians now believe that Fairhair did exist but that his exploits were probably not as dramatic as the sagas make them out to be. He was likely a petty king in Southwest Norway who was able to subjugate his neighbors and rule over a large portion of what is now modern Norway.According to the sagas, the Battle of Hafrsfjord was a crucial moment for Harald’s young kingdom. Dated to sometime between 870 and 900, it was a large battle by contemporary standards and involved many of the petty kings of Norway. The only king mentioned in a source from the time of the battle was Kjovte the Rich, who supposedly fled after Harald’s victory, leaving many of his men to die. The place believed to be the site of the battle is now marked by the Swords in Rock, three 10-meter-tall (33 ft) monuments which represent Harald and the kings he defeated.Following Hafrsfjord, Harald established the most influential power bloc in Norway, from which he and his successors were able to exert pressure on their neighbors and ultimately form the Kingdom of Norway, which exists to this day.
9
Rurik, The Founder Of Russia
Photo credit: Dar Veter
The Rurikid dynasty was one of the longest-reigning lineages in human history: They were kings in Russia from the depths of the Viking age to the reign of Ivan the Terrible centuries later. And it was founded by a Viking.[2]The Primary Chronicle of Russia, which was assembled in 1113 from a collection of earlier pieces, tells us the story of Russia’s beginnings. According to the Chronicle, the Slavic people who lived in modern-day Ukraine and Russia invited Rurik and his two brothers to rule over them, thinking they would bring law and order to the tribes. They clearly accepted, but Rurik’s brothers died shortly after, leaving him to rule alone.In the past, some historians questioned the authenticity of the story told in the Chronicle, but most now accept it as fact. Rurik was a Varangian, warriors who served the Byzantine emperor as their personal bodyguard (and who were nearly all Norse), so he would have been well-respected. There is also evidence of significant Viking influence in the area of modern-day Russia and Ukraine: When Harald Hardrada lost the Battle of Stiklestad in 1030, he fled to stay with family in Kiev. The Vikings also had trade routes across Europe, from Baghdad and beyond to the coast of Spain, so it’s not unreasonable to expect the warriors and traders who crossed from Scandinavia to Greece and the Middle East to settle down along the way. Odinist symbols and Scandinavian blacksmithing tools dating back to the Viking age, among other items, have been found in Lagoda and Novgorod, which suggests there was at least some Norse influence in the region, and the Arab traveler Ahmad ibn Fadlan encountered Viking tribes while journeying through the lands of the Rus.Either way, Rurik was a member of the Norse Varangian Guard who established a small kingdom in modern-day Russia, and his descendants (who were raised as Slavs) continued his legacy, remaining kings and princes in the area until 1612, which is no mean feat.

8
Eric Bloodaxe, The Last King Of Northumbria
Most of us have heard of Eric Bloodaxe, the last Viking king of Northumbria. Beyond his name, however, most of us know little about him, but we assume he must’ve been a great Viking to have earned the nickname “Bloodaxe.”In fact, the name more likely comes from the connotation of “blood” meaning “family” or “brotherhood,” so an equally accurate translation could be “brotheraxe” or “familyaxe.” This nickname makes sense when we learn that he killed five of his brothers in order to win the throne of Norway![3]He only ruled in Scandinavia for a short time before he was deposed by his last remaining brother, fleeing to Britain without a fight. Why he gave up his kingdom so easily we’ll probably never know, but it might have been because he saw a brighter future for himself in the British Isles. If he did, he wasn’t wrong, because he was easily able to assert control over the kingdom of Northumbria and rule it undisputed until his death in 954.
7
Sictric Caech And The Battle Of Islandbridge
The Vikings have a long history in Ireland—the city of Dublin was actually founded by Vikings to serve as a commercial center for their slave trade. Their actual influence in Inner Ireland ebbed and flowed over the years, and in 902, they were forced out of Dublin by a united army of several Irish kings. Sictric Caech was one of these Vikings.At first, he went on to rule a small kingdom in the Danelaw, but the Anglo-Saxons had conquered most of the Danelaw by 918 and driven most of the Vikings out of England. Following this, Sictric returned to Ireland, this time at the head of an army. They won some early battles with the Irish kings and staked out a small claim for themselves, but the war was far from conclusive.Things came to a head at the Battle of Islandbridge in 919.[4] The Irish king Niall Glundub led a coalition of Northern Irish kings to drive the Vikings back out. Sictric and his army met them on the way. The battle was a crushing victory for Sictric, with five Irish kings and the High King of Ireland himself meeting their ends in the bloodbath. Sictric reigned as the undisputed king of Dublin for another three years, after which he seems to have returned to England by his own choice.

6
Sweyn Forkbeard And The Conquest Of England
Photo credit: Louis Moe/AU Library, Campus Emdrup
Sweyn Forkbeard became the first Viking king of all England in 1013, though he only reigned for five weeks before his death—not long enough to even be officially crowned.[5]But it is the reasoning behind his invasion that makes him a truly respectable Viking king.By Sweyn’s time, the Vikings had lived in England for nearly 200 years but had never managed to conquer the entire kingdom. They ruled the northeastern half of England as the Danelaw until the end of Eric Bloodaxe’s reign in 954, when they were driven out. People of Viking descent continued to live in England, however, and the Viking kings across the sea continued to have an interest in their people.So when the English king ordered the mass slaughter of Vikings living in England in 1002, Sweyn planned his revenge. While he’d been raiding the English coast on and off for a decade or so, now he mustered an invasion force. They landed in 1003, causing widespread destruction and pillaging much of the country in revenge. Ethelred the Unready was forced to pay Sweyn a ludicrous amount of silver to stop the latter from burning his kingdom.But ten years later, Sweyn was back, this time with an army big enough to seize England. They landed in Kent and rampaged through the countryside, soon reaching London. The English earls, fearing another drawn-out war and already skeptical of their own king, drove Ethelred into exile and declared Sweyn king of England.While Sweyn’s reign didn’t last long, it did pave the way for another Viking invasion, this one much more permanent.
5
King Cnut And The North Sea Empire
Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons
With Sweyn’s death, his son Cnut was left in charge of his father’s army in England. The English lords, however, chose to bring Ethelred back, and Cnut fled to Denmark.He immediately set about raising a larger army and even asked his brother (and rival), the king of Denmark, for warriors to help him. Poles, Swedes, and Norwegians flocked to his banner, drawn by the promise of loot. Cnut landed in Wessex in 1015 at the head of 10,000 men and laid waste to the country, conquering from Cornwall to Northumbria.[6]But London remained defiant under the leadership of the newly chosen English king, Edmund Ironside. The armies of the two kings met at the Battle of Assandun (usually accepted to be modern-day Ashington), where Cnut won a close-fought engagement. English resistance crumbled.By 1018, Cnut was also king of Denmark following the death of his brother, and he finally conquered Norway in 1028, after years of conflict with various Scandinavian lords. Though they’d originally fought against him, the English were remarkably loyal to Cnut during his reign; he spent much of his 20-year tenure putting down rebellions or fighting enemies in his homeland, leaving England to be governed by his allies, and by his death, nearly all the men on his council were English.Cnut became one of the most powerful kings in Europe, meeting with the pope and the emperor of Germany on several occasions and fostering economic links between his three kingdoms. While his empire broke apart on his death, he seems to have made little effort in his life to see it continue, abandoning Norway to rebels in the final years of his reign and leaving Denmark to his son Harthacnut and England to his other son, Harold Harefoot. The union of the three kingdoms made Cnut the most powerful king in Europe at the time, however, and his descendants would repeatedly try (and fail) to recreate his successes.

4
Harald Bluetooth’s Ring Fortresses
Photo credit: Thue C. Leibrandt
Before Cnut and Sweyn, however, someone had to turn Denmark into the strong, centralized state that it had to be to go toe-to-toe with England. This king was Harald Bluetooth, Sweyn’s father and long-reigning king of Denmark.Not all Viking strength came from conquest. Over the course of his 30-year reign, Harald transformed Denmark from a political backwater into a strong medieval state. Harald’s plans for creating a centralized government are best summed up by his Trelleborg ring forts: fortresses built across Danish territory, centered at the fort at Aarhus, in the geographical center of the region. Each one was built to exact standards, with four gates (each facing one of the compass points), a tall wall and ditch around the outside, and an open courtyard with administrative buildings in the middle.[7] These would have served as both tax collection points and places for Danish kings to muster their armies, laying the groundwork for the conquests of his son and grandson.The fortresses were all built in locations that were close to the sea, but far enough from it to be safe from sea raids, and alongside Viking land routes, where they would have been both well-connected and highly visible, a powerful symbol of the king’s authority. Their sites seem to have been meticulously chosen to efficiently defend and control the people of Denmark, which was no doubt at the forefront of Bluetooth’s mind after the history of wars in Norway and his father’s difficult reign.Unfortunately for him, the ultimate threat came from within, when his son Sweyn forcibly deposed him.
3
Harald Hardrada And The Destruction Of Heidaby
Photo credit: Colin Smith/CC BY-SA 2.0
Harald Hardrada (Hard-Ruler) is famous in history for being one of the last Viking kings and for unsuccessfully trying to seize the throne of England by force—losing the crucial Battle of Stamford Bridge in 1066 to Harold Godwinson, which paved the way for William the Conqueror’s ultimate victory.[8]This battle, however, came at the end of a long and distinguished Viking career which had taken Harald all around the known world, from Norway to Sicily and Palestine, over the course of 30 years. Perhaps his greatest (or worst) feat was the destruction of Heidaby. Heidaby was a Norse town at the base of Jutland with trade connections across the northern world: It rose to prominence in the late 700s and became the most important town in the Western Viking world.Harald, who was king of Norway at the time, was trying to subdue Denmark and add it to his realm, and he sought to weaken Denmark by raiding its coast. His campaign took him to Heidaby, which refused to willingly submit to him. In response, he drove burning ships into the harbor, setting it alight. The flames spread rapidly across the whole town. Snorri Sturlason writes that Harald’s men sang: “All Heidaby is burned down! Strangers will ask where stood the town. In our wild humor up it blazed, and Svein looks round him all amazed,” (albeit in Old Norse, of course).The town of Heidaby never recovered and fell from importance. It was finally brought to an end by a Slavic raid in 1066, which wiped it off the map for good.

2
Sweyn II Of Denmark And The Last Viking Invasion Of England
The death of Harald Hardrada at the Battle of Stamford Bridge in 1066 is usually considered the end of the Viking age, and many people call Hardrada the last Viking king. The truth is hardly ever that simple, however.Following William’s conquest of England, the Godwin family were deposed but not defeated. They continued to harass the new kingdom from the sea, and in 1069, Sweyn II of Denmark decided to back one of the Anglo-Saxon pretenders.[9] Why he did so is not 100-percent clear, but it may have been related to his lifelong rivalry with Hardrada. After all, Hardrada had died trying to seize England, so what better way to one-up your rival once and for all than to succeed where he failed?Sweyn was successful, too, seizing a good portion of Northern England and holding it from William, but in true Viking fashion, he was ready to seize the advantage and turned on his Anglo-Saxon ally when William offered to pay him a large sum of money to go back to Denmark; without Sweyn’s support, the rebellion crumbled, and England remained Norman. The Vikings were never able to conquer England again.
1
Olaf III, The Last Viking King
Photo credit: Gerhard Munthe
This brings us to our last epic Viking king, and the man who some consider the real last Viking king, Olaf III—who was known as Olaf the Peaceful. While not as warlike or bloodthirsty as the other Viking leaders on this list, Olaf was a great politician who effectively created the modern state of Norway.[10]Olaf may have been swayed by his involvement in his father Harald’s invasion of England in 1066. While he was not present at the battle where his father died—he remained with the ships—he was a great proponent of peace during his reign, and Norway didn’t go to war for a quarter of a century, putting him at stark contrast with his father, who was always either adventuring or trying to expand his domains.Olaf deliberately transformed Norway into a more “normal” continental European country: he drew the Norwegian church into line with the pope’s teachings and reorganized the dioceses of Norway, and it’s also believed he was the first Viking king who learned to read. He built a European-style court around himself, introducing medieval aristocratic culture to Norway. During his reign, urban growth flourished, and the town of Bergen was founded, which went on to become the capital of medieval Norway. Many Norwegian laws were officially put down in writing for the first time in Olaf’s reign.
Read more about the ever-memorable Vikings on 10 Forgotten Vikings Who Terrorized The Dark Ages and 10 Interesting Viking Rituals.
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10 Viking Kings And Their Epic Deeds
by David Hughes
fact checked by Jamie Frater
For the Vikings, reputation was the most important thing in life. In their eyes, a person’s deeds were the only thing that survived them long after they were gone, so they loved to celebrate the actions of their ancestors and friends while trying to make a name for themselves personally, whether that be by exploring, conquering, raiding, or patronizing the people who wrote the songs: the skalds.As such, we thought that a list retelling the grandest deeds of the Viking kings would be a great way to celebrate them (and to bring some entertainment value). After all, it’s what they would have wanted. Here, we learn about ten Viking kings and their epic deeds.
10
Harald Fairhair, The First King Of Norway
Photo credit: Wikmedia Commons
Any list covering the greatest achievements of the Viking kings wouldn’t be complete without mentioning Harald Fairhair.[1] Despite his pseudo-mythical status, most historians now believe that Fairhair did exist but that his exploits were probably not as dramatic as the sagas make them out to be. He was likely a petty king in Southwest Norway who was able to subjugate his neighbors and rule over a large portion of what is now modern Norway.According to the sagas, the Battle of Hafrsfjord was a crucial moment for Harald’s young kingdom. Dated to sometime between 870 and 900, it was a large battle by contemporary standards and involved many of the petty kings of Norway. The only king mentioned in a source from the time of the battle was Kjovte the Rich, who supposedly fled after Harald’s victory, leaving many of his men to die. The place believed to be the site of the battle is now marked by the Swords in Rock, three 10-meter-tall (33 ft) monuments which represent Harald and the kings he defeated.Following Hafrsfjord, Harald established the most influential power bloc in Norway, from which he and his successors were able to exert pressure on their neighbors and ultimately form the Kingdom of Norway, which exists to this day.
9
Rurik, The Founder Of Russia
Photo credit: Dar Veter
The Rurikid dynasty was one of the longest-reigning lineages in human history: They were kings in Russia from the depths of the Viking age to the reign of Ivan the Terrible centuries later. And it was founded by a Viking.[2]The Primary Chronicle of Russia, which was assembled in 1113 from a collection of earlier pieces, tells us the story of Russia’s beginnings. According to the Chronicle, the Slavic people who lived in modern-day Ukraine and Russia invited Rurik and his two brothers to rule over them, thinking they would bring law and order to the tribes. They clearly accepted, but Rurik’s brothers died shortly after, leaving him to rule alone.In the past, some historians questioned the authenticity of the story told in the Chronicle, but most now accept it as fact. Rurik was a Varangian, warriors who served the Byzantine emperor as their personal bodyguard (and who were nearly all Norse), so he would have been well-respected. There is also evidence of significant Viking influence in the area of modern-day Russia and Ukraine: When Harald Hardrada lost the Battle of Stiklestad in 1030, he fled to stay with family in Kiev. The Vikings also had trade routes across Europe, from Baghdad and beyond to the coast of Spain, so it’s not unreasonable to expect the warriors and traders who crossed from Scandinavia to Greece and the Middle East to settle down along the way. Odinist symbols and Scandinavian blacksmithing tools dating back to the Viking age, among other items, have been found in Lagoda and Novgorod, which suggests there was at least some Norse influence in the region, and the Arab traveler Ahmad ibn Fadlan encountered Viking tribes while journeying through the lands of the Rus.Either way, Rurik was a member of the Norse Varangian Guard who established a small kingdom in modern-day Russia, and his descendants (who were raised as Slavs) continued his legacy, remaining kings and princes in the area until 1612, which is no mean feat.

8
Eric Bloodaxe, The Last King Of Northumbria
Most of us have heard of Eric Bloodaxe, the last Viking king of Northumbria. Beyond his name, however, most of us know little about him, but we assume he must’ve been a great Viking to have earned the nickname “Bloodaxe.”In fact, the name more likely comes from the connotation of “blood” meaning “family” or “brotherhood,” so an equally accurate translation could be “brotheraxe” or “familyaxe.” This nickname makes sense when we learn that he killed five of his brothers in order to win the throne of Norway![3]He only ruled in Scandinavia for a short time before he was deposed by his last remaining brother, fleeing to Britain without a fight. Why he gave up his kingdom so easily we’ll probably never know, but it might have been because he saw a brighter future for himself in the British Isles. If he did, he wasn’t wrong, because he was easily able to assert control over the kingdom of Northumbria and rule it undisputed until his death in 954.
7
Sictric Caech And The Battle Of Islandbridge
The Vikings have a long history in Ireland—the city of Dublin was actually founded by Vikings to serve as a commercial center for their slave trade. Their actual influence in Inner Ireland ebbed and flowed over the years, and in 902, they were forced out of Dublin by a united army of several Irish kings. Sictric Caech was one of these Vikings.At first, he went on to rule a small kingdom in the Danelaw, but the Anglo-Saxons had conquered most of the Danelaw by 918 and driven most of the Vikings out of England. Following this, Sictric returned to Ireland, this time at the head of an army. They won some early battles with the Irish kings and staked out a small claim for themselves, but the war was far from conclusive.Things came to a head at the Battle of Islandbridge in 919.[4] The Irish king Niall Glundub led a coalition of Northern Irish kings to drive the Vikings back out. Sictric and his army met them on the way. The battle was a crushing victory for Sictric, with five Irish kings and the High King of Ireland himself meeting their ends in the bloodbath. Sictric reigned as the undisputed king of Dublin for another three years, after which he seems to have returned to England by his own choice.

6
Sweyn Forkbeard And The Conquest Of England
Photo credit: Louis Moe/AU Library, Campus Emdrup
Sweyn Forkbeard became the first Viking king of all England in 1013, though he only reigned for five weeks before his death—not long enough to even be officially crowned.[5]But it is the reasoning behind his invasion that makes him a truly respectable Viking king.By Sweyn’s time, the Vikings had lived in England for nearly 200 years but had never managed to conquer the entire kingdom. They ruled the northeastern half of England as the Danelaw until the end of Eric Bloodaxe’s reign in 954, when they were driven out. People of Viking descent continued to live in England, however, and the Viking kings across the sea continued to have an interest in their people.So when the English king ordered the mass slaughter of Vikings living in England in 1002, Sweyn planned his revenge. While he’d been raiding the English coast on and off for a decade or so, now he mustered an invasion force. They landed in 1003, causing widespread destruction and pillaging much of the country in revenge. Ethelred the Unready was forced to pay Sweyn a ludicrous amount of silver to stop the latter from burning his kingdom.But ten years later, Sweyn was back, this time with an army big enough to seize England. They landed in Kent and rampaged through the countryside, soon reaching London. The English earls, fearing another drawn-out war and already skeptical of their own king, drove Ethelred into exile and declared Sweyn king of England.While Sweyn’s reign didn’t last long, it did pave the way for another Viking invasion, this one much more permanent.
5
King Cnut And The North Sea Empire
Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons
With Sweyn’s death, his son Cnut was left in charge of his father’s army in England. The English lords, however, chose to bring Ethelred back, and Cnut fled to Denmark.He immediately set about raising a larger army and even asked his brother (and rival), the king of Denmark, for warriors to help him. Poles, Swedes, and Norwegians flocked to his banner, drawn by the promise of loot. Cnut landed in Wessex in 1015 at the head of 10,000 men and laid waste to the country, conquering from Cornwall to Northumbria.[6]But London remained defiant under the leadership of the newly chosen English king, Edmund Ironside. The armies of the two kings met at the Battle of Assandun (usually accepted to be modern-day Ashington), where Cnut won a close-fought engagement. English resistance crumbled.By 1018, Cnut was also king of Denmark following the death of his brother, and he finally conquered Norway in 1028, after years of conflict with various Scandinavian lords. Though they’d originally fought against him, the English were remarkably loyal to Cnut during his reign; he spent much of his 20-year tenure putting down rebellions or fighting enemies in his homeland, leaving England to be governed by his allies, and by his death, nearly all the men on his council were English.Cnut became one of the most powerful kings in Europe, meeting with the pope and the emperor of Germany on several occasions and fostering economic links between his three kingdoms. While his empire broke apart on his death, he seems to have made little effort in his life to see it continue, abandoning Norway to rebels in the final years of his reign and leaving Denmark to his son Harthacnut and England to his other son, Harold Harefoot. The union of the three kingdoms made Cnut the most powerful king in Europe at the time, however, and his descendants would repeatedly try (and fail) to recreate his successes.

4
Harald Bluetooth’s Ring Fortresses
Photo credit: Thue C. Leibrandt
Before Cnut and Sweyn, however, someone had to turn Denmark into the strong, centralized state that it had to be to go toe-to-toe with England. This king was Harald Bluetooth, Sweyn’s father and long-reigning king of Denmark.Not all Viking strength came from conquest. Over the course of his 30-year reign, Harald transformed Denmark from a political backwater into a strong medieval state. Harald’s plans for creating a centralized government are best summed up by his Trelleborg ring forts: fortresses built across Danish territory, centered at the fort at Aarhus, in the geographical center of the region. Each one was built to exact standards, with four gates (each facing one of the compass points), a tall wall and ditch around the outside, and an open courtyard with administrative buildings in the middle.[7] These would have served as both tax collection points and places for Danish kings to muster their armies, laying the groundwork for the conquests of his son and grandson.The fortresses were all built in locations that were close to the sea, but far enough from it to be safe from sea raids, and alongside Viking land routes, where they would have been both well-connected and highly visible, a powerful symbol of the king’s authority. Their sites seem to have been meticulously chosen to efficiently defend and control the people of Denmark, which was no doubt at the forefront of Bluetooth’s mind after the history of wars in Norway and his father’s difficult reign.Unfortunately for him, the ultimate threat came from within, when his son Sweyn forcibly deposed him.
3
Harald Hardrada And The Destruction Of Heidaby
Photo credit: Colin Smith/CC BY-SA 2.0
Harald Hardrada (Hard-Ruler) is famous in history for being one of the last Viking kings and for unsuccessfully trying to seize the throne of England by force—losing the crucial Battle of Stamford Bridge in 1066 to Harold Godwinson, which paved the way for William the Conqueror’s ultimate victory.[8]This battle, however, came at the end of a long and distinguished Viking career which had taken Harald all around the known world, from Norway to Sicily and Palestine, over the course of 30 years. Perhaps his greatest (or worst) feat was the destruction of Heidaby. Heidaby was a Norse town at the base of Jutland with trade connections across the northern world: It rose to prominence in the late 700s and became the most important town in the Western Viking world.Harald, who was king of Norway at the time, was trying to subdue Denmark and add it to his realm, and he sought to weaken Denmark by raiding its coast. His campaign took him to Heidaby, which refused to willingly submit to him. In response, he drove burning ships into the harbor, setting it alight. The flames spread rapidly across the whole town. Snorri Sturlason writes that Harald’s men sang: “All Heidaby is burned down! Strangers will ask where stood the town. In our wild humor up it blazed, and Svein looks round him all amazed,” (albeit in Old Norse, of course).The town of Heidaby never recovered and fell from importance. It was finally brought to an end by a Slavic raid in 1066, which wiped it off the map for good.

2
Sweyn II Of Denmark And The Last Viking Invasion Of England
The death of Harald Hardrada at the Battle of Stamford Bridge in 1066 is usually considered the end of the Viking age, and many people call Hardrada the last Viking king. The truth is hardly ever that simple, however.Following William’s conquest of England, the Godwin family were deposed but not defeated. They continued to harass the new kingdom from the sea, and in 1069, Sweyn II of Denmark decided to back one of the Anglo-Saxon pretenders.[9] Why he did so is not 100-percent clear, but it may have been related to his lifelong rivalry with Hardrada. After all, Hardrada had died trying to seize England, so what better way to one-up your rival once and for all than to succeed where he failed?Sweyn was successful, too, seizing a good portion of Northern England and holding it from William, but in true Viking fashion, he was ready to seize the advantage and turned on his Anglo-Saxon ally when William offered to pay him a large sum of money to go back to Denmark; without Sweyn’s support, the rebellion crumbled, and England remained Norman. The Vikings were never able to conquer England again.
1
Olaf III, The Last Viking King
Photo credit: Gerhard Munthe
This brings us to our last epic Viking king, and the man who some consider the real last Viking king, Olaf III—who was known as Olaf the Peaceful. While not as warlike or bloodthirsty as the other Viking leaders on this list, Olaf was a great politician who effectively created the modern state of Norway.[10]Olaf may have been swayed by his involvement in his father Harald’s invasion of England in 1066. While he was not present at the battle where his father died—he remained with the ships—he was a great proponent of peace during his reign, and Norway didn’t go to war for a quarter of a century, putting him at stark contrast with his father, who was always either adventuring or trying to expand his domains.Olaf deliberately transformed Norway into a more “normal” continental European country: he drew the Norwegian church into line with the pope’s teachings and reorganized the dioceses of Norway, and it’s also believed he was the first Viking king who learned to read. He built a European-style court around himself, introducing medieval aristocratic culture to Norway. During his reign, urban growth flourished, and the town of Bergen was founded, which went on to become the capital of medieval Norway. Many Norwegian laws were officially put down in writing for the first time in Olaf’s reign.
Read more about the ever-memorable Vikings on 10 Forgotten Vikings Who Terrorized The Dark Ages and 10 Interesting Viking Rituals.
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Share
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10 Viking Kings And Their Epic Deeds
by David Hughes
fact checked by Jamie Frater
For the Vikings, reputation was the most important thing in life. In their eyes, a person’s deeds were the only thing that survived them long after they were gone, so they loved to celebrate the actions of their ancestors and friends while trying to make a name for themselves personally, whether that be by exploring, conquering, raiding, or patronizing the people who wrote the songs: the skalds.As such, we thought that a list retelling the grandest deeds of the Viking kings would be a great way to celebrate them (and to bring some entertainment value). After all, it’s what they would have wanted. Here, we learn about ten Viking kings and their epic deeds.
10
Harald Fairhair, The First King Of Norway
Photo credit: Wikmedia Commons
Any list covering the greatest achievements of the Viking kings wouldn’t be complete without mentioning Harald Fairhair.[1] Despite his pseudo-mythical status, most historians now believe that Fairhair did exist but that his exploits were probably not as dramatic as the sagas make them out to be. He was likely a petty king in Southwest Norway who was able to subjugate his neighbors and rule over a large portion of what is now modern Norway.According to the sagas, the Battle of Hafrsfjord was a crucial moment for Harald’s young kingdom. Dated to sometime between 870 and 900, it was a large battle by contemporary standards and involved many of the petty kings of Norway. The only king mentioned in a source from the time of the battle was Kjovte the Rich, who supposedly fled after Harald’s victory, leaving many of his men to die. The place believed to be the site of the battle is now marked by the Swords in Rock, three 10-meter-tall (33 ft) monuments which represent Harald and the kings he defeated.Following Hafrsfjord, Harald established the most influential power bloc in Norway, from which he and his successors were able to exert pressure on their neighbors and ultimately form the Kingdom of Norway, which exists to this day.
9
Rurik, The Founder Of Russia
Photo credit: Dar Veter
The Rurikid dynasty was one of the longest-reigning lineages in human history: They were kings in Russia from the depths of the Viking age to the reign of Ivan the Terrible centuries later. And it was founded by a Viking.[2]The Primary Chronicle of Russia, which was assembled in 1113 from a collection of earlier pieces, tells us the story of Russia’s beginnings. According to the Chronicle, the Slavic people who lived in modern-day Ukraine and Russia invited Rurik and his two brothers to rule over them, thinking they would bring law and order to the tribes. They clearly accepted, but Rurik’s brothers died shortly after, leaving him to rule alone.In the past, some historians questioned the authenticity of the story told in the Chronicle, but most now accept it as fact. Rurik was a Varangian, warriors who served the Byzantine emperor as their personal bodyguard (and who were nearly all Norse), so he would have been well-respected. There is also evidence of significant Viking influence in the area of modern-day Russia and Ukraine: When Harald Hardrada lost the Battle of Stiklestad in 1030, he fled to stay with family in Kiev. The Vikings also had trade routes across Europe, from Baghdad and beyond to the coast of Spain, so it’s not unreasonable to expect the warriors and traders who crossed from Scandinavia to Greece and the Middle East to settle down along the way. Odinist symbols and Scandinavian blacksmithing tools dating back to the Viking age, among other items, have been found in Lagoda and Novgorod, which suggests there was at least some Norse influence in the region, and the Arab traveler Ahmad ibn Fadlan encountered Viking tribes while journeying through the lands of the Rus.Either way, Rurik was a member of the Norse Varangian Guard who established a small kingdom in modern-day Russia, and his descendants (who were raised as Slavs) continued his legacy, remaining kings and princes in the area until 1612, which is no mean feat.

8
Eric Bloodaxe, The Last King Of Northumbria
Most of us have heard of Eric Bloodaxe, the last Viking king of Northumbria. Beyond his name, however, most of us know little about him, but we assume he must’ve been a great Viking to have earned the nickname “Bloodaxe.”In fact, the name more likely comes from the connotation of “blood” meaning “family” or “brotherhood,” so an equally accurate translation could be “brotheraxe” or “familyaxe.” This nickname makes sense when we learn that he killed five of his brothers in order to win the throne of Norway![3]He only ruled in Scandinavia for a short time before he was deposed by his last remaining brother, fleeing to Britain without a fight. Why he gave up his kingdom so easily we’ll probably never know, but it might have been because he saw a brighter future for himself in the British Isles. If he did, he wasn’t wrong, because he was easily able to assert control over the kingdom of Northumbria and rule it undisputed until his death in 954.
7
Sictric Caech And The Battle Of Islandbridge
The Vikings have a long history in Ireland—the city of Dublin was actually founded by Vikings to serve as a commercial center for their slave trade. Their actual influence in Inner Ireland ebbed and flowed over the years, and in 902, they were forced out of Dublin by a united army of several Irish kings. Sictric Caech was one of these Vikings.At first, he went on to rule a small kingdom in the Danelaw, but the Anglo-Saxons had conquered most of the Danelaw by 918 and driven most of the Vikings out of England. Following this, Sictric returned to Ireland, this time at the head of an army. They won some early battles with the Irish kings and staked out a small claim for themselves, but the war was far from conclusive.Things came to a head at the Battle of Islandbridge in 919.[4] The Irish king Niall Glundub led a coalition of Northern Irish kings to drive the Vikings back out. Sictric and his army met them on the way. The battle was a crushing victory for Sictric, with five Irish kings and the High King of Ireland himself meeting their ends in the bloodbath. Sictric reigned as the undisputed king of Dublin for another three years, after which he seems to have returned to England by his own choice.

6
Sweyn Forkbeard And The Conquest Of England
Photo credit: Louis Moe/AU Library, Campus Emdrup
Sweyn Forkbeard became the first Viking king of all England in 1013, though he only reigned for five weeks before his death—not long enough to even be officially crowned.[5]But it is the reasoning behind his invasion that makes him a truly respectable Viking king.By Sweyn’s time, the Vikings had lived in England for nearly 200 years but had never managed to conquer the entire kingdom. They ruled the northeastern half of England as the Danelaw until the end of Eric Bloodaxe’s reign in 954, when they were driven out. People of Viking descent continued to live in England, however, and the Viking kings across the sea continued to have an interest in their people.So when the English king ordered the mass slaughter of Vikings living in England in 1002, Sweyn planned his revenge. While he’d been raiding the English coast on and off for a decade or so, now he mustered an invasion force. They landed in 1003, causing widespread destruction and pillaging much of the country in revenge. Ethelred the Unready was forced to pay Sweyn a ludicrous amount of silver to stop the latter from burning his kingdom.But ten years later, Sweyn was back, this time with an army big enough to seize England. They landed in Kent and rampaged through the countryside, soon reaching London. The English earls, fearing another drawn-out war and already skeptical of their own king, drove Ethelred into exile and declared Sweyn king of England.While Sweyn’s reign didn’t last long, it did pave the way for another Viking invasion, this one much more permanent.
5
King Cnut And The North Sea Empire
Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons
With Sweyn’s death, his son Cnut was left in charge of his father’s army in England. The English lords, however, chose to bring Ethelred back, and Cnut fled to Denmark.He immediately set about raising a larger army and even asked his brother (and rival), the king of Denmark, for warriors to help him. Poles, Swedes, and Norwegians flocked to his banner, drawn by the promise of loot. Cnut landed in Wessex in 1015 at the head of 10,000 men and laid waste to the country, conquering from Cornwall to Northumbria.[6]But London remained defiant under the leadership of the newly chosen English king, Edmund Ironside. The armies of the two kings met at the Battle of Assandun (usually accepted to be modern-day Ashington), where Cnut won a close-fought engagement. English resistance crumbled.By 1018, Cnut was also king of Denmark following the death of his brother, and he finally conquered Norway in 1028, after years of conflict with various Scandinavian lords. Though they’d originally fought against him, the English were remarkably loyal to Cnut during his reign; he spent much of his 20-year tenure putting down rebellions or fighting enemies in his homeland, leaving England to be governed by his allies, and by his death, nearly all the men on his council were English.Cnut became one of the most powerful kings in Europe, meeting with the pope and the emperor of Germany on several occasions and fostering economic links between his three kingdoms. While his empire broke apart on his death, he seems to have made little effort in his life to see it continue, abandoning Norway to rebels in the final years of his reign and leaving Denmark to his son Harthacnut and England to his other son, Harold Harefoot. The union of the three kingdoms made Cnut the most powerful king in Europe at the time, however, and his descendants would repeatedly try (and fail) to recreate his successes.

4
Harald Bluetooth’s Ring Fortresses
Photo credit: Thue C. Leibrandt
Before Cnut and Sweyn, however, someone had to turn Denmark into the strong, centralized state that it had to be to go toe-to-toe with England. This king was Harald Bluetooth, Sweyn’s father and long-reigning king of Denmark.Not all Viking strength came from conquest. Over the course of his 30-year reign, Harald transformed Denmark from a political backwater into a strong medieval state. Harald’s plans for creating a centralized government are best summed up by his Trelleborg ring forts: fortresses built across Danish territory, centered at the fort at Aarhus, in the geographical center of the region. Each one was built to exact standards, with four gates (each facing one of the compass points), a tall wall and ditch around the outside, and an open courtyard with administrative buildings in the middle.[7] These would have served as both tax collection points and places for Danish kings to muster their armies, laying the groundwork for the conquests of his son and grandson.The fortresses were all built in locations that were close to the sea, but far enough from it to be safe from sea raids, and alongside Viking land routes, where they would have been both well-connected and highly visible, a powerful symbol of the king’s authority. Their sites seem to have been meticulously chosen to efficiently defend and control the people of Denmark, which was no doubt at the forefront of Bluetooth’s mind after the history of wars in Norway and his father’s difficult reign.Unfortunately for him, the ultimate threat came from within, when his son Sweyn forcibly deposed him.
3
Harald Hardrada And The Destruction Of Heidaby
Photo credit: Colin Smith/CC BY-SA 2.0
Harald Hardrada (Hard-Ruler) is famous in history for being one of the last Viking kings and for unsuccessfully trying to seize the throne of England by force—losing the crucial Battle of Stamford Bridge in 1066 to Harold Godwinson, which paved the way for William the Conqueror’s ultimate victory.[8]This battle, however, came at the end of a long and distinguished Viking career which had taken Harald all around the known world, from Norway to Sicily and Palestine, over the course of 30 years. Perhaps his greatest (or worst) feat was the destruction of Heidaby. Heidaby was a Norse town at the base of Jutland with trade connections across the northern world: It rose to prominence in the late 700s and became the most important town in the Western Viking world.Harald, who was king of Norway at the time, was trying to subdue Denmark and add it to his realm, and he sought to weaken Denmark by raiding its coast. His campaign took him to Heidaby, which refused to willingly submit to him. In response, he drove burning ships into the harbor, setting it alight. The flames spread rapidly across the whole town. Snorri Sturlason writes that Harald’s men sang: “All Heidaby is burned down! Strangers will ask where stood the town. In our wild humor up it blazed, and Svein looks round him all amazed,” (albeit in Old Norse, of course).The town of Heidaby never recovered and fell from importance. It was finally brought to an end by a Slavic raid in 1066, which wiped it off the map for good.

2
Sweyn II Of Denmark And The Last Viking Invasion Of England
The death of Harald Hardrada at the Battle of Stamford Bridge in 1066 is usually considered the end of the Viking age, and many people call Hardrada the last Viking king. The truth is hardly ever that simple, however.Following William’s conquest of England, the Godwin family were deposed but not defeated. They continued to harass the new kingdom from the sea, and in 1069, Sweyn II of Denmark decided to back one of the Anglo-Saxon pretenders.[9] Why he did so is not 100-percent clear, but it may have been related to his lifelong rivalry with Hardrada. After all, Hardrada had died trying to seize England, so what better way to one-up your rival once and for all than to succeed where he failed?Sweyn was successful, too, seizing a good portion of Northern England and holding it from William, but in true Viking fashion, he was ready to seize the advantage and turned on his Anglo-Saxon ally when William offered to pay him a large sum of money to go back to Denmark; without Sweyn’s support, the rebellion crumbled, and England remained Norman. The Vikings were never able to conquer England again.
1
Olaf III, The Last Viking King
Photo credit: Gerhard Munthe
This brings us to our last epic Viking king, and the man who some consider the real last Viking king, Olaf III—who was known as Olaf the Peaceful. While not as warlike or bloodthirsty as the other Viking leaders on this list, Olaf was a great politician who effectively created the modern state of Norway.[10]Olaf may have been swayed by his involvement in his father Harald’s invasion of England in 1066. While he was not present at the battle where his father died—he remained with the ships—he was a great proponent of peace during his reign, and Norway didn’t go to war for a quarter of a century, putting him at stark contrast with his father, who was always either adventuring or trying to expand his domains.Olaf deliberately transformed Norway into a more “normal” continental European country: he drew the Norwegian church into line with the pope’s teachings and reorganized the dioceses of Norway, and it’s also believed he was the first Viking king who learned to read. He built a European-style court around himself, introducing medieval aristocratic culture to Norway. During his reign, urban growth flourished, and the town of Bergen was founded, which went on to become the capital of medieval Norway. Many Norwegian laws were officially put down in writing for the first time in Olaf’s reign.
Read more about the ever-memorable Vikings on 10 Forgotten Vikings Who Terrorized The Dark Ages and 10 Interesting Viking Rituals.
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10 Viking Kings And Their Epic Deeds
by David Hughes
fact checked by Jamie Frater
For the Vikings, reputation was the most important thing in life. In their eyes, a person’s deeds were the only thing that survived them long after they were gone, so they loved to celebrate the actions of their ancestors and friends while trying to make a name for themselves personally, whether that be by exploring, conquering, raiding, or patronizing the people who wrote the songs: the skalds.As such, we thought that a list retelling the grandest deeds of the Viking kings would be a great way to celebrate them (and to bring some entertainment value). After all, it’s what they would have wanted. Here, we learn about ten Viking kings and their epic deeds.
10
Harald Fairhair, The First King Of Norway
Photo credit: Wikmedia Commons
Any list covering the greatest achievements of the Viking kings wouldn’t be complete without mentioning Harald Fairhair.[1] Despite his pseudo-mythical status, most historians now believe that Fairhair did exist but that his exploits were probably not as dramatic as the sagas make them out to be. He was likely a petty king in Southwest Norway who was able to subjugate his neighbors and rule over a large portion of what is now modern Norway.According to the sagas, the Battle of Hafrsfjord was a crucial moment for Harald’s young kingdom. Dated to sometime between 870 and 900, it was a large battle by contemporary standards and involved many of the petty kings of Norway. The only king mentioned in a source from the time of the battle was Kjovte the Rich, who supposedly fled after Harald’s victory, leaving many of his men to die. The place believed to be the site of the battle is now marked by the Swords in Rock, three 10-meter-tall (33 ft) monuments which represent Harald and the kings he defeated.Following Hafrsfjord, Harald established the most influential power bloc in Norway, from which he and his successors were able to exert pressure on their neighbors and ultimately form the Kingdom of Norway, which exists to this day.
9
Rurik, The Founder Of Russia
Photo credit: Dar Veter
The Rurikid dynasty was one of the longest-reigning lineages in human history: They were kings in Russia from the depths of the Viking age to the reign of Ivan the Terrible centuries later. And it was founded by a Viking.[2]The Primary Chronicle of Russia, which was assembled in 1113 from a collection of earlier pieces, tells us the story of Russia’s beginnings. According to the Chronicle, the Slavic people who lived in modern-day Ukraine and Russia invited Rurik and his two brothers to rule over them, thinking they would bring law and order to the tribes. They clearly accepted, but Rurik’s brothers died shortly after, leaving him to rule alone.In the past, some historians questioned the authenticity of the story told in the Chronicle, but most now accept it as fact. Rurik was a Varangian, warriors who served the Byzantine emperor as their personal bodyguard (and who were nearly all Norse), so he would have been well-respected. There is also evidence of significant Viking influence in the area of modern-day Russia and Ukraine: When Harald Hardrada lost the Battle of Stiklestad in 1030, he fled to stay with family in Kiev. The Vikings also had trade routes across Europe, from Baghdad and beyond to the coast of Spain, so it’s not unreasonable to expect the warriors and traders who crossed from Scandinavia to Greece and the Middle East to settle down along the way. Odinist symbols and Scandinavian blacksmithing tools dating back to the Viking age, among other items, have been found in Lagoda and Novgorod, which suggests there was at least some Norse influence in the region, and the Arab traveler Ahmad ibn Fadlan encountered Viking tribes while journeying through the lands of the Rus.Either way, Rurik was a member of the Norse Varangian Guard who established a small kingdom in modern-day Russia, and his descendants (who were raised as Slavs) continued his legacy, remaining kings and princes in the area until 1612, which is no mean feat.

8
Eric Bloodaxe, The Last King Of Northumbria
Most of us have heard of Eric Bloodaxe, the last Viking king of Northumbria. Beyond his name, however, most of us know little about him, but we assume he must’ve been a great Viking to have earned the nickname “Bloodaxe.”In fact, the name more likely comes from the connotation of “blood” meaning “family” or “brotherhood,” so an equally accurate translation could be “brotheraxe” or “familyaxe.” This nickname makes sense when we learn that he killed five of his brothers in order to win the throne of Norway![3]He only ruled in Scandinavia for a short time before he was deposed by his last remaining brother, fleeing to Britain without a fight. Why he gave up his kingdom so easily we’ll probably never know, but it might have been because he saw a brighter future for himself in the British Isles. If he did, he wasn’t wrong, because he was easily able to assert control over the kingdom of Northumbria and rule it undisputed until his death in 954.
7
Sictric Caech And The Battle Of Islandbridge
The Vikings have a long history in Ireland—the city of Dublin was actually founded by Vikings to serve as a commercial center for their slave trade. Their actual influence in Inner Ireland ebbed and flowed over the years, and in 902, they were forced out of Dublin by a united army of several Irish kings. Sictric Caech was one of these Vikings.At first, he went on to rule a small kingdom in the Danelaw, but the Anglo-Saxons had conquered most of the Danelaw by 918 and driven most of the Vikings out of England. Following this, Sictric returned to Ireland, this time at the head of an army. They won some early battles with the Irish kings and staked out a small claim for themselves, but the war was far from conclusive.Things came to a head at the Battle of Islandbridge in 919.[4] The Irish king Niall Glundub led a coalition of Northern Irish kings to drive the Vikings back out. Sictric and his army met them on the way. The battle was a crushing victory for Sictric, with five Irish kings and the High King of Ireland himself meeting their ends in the bloodbath. Sictric reigned as the undisputed king of Dublin for another three years, after which he seems to have returned to England by his own choice.

6
Sweyn Forkbeard And The Conquest Of England
Photo credit: Louis Moe/AU Library, Campus Emdrup
Sweyn Forkbeard became the first Viking king of all England in 1013, though he only reigned for five weeks before his death—not long enough to even be officially crowned.[5]But it is the reasoning behind his invasion that makes him a truly respectable Viking king.By Sweyn’s time, the Vikings had lived in England for nearly 200 years but had never managed to conquer the entire kingdom. They ruled the northeastern half of England as the Danelaw until the end of Eric Bloodaxe’s reign in 954, when they were driven out. People of Viking descent continued to live in England, however, and the Viking kings across the sea continued to have an interest in their people.So when the English king ordered the mass slaughter of Vikings living in England in 1002, Sweyn planned his revenge. While he’d been raiding the English coast on and off for a decade or so, now he mustered an invasion force. They landed in 1003, causing widespread destruction and pillaging much of the country in revenge. Ethelred the Unready was forced to pay Sweyn a ludicrous amount of silver to stop the latter from burning his kingdom.But ten years later, Sweyn was back, this time with an army big enough to seize England. They landed in Kent and rampaged through the countryside, soon reaching London. The English earls, fearing another drawn-out war and already skeptical of their own king, drove Ethelred into exile and declared Sweyn king of England.While Sweyn’s reign didn’t last long, it did pave the way for another Viking invasion, this one much more permanent.
5
King Cnut And The North Sea Empire
Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons
With Sweyn’s death, his son Cnut was left in charge of his father’s army in England. The English lords, however, chose to bring Ethelred back, and Cnut fled to Denmark.He immediately set about raising a larger army and even asked his brother (and rival), the king of Denmark, for warriors to help him. Poles, Swedes, and Norwegians flocked to his banner, drawn by the promise of loot. Cnut landed in Wessex in 1015 at the head of 10,000 men and laid waste to the country, conquering from Cornwall to Northumbria.[6]But London remained defiant under the leadership of the newly chosen English king, Edmund Ironside. The armies of the two kings met at the Battle of Assandun (usually accepted to be modern-day Ashington), where Cnut won a close-fought engagement. English resistance crumbled.By 1018, Cnut was also king of Denmark following the death of his brother, and he finally conquered Norway in 1028, after years of conflict with various Scandinavian lords. Though they’d originally fought against him, the English were remarkably loyal to Cnut during his reign; he spent much of his 20-year tenure putting down rebellions or fighting enemies in his homeland, leaving England to be governed by his allies, and by his death, nearly all the men on his council were English.Cnut became one of the most powerful kings in Europe, meeting with the pope and the emperor of Germany on several occasions and fostering economic links between his three kingdoms. While his empire broke apart on his death, he seems to have made little effort in his life to see it continue, abandoning Norway to rebels in the final years of his reign and leaving Denmark to his son Harthacnut and England to his other son, Harold Harefoot. The union of the three kingdoms made Cnut the most powerful king in Europe at the time, however, and his descendants would repeatedly try (and fail) to recreate his successes.

4
Harald Bluetooth’s Ring Fortresses
Photo credit: Thue C. Leibrandt
Before Cnut and Sweyn, however, someone had to turn Denmark into the strong, centralized state that it had to be to go toe-to-toe with England. This king was Harald Bluetooth, Sweyn’s father and long-reigning king of Denmark.Not all Viking strength came from conquest. Over the course of his 30-year reign, Harald transformed Denmark from a political backwater into a strong medieval state. Harald’s plans for creating a centralized government are best summed up by his Trelleborg ring forts: fortresses built across Danish territory, centered at the fort at Aarhus, in the geographical center of the region. Each one was built to exact standards, with four gates (each facing one of the compass points), a tall wall and ditch around the outside, and an open courtyard with administrative buildings in the middle.[7] These would have served as both tax collection points and places for Danish kings to muster their armies, laying the groundwork for the conquests of his son and grandson.The fortresses were all built in locations that were close to the sea, but far enough from it to be safe from sea raids, and alongside Viking land routes, where they would have been both well-connected and highly visible, a powerful symbol of the king’s authority. Their sites seem to have been meticulously chosen to efficiently defend and control the people of Denmark, which was no doubt at the forefront of Bluetooth’s mind after the history of wars in Norway and his father’s difficult reign.Unfortunately for him, the ultimate threat came from within, when his son Sweyn forcibly deposed him.
3
Harald Hardrada And The Destruction Of Heidaby
Photo credit: Colin Smith/CC BY-SA 2.0
Harald Hardrada (Hard-Ruler) is famous in history for being one of the last Viking kings and for unsuccessfully trying to seize the throne of England by force—losing the crucial Battle of Stamford Bridge in 1066 to Harold Godwinson, which paved the way for William the Conqueror’s ultimate victory.[8]This battle, however, came at the end of a long and distinguished Viking career which had taken Harald all around the known world, from Norway to Sicily and Palestine, over the course of 30 years. Perhaps his greatest (or worst) feat was the destruction of Heidaby. Heidaby was a Norse town at the base of Jutland with trade connections across the northern world: It rose to prominence in the late 700s and became the most important town in the Western Viking world.Harald, who was king of Norway at the time, was trying to subdue Denmark and add it to his realm, and he sought to weaken Denmark by raiding its coast. His campaign took him to Heidaby, which refused to willingly submit to him. In response, he drove burning ships into the harbor, setting it alight. The flames spread rapidly across the whole town. Snorri Sturlason writes that Harald’s men sang: “All Heidaby is burned down! Strangers will ask where stood the town. In our wild humor up it blazed, and Svein looks round him all amazed,” (albeit in Old Norse, of course).The town of Heidaby never recovered and fell from importance. It was finally brought to an end by a Slavic raid in 1066, which wiped it off the map for good.

2
Sweyn II Of Denmark And The Last Viking Invasion Of England
The death of Harald Hardrada at the Battle of Stamford Bridge in 1066 is usually considered the end of the Viking age, and many people call Hardrada the last Viking king. The truth is hardly ever that simple, however.Following William’s conquest of England, the Godwin family were deposed but not defeated. They continued to harass the new kingdom from the sea, and in 1069, Sweyn II of Denmark decided to back one of the Anglo-Saxon pretenders.[9] Why he did so is not 100-percent clear, but it may have been related to his lifelong rivalry with Hardrada. After all, Hardrada had died trying to seize England, so what better way to one-up your rival once and for all than to succeed where he failed?Sweyn was successful, too, seizing a good portion of Northern England and holding it from William, but in true Viking fashion, he was ready to seize the advantage and turned on his Anglo-Saxon ally when William offered to pay him a large sum of money to go back to Denmark; without Sweyn’s support, the rebellion crumbled, and England remained Norman. The Vikings were never able to conquer England again.
1
Olaf III, The Last Viking King
Photo credit: Gerhard Munthe
This brings us to our last epic Viking king, and the man who some consider the real last Viking king, Olaf III—who was known as Olaf the Peaceful. While not as warlike or bloodthirsty as the other Viking leaders on this list, Olaf was a great politician who effectively created the modern state of Norway.[10]Olaf may have been swayed by his involvement in his father Harald’s invasion of England in 1066. While he was not present at the battle where his father died—he remained with the ships—he was a great proponent of peace during his reign, and Norway didn’t go to war for a quarter of a century, putting him at stark contrast with his father, who was always either adventuring or trying to expand his domains.Olaf deliberately transformed Norway into a more “normal” continental European country: he drew the Norwegian church into line with the pope’s teachings and reorganized the dioceses of Norway, and it’s also believed he was the first Viking king who learned to read. He built a European-style court around himself, introducing medieval aristocratic culture to Norway. During his reign, urban growth flourished, and the town of Bergen was founded, which went on to become the capital of medieval Norway. Many Norwegian laws were officially put down in writing for the first time in Olaf’s reign.
Read more about the ever-memorable Vikings on 10 Forgotten Vikings Who Terrorized The Dark Ages and 10 Interesting Viking Rituals.
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Share
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10 Viking Kings And Their Epic Deeds
by David Hughes
fact checked by Jamie Frater
For the Vikings, reputation was the most important thing in life. In their eyes, a person’s deeds were the only thing that survived them long after they were gone, so they loved to celebrate the actions of their ancestors and friends while trying to make a name for themselves personally, whether that be by exploring, conquering, raiding, or patronizing the people who wrote the songs: the skalds.As such, we thought that a list retelling the grandest deeds of the Viking kings would be a great way to celebrate them (and to bring some entertainment value). After all, it’s what they would have wanted. Here, we learn about ten Viking kings and their epic deeds.
10
Harald Fairhair, The First King Of Norway
Photo credit: Wikmedia Commons
Any list covering the greatest achievements of the Viking kings wouldn’t be complete without mentioning Harald Fairhair.[1] Despite his pseudo-mythical status, most historians now believe that Fairhair did exist but that his exploits were probably not as dramatic as the sagas make them out to be. He was likely a petty king in Southwest Norway who was able to subjugate his neighbors and rule over a large portion of what is now modern Norway.According to the sagas, the Battle of Hafrsfjord was a crucial moment for Harald’s young kingdom. Dated to sometime between 870 and 900, it was a large battle by contemporary standards and involved many of the petty kings of Norway. The only king mentioned in a source from the time of the battle was Kjovte the Rich, who supposedly fled after Harald’s victory, leaving many of his men to die. The place believed to be the site of the battle is now marked by the Swords in Rock, three 10-meter-tall (33 ft) monuments which represent Harald and the kings he defeated.Following Hafrsfjord, Harald established the most influential power bloc in Norway, from which he and his successors were able to exert pressure on their neighbors and ultimately form the Kingdom of Norway, which exists to this day.
9
Rurik, The Founder Of Russia
Photo credit: Dar Veter
The Rurikid dynasty was one of the longest-reigning lineages in human history: They were kings in Russia from the depths of the Viking age to the reign of Ivan the Terrible centuries later. And it was founded by a Viking.[2]The Primary Chronicle of Russia, which was assembled in 1113 from a collection of earlier pieces, tells us the story of Russia’s beginnings. According to the Chronicle, the Slavic people who lived in modern-day Ukraine and Russia invited Rurik and his two brothers to rule over them, thinking they would bring law and order to the tribes. They clearly accepted, but Rurik’s brothers died shortly after, leaving him to rule alone.In the past, some historians questioned the authenticity of the story told in the Chronicle, but most now accept it as fact. Rurik was a Varangian, warriors who served the Byzantine emperor as their personal bodyguard (and who were nearly all Norse), so he would have been well-respected. There is also evidence of significant Viking influence in the area of modern-day Russia and Ukraine: When Harald Hardrada lost the Battle of Stiklestad in 1030, he fled to stay with family in Kiev. The Vikings also had trade routes across Europe, from Baghdad and beyond to the coast of Spain, so it’s not unreasonable to expect the warriors and traders who crossed from Scandinavia to Greece and the Middle East to settle down along the way. Odinist symbols and Scandinavian blacksmithing tools dating back to the Viking age, among other items, have been found in Lagoda and Novgorod, which suggests there was at least some Norse influence in the region, and the Arab traveler Ahmad ibn Fadlan encountered Viking tribes while journeying through the lands of the Rus.Either way, Rurik was a member of the Norse Varangian Guard who established a small kingdom in modern-day Russia, and his descendants (who were raised as Slavs) continued his legacy, remaining kings and princes in the area until 1612, which is no mean feat.

8
Eric Bloodaxe, The Last King Of Northumbria
Most of us have heard of Eric Bloodaxe, the last Viking king of Northumbria. Beyond his name, however, most of us know little about him, but we assume he must’ve been a great Viking to have earned the nickname “Bloodaxe.”In fact, the name more likely comes from the connotation of “blood” meaning “family” or “brotherhood,” so an equally accurate translation could be “brotheraxe” or “familyaxe.” This nickname makes sense when we learn that he killed five of his brothers in order to win the throne of Norway![3]He only ruled in Scandinavia for a short time before he was deposed by his last remaining brother, fleeing to Britain without a fight. Why he gave up his kingdom so easily we’ll probably never know, but it might have been because he saw a brighter future for himself in the British Isles. If he did, he wasn’t wrong, because he was easily able to assert control over the kingdom of Northumbria and rule it undisputed until his death in 954.
7
Sictric Caech And The Battle Of Islandbridge
The Vikings have a long history in Ireland—the city of Dublin was actually founded by Vikings to serve as a commercial center for their slave trade. Their actual influence in Inner Ireland ebbed and flowed over the years, and in 902, they were forced out of Dublin by a united army of several Irish kings. Sictric Caech was one of these Vikings.At first, he went on to rule a small kingdom in the Danelaw, but the Anglo-Saxons had conquered most of the Danelaw by 918 and driven most of the Vikings out of England. Following this, Sictric returned to Ireland, this time at the head of an army. They won some early battles with the Irish kings and staked out a small claim for themselves, but the war was far from conclusive.Things came to a head at the Battle of Islandbridge in 919.[4] The Irish king Niall Glundub led a coalition of Northern Irish kings to drive the Vikings back out. Sictric and his army met them on the way. The battle was a crushing victory for Sictric, with five Irish kings and the High King of Ireland himself meeting their ends in the bloodbath. Sictric reigned as the undisputed king of Dublin for another three years, after which he seems to have returned to England by his own choice.

6
Sweyn Forkbeard And The Conquest Of England
Photo credit: Louis Moe/AU Library, Campus Emdrup
Sweyn Forkbeard became the first Viking king of all England in 1013, though he only reigned for five weeks before his death—not long enough to even be officially crowned.[5]But it is the reasoning behind his invasion that makes him a truly respectable Viking king.By Sweyn’s time, the Vikings had lived in England for nearly 200 years but had never managed to conquer the entire kingdom. They ruled the northeastern half of England as the Danelaw until the end of Eric Bloodaxe’s reign in 954, when they were driven out. People of Viking descent continued to live in England, however, and the Viking kings across the sea continued to have an interest in their people.So when the English king ordered the mass slaughter of Vikings living in England in 1002, Sweyn planned his revenge. While he’d been raiding the English coast on and off for a decade or so, now he mustered an invasion force. They landed in 1003, causing widespread destruction and pillaging much of the country in revenge. Ethelred the Unready was forced to pay Sweyn a ludicrous amount of silver to stop the latter from burning his kingdom.But ten years later, Sweyn was back, this time with an army big enough to seize England. They landed in Kent and rampaged through the countryside, soon reaching London. The English earls, fearing another drawn-out war and already skeptical of their own king, drove Ethelred into exile and declared Sweyn king of England.While Sweyn’s reign didn’t last long, it did pave the way for another Viking invasion, this one much more permanent.
5
King Cnut And The North Sea Empire
Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons
With Sweyn’s death, his son Cnut was left in charge of his father’s army in England. The English lords, however, chose to bring Ethelred back, and Cnut fled to Denmark.He immediately set about raising a larger army and even asked his brother (and rival), the king of Denmark, for warriors to help him. Poles, Swedes, and Norwegians flocked to his banner, drawn by the promise of loot. Cnut landed in Wessex in 1015 at the head of 10,000 men and laid waste to the country, conquering from Cornwall to Northumbria.[6]But London remained defiant under the leadership of the newly chosen English king, Edmund Ironside. The armies of the two kings met at the Battle of Assandun (usually accepted to be modern-day Ashington), where Cnut won a close-fought engagement. English resistance crumbled.By 1018, Cnut was also king of Denmark following the death of his brother, and he finally conquered Norway in 1028, after years of conflict with various Scandinavian lords. Though they’d originally fought against him, the English were remarkably loyal to Cnut during his reign; he spent much of his 20-year tenure putting down rebellions or fighting enemies in his homeland, leaving England to be governed by his allies, and by his death, nearly all the men on his council were English.Cnut became one of the most powerful kings in Europe, meeting with the pope and the emperor of Germany on several occasions and fostering economic links between his three kingdoms. While his empire broke apart on his death, he seems to have made little effort in his life to see it continue, abandoning Norway to rebels in the final years of his reign and leaving Denmark to his son Harthacnut and England to his other son, Harold Harefoot. The union of the three kingdoms made Cnut the most powerful king in Europe at the time, however, and his descendants would repeatedly try (and fail) to recreate his successes.

4
Harald Bluetooth’s Ring Fortresses
Photo credit: Thue C. Leibrandt
Before Cnut and Sweyn, however, someone had to turn Denmark into the strong, centralized state that it had to be to go toe-to-toe with England. This king was Harald Bluetooth, Sweyn’s father and long-reigning king of Denmark.Not all Viking strength came from conquest. Over the course of his 30-year reign, Harald transformed Denmark from a political backwater into a strong medieval state. Harald’s plans for creating a centralized government are best summed up by his Trelleborg ring forts: fortresses built across Danish territory, centered at the fort at Aarhus, in the geographical center of the region. Each one was built to exact standards, with four gates (each facing one of the compass points), a tall wall and ditch around the outside, and an open courtyard with administrative buildings in the middle.[7] These would have served as both tax collection points and places for Danish kings to muster their armies, laying the groundwork for the conquests of his son and grandson.The fortresses were all built in locations that were close to the sea, but far enough from it to be safe from sea raids, and alongside Viking land routes, where they would have been both well-connected and highly visible, a powerful symbol of the king’s authority. Their sites seem to have been meticulously chosen to efficiently defend and control the people of Denmark, which was no doubt at the forefront of Bluetooth’s mind after the history of wars in Norway and his father’s difficult reign.Unfortunately for him, the ultimate threat came from within, when his son Sweyn forcibly deposed him.
3
Harald Hardrada And The Destruction Of Heidaby
Photo credit: Colin Smith/CC BY-SA 2.0
Harald Hardrada (Hard-Ruler) is famous in history for being one of the last Viking kings and for unsuccessfully trying to seize the throne of England by force—losing the crucial Battle of Stamford Bridge in 1066 to Harold Godwinson, which paved the way for William the Conqueror’s ultimate victory.[8]This battle, however, came at the end of a long and distinguished Viking career which had taken Harald all around the known world, from Norway to Sicily and Palestine, over the course of 30 years. Perhaps his greatest (or worst) feat was the destruction of Heidaby. Heidaby was a Norse town at the base of Jutland with trade connections across the northern world: It rose to prominence in the late 700s and became the most important town in the Western Viking world.Harald, who was king of Norway at the time, was trying to subdue Denmark and add it to his realm, and he sought to weaken Denmark by raiding its coast. His campaign took him to Heidaby, which refused to willingly submit to him. In response, he drove burning ships into the harbor, setting it alight. The flames spread rapidly across the whole town. Snorri Sturlason writes that Harald’s men sang: “All Heidaby is burned down! Strangers will ask where stood the town. In our wild humor up it blazed, and Svein looks round him all amazed,” (albeit in Old Norse, of course).The town of Heidaby never recovered and fell from importance. It was finally brought to an end by a Slavic raid in 1066, which wiped it off the map for good.

2
Sweyn II Of Denmark And The Last Viking Invasion Of England
The death of Harald Hardrada at the Battle of Stamford Bridge in 1066 is usually considered the end of the Viking age, and many people call Hardrada the last Viking king. The truth is hardly ever that simple, however.Following William’s conquest of England, the Godwin family were deposed but not defeated. They continued to harass the new kingdom from the sea, and in 1069, Sweyn II of Denmark decided to back one of the Anglo-Saxon pretenders.[9] Why he did so is not 100-percent clear, but it may have been related to his lifelong rivalry with Hardrada. After all, Hardrada had died trying to seize England, so what better way to one-up your rival once and for all than to succeed where he failed?Sweyn was successful, too, seizing a good portion of Northern England and holding it from William, but in true Viking fashion, he was ready to seize the advantage and turned on his Anglo-Saxon ally when William offered to pay him a large sum of money to go back to Denmark; without Sweyn’s support, the rebellion crumbled, and England remained Norman. The Vikings were never able to conquer England again.
1
Olaf III, The Last Viking King
Photo credit: Gerhard Munthe
This brings us to our last epic Viking king, and the man who some consider the real last Viking king, Olaf III—who was known as Olaf the Peaceful. While not as warlike or bloodthirsty as the other Viking leaders on this list, Olaf was a great politician who effectively created the modern state of Norway.[10]Olaf may have been swayed by his involvement in his father Harald’s invasion of England in 1066. While he was not present at the battle where his father died—he remained with the ships—he was a great proponent of peace during his reign, and Norway didn’t go to war for a quarter of a century, putting him at stark contrast with his father, who was always either adventuring or trying to expand his domains.Olaf deliberately transformed Norway into a more “normal” continental European country: he drew the Norwegian church into line with the pope’s teachings and reorganized the dioceses of Norway, and it’s also believed he was the first Viking king who learned to read. He built a European-style court around himself, introducing medieval aristocratic culture to Norway. During his reign, urban growth flourished, and the town of Bergen was founded, which went on to become the capital of medieval Norway. Many Norwegian laws were officially put down in writing for the first time in Olaf’s reign.
Read more about the ever-memorable Vikings on 10 Forgotten Vikings Who Terrorized The Dark Ages and 10 Interesting Viking Rituals.
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10 Viking Kings And Their Epic Deeds
by David Hughes
fact checked by Jamie Frater
For the Vikings, reputation was the most important thing in life. In their eyes, a person’s deeds were the only thing that survived them long after they were gone, so they loved to celebrate the actions of their ancestors and friends while trying to make a name for themselves personally, whether that be by exploring, conquering, raiding, or patronizing the people who wrote the songs: the skalds.As such, we thought that a list retelling the grandest deeds of the Viking kings would be a great way to celebrate them (and to bring some entertainment value). After all, it’s what they would have wanted. Here, we learn about ten Viking kings and their epic deeds.
10
Harald Fairhair, The First King Of Norway
Photo credit: Wikmedia Commons
Any list covering the greatest achievements of the Viking kings wouldn’t be complete without mentioning Harald Fairhair.[1] Despite his pseudo-mythical status, most historians now believe that Fairhair did exist but that his exploits were probably not as dramatic as the sagas make them out to be. He was likely a petty king in Southwest Norway who was able to subjugate his neighbors and rule over a large portion of what is now modern Norway.According to the sagas, the Battle of Hafrsfjord was a crucial moment for Harald’s young kingdom. Dated to sometime between 870 and 900, it was a large battle by contemporary standards and involved many of the petty kings of Norway. The only king mentioned in a source from the time of the battle was Kjovte the Rich, who supposedly fled after Harald’s victory, leaving many of his men to die. The place believed to be the site of the battle is now marked by the Swords in Rock, three 10-meter-tall (33 ft) monuments which represent Harald and the kings he defeated.Following Hafrsfjord, Harald established the most influential power bloc in Norway, from which he and his successors were able to exert pressure on their neighbors and ultimately form the Kingdom of Norway, which exists to this day.
9
Rurik, The Founder Of Russia
Photo credit: Dar Veter
The Rurikid dynasty was one of the longest-reigning lineages in human history: They were kings in Russia from the depths of the Viking age to the reign of Ivan the Terrible centuries later. And it was founded by a Viking.[2]The Primary Chronicle of Russia, which was assembled in 1113 from a collection of earlier pieces, tells us the story of Russia’s beginnings. According to the Chronicle, the Slavic people who lived in modern-day Ukraine and Russia invited Rurik and his two brothers to rule over them, thinking they would bring law and order to the tribes. They clearly accepted, but Rurik’s brothers died shortly after, leaving him to rule alone.In the past, some historians questioned the authenticity of the story told in the Chronicle, but most now accept it as fact. Rurik was a Varangian, warriors who served the Byzantine emperor as their personal bodyguard (and who were nearly all Norse), so he would have been well-respected. There is also evidence of significant Viking influence in the area of modern-day Russia and Ukraine: When Harald Hardrada lost the Battle of Stiklestad in 1030, he fled to stay with family in Kiev. The Vikings also had trade routes across Europe, from Baghdad and beyond to the coast of Spain, so it’s not unreasonable to expect the warriors and traders who crossed from Scandinavia to Greece and the Middle East to settle down along the way. Odinist symbols and Scandinavian blacksmithing tools dating back to the Viking age, among other items, have been found in Lagoda and Novgorod, which suggests there was at least some Norse influence in the region, and the Arab traveler Ahmad ibn Fadlan encountered Viking tribes while journeying through the lands of the Rus.Either way, Rurik was a member of the Norse Varangian Guard who established a small kingdom in modern-day Russia, and his descendants (who were raised as Slavs) continued his legacy, remaining kings and princes in the area until 1612, which is no mean feat.

8
Eric Bloodaxe, The Last King Of Northumbria
Most of us have heard of Eric Bloodaxe, the last Viking king of Northumbria. Beyond his name, however, most of us know little about him, but we assume he must’ve been a great Viking to have earned the nickname “Bloodaxe.”In fact, the name more likely comes from the connotation of “blood” meaning “family” or “brotherhood,” so an equally accurate translation could be “brotheraxe” or “familyaxe.” This nickname makes sense when we learn that he killed five of his brothers in order to win the throne of Norway![3]He only ruled in Scandinavia for a short time before he was deposed by his last remaining brother, fleeing to Britain without a fight. Why he gave up his kingdom so easily we’ll probably never know, but it might have been because he saw a brighter future for himself in the British Isles. If he did, he wasn’t wrong, because he was easily able to assert control over the kingdom of Northumbria and rule it undisputed until his death in 954.
7
Sictric Caech And The Battle Of Islandbridge
The Vikings have a long history in Ireland—the city of Dublin was actually founded by Vikings to serve as a commercial center for their slave trade. Their actual influence in Inner Ireland ebbed and flowed over the years, and in 902, they were forced out of Dublin by a united army of several Irish kings. Sictric Caech was one of these Vikings.At first, he went on to rule a small kingdom in the Danelaw, but the Anglo-Saxons had conquered most of the Danelaw by 918 and driven most of the Vikings out of England. Following this, Sictric returned to Ireland, this time at the head of an army. They won some early battles with the Irish kings and staked out a small claim for themselves, but the war was far from conclusive.Things came to a head at the Battle of Islandbridge in 919.[4] The Irish king Niall Glundub led a coalition of Northern Irish kings to drive the Vikings back out. Sictric and his army met them on the way. The battle was a crushing victory for Sictric, with five Irish kings and the High King of Ireland himself meeting their ends in the bloodbath. Sictric reigned as the undisputed king of Dublin for another three years, after which he seems to have returned to England by his own choice.

6
Sweyn Forkbeard And The Conquest Of England
Photo credit: Louis Moe/AU Library, Campus Emdrup
Sweyn Forkbeard became the first Viking king of all England in 1013, though he only reigned for five weeks before his death—not long enough to even be officially crowned.[5]But it is the reasoning behind his invasion that makes him a truly respectable Viking king.By Sweyn’s time, the Vikings had lived in England for nearly 200 years but had never managed to conquer the entire kingdom. They ruled the northeastern half of England as the Danelaw until the end of Eric Bloodaxe’s reign in 954, when they were driven out. People of Viking descent continued to live in England, however, and the Viking kings across the sea continued to have an interest in their people.So when the English king ordered the mass slaughter of Vikings living in England in 1002, Sweyn planned his revenge. While he’d been raiding the English coast on and off for a decade or so, now he mustered an invasion force. They landed in 1003, causing widespread destruction and pillaging much of the country in revenge. Ethelred the Unready was forced to pay Sweyn a ludicrous amount of silver to stop the latter from burning his kingdom.But ten years later, Sweyn was back, this time with an army big enough to seize England. They landed in Kent and rampaged through the countryside, soon reaching London. The English earls, fearing another drawn-out war and already skeptical of their own king, drove Ethelred into exile and declared Sweyn king of England.While Sweyn’s reign didn’t last long, it did pave the way for another Viking invasion, this one much more permanent.
5
King Cnut And The North Sea Empire
Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons
With Sweyn’s death, his son Cnut was left in charge of his father’s army in England. The English lords, however, chose to bring Ethelred back, and Cnut fled to Denmark.He immediately set about raising a larger army and even asked his brother (and rival), the king of Denmark, for warriors to help him. Poles, Swedes, and Norwegians flocked to his banner, drawn by the promise of loot. Cnut landed in Wessex in 1015 at the head of 10,000 men and laid waste to the country, conquering from Cornwall to Northumbria.[6]But London remained defiant under the leadership of the newly chosen English king, Edmund Ironside. The armies of the two kings met at the Battle of Assandun (usually accepted to be modern-day Ashington), where Cnut won a close-fought engagement. English resistance crumbled.By 1018, Cnut was also king of Denmark following the death of his brother, and he finally conquered Norway in 1028, after years of conflict with various Scandinavian lords. Though they’d originally fought against him, the English were remarkably loyal to Cnut during his reign; he spent much of his 20-year tenure putting down rebellions or fighting enemies in his homeland, leaving England to be governed by his allies, and by his death, nearly all the men on his council were English.Cnut became one of the most powerful kings in Europe, meeting with the pope and the emperor of Germany on several occasions and fostering economic links between his three kingdoms. While his empire broke apart on his death, he seems to have made little effort in his life to see it continue, abandoning Norway to rebels in the final years of his reign and leaving Denmark to his son Harthacnut and England to his other son, Harold Harefoot. The union of the three kingdoms made Cnut the most powerful king in Europe at the time, however, and his descendants would repeatedly try (and fail) to recreate his successes.

4
Harald Bluetooth’s Ring Fortresses
Photo credit: Thue C. Leibrandt
Before Cnut and Sweyn, however, someone had to turn Denmark into the strong, centralized state that it had to be to go toe-to-toe with England. This king was Harald Bluetooth, Sweyn’s father and long-reigning king of Denmark.Not all Viking strength came from conquest. Over the course of his 30-year reign, Harald transformed Denmark from a political backwater into a strong medieval state. Harald’s plans for creating a centralized government are best summed up by his Trelleborg ring forts: fortresses built across Danish territory, centered at the fort at Aarhus, in the geographical center of the region. Each one was built to exact standards, with four gates (each facing one of the compass points), a tall wall and ditch around the outside, and an open courtyard with administrative buildings in the middle.[7] These would have served as both tax collection points and places for Danish kings to muster their armies, laying the groundwork for the conquests of his son and grandson.The fortresses were all built in locations that were close to the sea, but far enough from it to be safe from sea raids, and alongside Viking land routes, where they would have been both well-connected and highly visible, a powerful symbol of the king’s authority. Their sites seem to have been meticulously chosen to efficiently defend and control the people of Denmark, which was no doubt at the forefront of Bluetooth’s mind after the history of wars in Norway and his father’s difficult reign.Unfortunately for him, the ultimate threat came from within, when his son Sweyn forcibly deposed him.
3
Harald Hardrada And The Destruction Of Heidaby
Photo credit: Colin Smith/CC BY-SA 2.0
Harald Hardrada (Hard-Ruler) is famous in history for being one of the last Viking kings and for unsuccessfully trying to seize the throne of England by force—losing the crucial Battle of Stamford Bridge in 1066 to Harold Godwinson, which paved the way for William the Conqueror’s ultimate victory.[8]This battle, however, came at the end of a long and distinguished Viking career which had taken Harald all around the known world, from Norway to Sicily and Palestine, over the course of 30 years. Perhaps his greatest (or worst) feat was the destruction of Heidaby. Heidaby was a Norse town at the base of Jutland with trade connections across the northern world: It rose to prominence in the late 700s and became the most important town in the Western Viking world.Harald, who was king of Norway at the time, was trying to subdue Denmark and add it to his realm, and he sought to weaken Denmark by raiding its coast. His campaign took him to Heidaby, which refused to willingly submit to him. In response, he drove burning ships into the harbor, setting it alight. The flames spread rapidly across the whole town. Snorri Sturlason writes that Harald’s men sang: “All Heidaby is burned down! Strangers will ask where stood the town. In our wild humor up it blazed, and Svein looks round him all amazed,” (albeit in Old Norse, of course).The town of Heidaby never recovered and fell from importance. It was finally brought to an end by a Slavic raid in 1066, which wiped it off the map for good.

2
Sweyn II Of Denmark And The Last Viking Invasion Of England
The death of Harald Hardrada at the Battle of Stamford Bridge in 1066 is usually considered the end of the Viking age, and many people call Hardrada the last Viking king. The truth is hardly ever that simple, however.Following William’s conquest of England, the Godwin family were deposed but not defeated. They continued to harass the new kingdom from the sea, and in 1069, Sweyn II of Denmark decided to back one of the Anglo-Saxon pretenders.[9] Why he did so is not 100-percent clear, but it may have been related to his lifelong rivalry with Hardrada. After all, Hardrada had died trying to seize England, so what better way to one-up your rival once and for all than to succeed where he failed?Sweyn was successful, too, seizing a good portion of Northern England and holding it from William, but in true Viking fashion, he was ready to seize the advantage and turned on his Anglo-Saxon ally when William offered to pay him a large sum of money to go back to Denmark; without Sweyn’s support, the rebellion crumbled, and England remained Norman. The Vikings were never able to conquer England again.
1
Olaf III, The Last Viking King
Photo credit: Gerhard Munthe
This brings us to our last epic Viking king, and the man who some consider the real last Viking king, Olaf III—who was known as Olaf the Peaceful. While not as warlike or bloodthirsty as the other Viking leaders on this list, Olaf was a great politician who effectively created the modern state of Norway.[10]Olaf may have been swayed by his involvement in his father Harald’s invasion of England in 1066. While he was not present at the battle where his father died—he remained with the ships—he was a great proponent of peace during his reign, and Norway didn’t go to war for a quarter of a century, putting him at stark contrast with his father, who was always either adventuring or trying to expand his domains.Olaf deliberately transformed Norway into a more “normal” continental European country: he drew the Norwegian church into line with the pope’s teachings and reorganized the dioceses of Norway, and it’s also believed he was the first Viking king who learned to read. He built a European-style court around himself, introducing medieval aristocratic culture to Norway. During his reign, urban growth flourished, and the town of Bergen was founded, which went on to become the capital of medieval Norway. Many Norwegian laws were officially put down in writing for the first time in Olaf’s reign.
Read more about the ever-memorable Vikings on 10 Forgotten Vikings Who Terrorized The Dark Ages and 10 Interesting Viking Rituals.
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fact checked by Jamie Frater
Share
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ne of the hard truths of parenting is knowing that child care may not always be readily available.

Not only did many child care locations close down or seriously limit their traffic during the pandemic, but some friends and family are simply less available, or willing, to provide care.

One brother found that out recently when he asked his sister for help, though with little warning, according to the “Am I the A**hole?” (AITA) subReddit.

Redditor LowIce4769 was not interested in babysitting her niece and nephew, despite an emergency that came up, and created new arrangements for babysitting.

But when she heard of her brother’s reaction, the Original Poster (OP) wondered if she was wrong.

She asked the sub:

“AITA for refusing to look after my brother’s children?”

The OP and her boyfriend weren’t interested in children.

“So my boyfriend and I live together in a fairly large rented house, despite the fact that neither of us wants children.”

“The house has 4 decently sized bedrooms, one of which is our bedroom, while one is an office. The other two are empty.”

“Despite the fact that that we don’t have kids, we are avid pet lovers, and we own a 3-year-old Rottweiler, a one-year-old Bulldog, as well as a 7-year-old cat.”

The OP’s brother asked her to watch his kids due to an emergency.

“Yesterday, my brother asked me to watch his children, since he had to go to the hospital due to his wife breaking her leg.”

“I was the only one available at the time, so my brother dropped his children (a 9-year-old boy and a 7-year-old girl) off at our house.”

“As a side note, I didn’t really have a chance to respond [to whether I would watch the kids or not].”

“My brother phoned me while en route to the hospital to tell me that he needs someone to watch his kids due to his wife breaking her leg. Around 5 minutes later, he turned up at my house with the kids, before saying he has to go to the hospital.”

Due to plans of her own, the OP made other arrangements.

“Unfortunately, this arrangement wasn’t suitable for us, since we’d made plans to drop our dogs off at a doggy spa while we went to the mall.”

“I called my friend, who agreed to look after the kids (I compensated her monetarily, even though she told me there was no need to).”

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“My brother has never met this friend, but I’d never leave any child in a dangerous position.”

The OP’s brother was furious.

“While we were at the mall, my brother called me to ask me where we were.”

“I told him that his kids were at my friend’s house. He was furious with me and hung up on the phone soon after.”

“Around 30 minutes later, my friend called to say that my brother has picked the kids up and that he was irate, to say the least.”

“My brother has tried to call me since, but I haven’t picked up the phone, since I know he likely only wants to have an argument with me.”

The OP’s father spoke up, as well.

“Today, my dad called me to ask me why I’d chosen my ‘dumb dogs’ over my nephew and niece, which irritated me.”

“I told my dad that while I feel sorry for his wife, it isn’t my responsibility to drop everything and look after children that aren’t even mine.”

“I also told him that if he’s going to insult my family, then he shouldn’t expect to walk me down the aisle.”

“I know my choice of words could have been kinder; however, I don’t think it’s fair to impose the responsibility of looking after kids on me when I’ve made the decision to not have any.”

“AITA?”

Fellow Redditors weighed in:

NTA: Not the A**hole
YTA: You’re the A**hole
ESH: Everybody Sucks Here
NAH: No A**holes Here
Some child-free Redditors chimed in to say YTA.

“I have no desire to ever have children and would rather do a whole lot of other things than babysit.”

“HOWEVER, my sister and mom are both elementary school teachers and have always loved children. My sister definitely wants kids and if she or her husband were in a MEDICAL emergency, I’d be there for them.”

“They’d probably be bored outta their mind because all I have is crossword/jigsaw puzzles at my apartment, but at least they’d be safe and I know how to cook grilled cheeses for them.”

“It’s not like they were like, ‘Hey, we are going to a concert, take these kids for a few hours.’ SHE BROKE HER LEG AND WAS IN THE HOSPITAL. NO ONE PLANS THAT. OMG. YTA.” – planethoney

“YTA – I live a child-free, Pet full lifestyle and I’m disgusted with what you did.”

“This is a medical emergency, not a casual night out, and then to drop your brother’s kids off with someone they don’t know can be outright dangerous.”

“Why you focused on the size of your house also doesn’t play into this at all, he wasn’t asking you to take them in, just watch them a few hours.”

“Your lack of empathy is outstanding, then to yell at your dad and tell him he won’t be able to walk you down the aisle because he confronted you shows your level of immaturity.”

“I really hope you are not planning on getting married anytime soon because the minute something doesn’t go your way, you will be out the door. Grow up and act like a human.” – Roadgoddess

“YTA. Sorry your sister-in-law didn’t plan her leg break around your schedule?”

“I don’t like kids, I don’t like watching kids. But if I was the ONLY person available to watch them because of a MEDICAL EMERGENCY, you bet your bippity I would. And pawning your brother’s kids off to someone he’s never met before? Big nope.”

“I’d get your reaction if he and his wife wanted a spur-of-the-moment date night, but you’ve basically told your whole family that you care more for the mall than you do for them during their time of need. Nice.” – PoisonOfKings

“100% child-free. Don’t like kids and actively avoid them. OP is absolutely the AH here. OP is unbelievably immature and self-centered.”

“It also wouldn’t have been difficult to take the kids to the mall with them. It would have been a good distraction for them instead of being shuffled off to a stranger.” – Smecterbice

“I’m loving all us ‘evil’ child-free people voting very firmly YTA on this one.”

“Like yeah, I don’t have kids, don’t want kids, don’t even really like kids.”

“But FFS (for f**k’s sake), obviously in a medical emergency, 99.9% of us would happily cancel our plans and look after the kids, because it’s the godd**n right thing to do!” – whitewallpaper76

Others agreed and described what the OP could have done instead.

“They didn’t even have to reschedule [the dog spa]. Load everyone in the car, drop the dogs off at the spa, and take the kids to go get ice cream or McDonald’s and, I dunno, some other activity like a game arcade, bowling, a movie, whatever.”

“Still a spa day for the dogs, still a mall day, and kids are watched and maybe taken a mind off their mother breaking a leg. Like, geez.” – Habitat-Green

“Why couldn’t BF take the dogs to the spa by himself? Is he not able to do things on his own? I’m not a huge fan of kids either, but even I know better than to leave them with someone the parent has never met.”

“WTF, OP? Where is your head? YTA.” – cutelittleh**lbeast

“I am childfree too.”

“I would have gotten a friend to help me with the dogs while we take them and the kids to the dogs’ spa appointment. And then do something nice at the mall together. Like: ‘Auntie has to take the doggies to the Spa. We will have ice cream after, ok? My good friend is also coming.'”

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“Or get someone to help me get the dogs to the appointment while I watch the kids.”

“(Paying the friend for it or taking them out to a meal as a thank you).”

“I would never leave the kids with other adults that my brother doesn’t know.”

“YTA OP.” – MarucaMCA

“I recently had to look after my nieces when their dad was hospitalized (he’s fine now), and we did a whole day of activities – baked cookies, made popcorn and watched a movie, ordered pizza. It took their minds off the whole scary situation.” – D-Jewelled

“If my mom had just broken her leg and I was an upset small child, I would have LOVED the distraction of a trip to the mall. Look around the dollar store and get them a little something, then get them a nice snack at the food court. It could have been a really nice moment for family bonding and helping a couple of worried and upset kids through a difficult event.” – MillieTheDestroyer

Some couldn’t believe how self-centered the OP was.

“She’s not even mature enough to answer her brother’s calls and talk about the situation. And then threatened not to let her father walk her down the aisle.”

“OP knows she’s in the wrong and can’t handle being called out for it. She’s being manipulative and I hope her whole family just cuts her off.” – StrwbrryKiwis

“When she began with the description of her huge house, I fully expected to read that her brother had gone for a two weeks vacation, dumping the kids at her place beforehand. But nope, irrelevant unless she wanted to show off her selfishness.” – Bleu_Cerise

“This shows that OP is extremely egocentric, selfish, and immature. I get that you see your pets as your kids, but this is over the line… How difficult would it be to just take the kids to the mall with you and maybe help them get their mind off the fact that their mom is injured?”

“YTA.” – spacegal777

“OP, YTA. You made a really bad choice here and I wouldn’t be surprised if it follows you forever.” – LakeLov3r

“YTA. You don’t leave children that aren’t yours with someone who the parent doesn’t even know. You accepted responsibility for these children and then acted in a most irresponsible manner.”

“Somehow I think you, your bf, and your doggies would have survived not going to the mall and doggy spa.”

“Can you imagine how scary and confusing it was for the children, first being rushed to your house because their mother was hurt and then having you dump them with a stranger?”

“If I was your brother, I would be going NC (no contact) with you. Permanently.” – Janetaz18

The day her brother needed her, the OP had other plans that she really did not want to cancel. While we’ve all been there, the subReddit did not agree that the OP was right to keep her plans over watching her brother’s children during a time of need. Not only did the children need her, but with a little creativity, she probably could have helped out and enjoyed her day, too.

ne of the hard truths of parenting is knowing that child care may not always be readily available.

Not only did many child care locations close down or seriously limit their traffic during the pandemic, but some friends and family are simply less available, or willing, to provide care.

One brother found that out recently when he asked his sister for help, though with little warning, according to the “Am I the A**hole?” (AITA) subReddit.

Redditor LowIce4769 was not interested in babysitting her niece and nephew, despite an emergency that came up, and created new arrangements for babysitting.

But when she heard of her brother’s reaction, the Original Poster (OP) wondered if she was wrong.

She asked the sub:

“AITA for refusing to look after my brother’s children?”

The OP and her boyfriend weren’t interested in children.

“So my boyfriend and I live together in a fairly large rented house, despite the fact that neither of us wants children.”

“The house has 4 decently sized bedrooms, one of which is our bedroom, while one is an office. The other two are empty.”

“Despite the fact that that we don’t have kids, we are avid pet lovers, and we own a 3-year-old Rottweiler, a one-year-old Bulldog, as well as a 7-year-old cat.”

The OP’s brother asked her to watch his kids due to an emergency.

“Yesterday, my brother asked me to watch his children, since he had to go to the hospital due to his wife breaking her leg.”

“I was the only one available at the time, so my brother dropped his children (a 9-year-old boy and a 7-year-old girl) off at our house.”

“As a side note, I didn’t really have a chance to respond [to whether I would watch the kids or not].”

“My brother phoned me while en route to the hospital to tell me that he needs someone to watch his kids due to his wife breaking her leg. Around 5 minutes later, he turned up at my house with the kids, before saying he has to go to the hospital.”

Due to plans of her own, the OP made other arrangements.

“Unfortunately, this arrangement wasn’t suitable for us, since we’d made plans to drop our dogs off at a doggy spa while we went to the mall.”

“I called my friend, who agreed to look after the kids (I compensated her monetarily, even though she told me there was no need to).”

Sponsored Links
Boost Your Kids Confidence with a Self-Care Routine
The Star
“My brother has never met this friend, but I’d never leave any child in a dangerous position.”

The OP’s brother was furious.

“While we were at the mall, my brother called me to ask me where we were.”

“I told him that his kids were at my friend’s house. He was furious with me and hung up on the phone soon after.”

“Around 30 minutes later, my friend called to say that my brother has picked the kids up and that he was irate, to say the least.”

“My brother has tried to call me since, but I haven’t picked up the phone, since I know he likely only wants to have an argument with me.”

The OP’s father spoke up, as well.

“Today, my dad called me to ask me why I’d chosen my ‘dumb dogs’ over my nephew and niece, which irritated me.”

“I told my dad that while I feel sorry for his wife, it isn’t my responsibility to drop everything and look after children that aren’t even mine.”

“I also told him that if he’s going to insult my family, then he shouldn’t expect to walk me down the aisle.”

“I know my choice of words could have been kinder; however, I don’t think it’s fair to impose the responsibility of looking after kids on me when I’ve made the decision to not have any.”

“AITA?”

Fellow Redditors weighed in:

NTA: Not the A**hole
YTA: You’re the A**hole
ESH: Everybody Sucks Here
NAH: No A**holes Here
Some child-free Redditors chimed in to say YTA.

“I have no desire to ever have children and would rather do a whole lot of other things than babysit.”

“HOWEVER, my sister and mom are both elementary school teachers and have always loved children. My sister definitely wants kids and if she or her husband were in a MEDICAL emergency, I’d be there for them.”

“They’d probably be bored outta their mind because all I have is crossword/jigsaw puzzles at my apartment, but at least they’d be safe and I know how to cook grilled cheeses for them.”

“It’s not like they were like, ‘Hey, we are going to a concert, take these kids for a few hours.’ SHE BROKE HER LEG AND WAS IN THE HOSPITAL. NO ONE PLANS THAT. OMG. YTA.” – planethoney

“YTA – I live a child-free, Pet full lifestyle and I’m disgusted with what you did.”

“This is a medical emergency, not a casual night out, and then to drop your brother’s kids off with someone they don’t know can be outright dangerous.”

“Why you focused on the size of your house also doesn’t play into this at all, he wasn’t asking you to take them in, just watch them a few hours.”

“Your lack of empathy is outstanding, then to yell at your dad and tell him he won’t be able to walk you down the aisle because he confronted you shows your level of immaturity.”

“I really hope you are not planning on getting married anytime soon because the minute something doesn’t go your way, you will be out the door. Grow up and act like a human.” – Roadgoddess

“YTA. Sorry your sister-in-law didn’t plan her leg break around your schedule?”

“I don’t like kids, I don’t like watching kids. But if I was the ONLY person available to watch them because of a MEDICAL EMERGENCY, you bet your bippity I would. And pawning your brother’s kids off to someone he’s never met before? Big nope.”

“I’d get your reaction if he and his wife wanted a spur-of-the-moment date night, but you’ve basically told your whole family that you care more for the mall than you do for them during their time of need. Nice.” – PoisonOfKings

“100% child-free. Don’t like kids and actively avoid them. OP is absolutely the AH here. OP is unbelievably immature and self-centered.”

“It also wouldn’t have been difficult to take the kids to the mall with them. It would have been a good distraction for them instead of being shuffled off to a stranger.” – Smecterbice

“I’m loving all us ‘evil’ child-free people voting very firmly YTA on this one.”

“Like yeah, I don’t have kids, don’t want kids, don’t even really like kids.”

“But FFS (for f**k’s sake), obviously in a medical emergency, 99.9% of us would happily cancel our plans and look after the kids, because it’s the godd**n right thing to do!” – whitewallpaper76

Others agreed and described what the OP could have done instead.

“They didn’t even have to reschedule [the dog spa]. Load everyone in the car, drop the dogs off at the spa, and take the kids to go get ice cream or McDonald’s and, I dunno, some other activity like a game arcade, bowling, a movie, whatever.”

“Still a spa day for the dogs, still a mall day, and kids are watched and maybe taken a mind off their mother breaking a leg. Like, geez.” – Habitat-Green

“Why couldn’t BF take the dogs to the spa by himself? Is he not able to do things on his own? I’m not a huge fan of kids either, but even I know better than to leave them with someone the parent has never met.”

“WTF, OP? Where is your head? YTA.” – cutelittleh**lbeast

“I am childfree too.”

“I would have gotten a friend to help me with the dogs while we take them and the kids to the dogs’ spa appointment. And then do something nice at the mall together. Like: ‘Auntie has to take the doggies to the Spa. We will have ice cream after, ok? My good friend is also coming.'”

Our Community

2,662
Comments posted on Percolately this month
“Or get someone to help me get the dogs to the appointment while I watch the kids.”

“(Paying the friend for it or taking them out to a meal as a thank you).”

“I would never leave the kids with other adults that my brother doesn’t know.”

“YTA OP.” – MarucaMCA

“I recently had to look after my nieces when their dad was hospitalized (he’s fine now), and we did a whole day of activities – baked cookies, made popcorn and watched a movie, ordered pizza. It took their minds off the whole scary situation.” – D-Jewelled

“If my mom had just broken her leg and I was an upset small child, I would have LOVED the distraction of a trip to the mall. Look around the dollar store and get them a little something, then get them a nice snack at the food court. It could have been a really nice moment for family bonding and helping a couple of worried and upset kids through a difficult event.” – MillieTheDestroyer

Some couldn’t believe how self-centered the OP was.

“She’s not even mature enough to answer her brother’s calls and talk about the situation. And then threatened not to let her father walk her down the aisle.”

“OP knows she’s in the wrong and can’t handle being called out for it. She’s being manipulative and I hope her whole family just cuts her off.” – StrwbrryKiwis

“When she began with the description of her huge house, I fully expected to read that her brother had gone for a two weeks vacation, dumping the kids at her place beforehand. But nope, irrelevant unless she wanted to show off her selfishness.” – Bleu_Cerise

“This shows that OP is extremely egocentric, selfish, and immature. I get that you see your pets as your kids, but this is over the line… How difficult would it be to just take the kids to the mall with you and maybe help them get their mind off the fact that their mom is injured?”

“YTA.” – spacegal777

“OP, YTA. You made a really bad choice here and I wouldn’t be surprised if it follows you forever.” – LakeLov3r

“YTA. You don’t leave children that aren’t yours with someone who the parent doesn’t even know. You accepted responsibility for these children and then acted in a most irresponsible manner.”

“Somehow I think you, your bf, and your doggies would have survived not going to the mall and doggy spa.”

“Can you imagine how scary and confusing it was for the children, first being rushed to your house because their mother was hurt and then having you dump them with a stranger?”

“If I was your brother, I would be going NC (no contact) with you. Permanently.” – Janetaz18

The day her brother needed her, the OP had other plans that she really did not want to cancel. While we’ve all been there, the subReddit did not agree that the OP was right to keep her plans over watching her brother’s children during a time of need. Not only did the children need her, but with a little creativity, she probably could have helped out and enjoyed her day, too.