Key Takeaways
One of the breakout characters from " Vikings " — a History Channel drama that ended its six - season streamlet in 2020 — isIvar the Boneless . Played by Alex Høgh Andersen , he ’s an antihero fans love to loathe . The serial publication depicts Ivar as a master tactician , a ruthless killer and a formidable opposition on any battlefield .
All very impressive for aVikingwho can scantily walk . Andersen ’s Ivar has a lifelong aesculapian condition that ’s rendered his legs useless . To get around , Ivar creeping , rides in chariots or hobbles on crutches . Despite this , he leads the " Great Heathen Army " in season four and five .
The showrunners did n’t just make up Ivar the Boneless . He was areal person . And that howling , mysterious cognomen ? It first appears in textbook written centuries after his end .
No one have sex why common people called him " Ivar the Boneless . " Maybe he was disabled , and maybe he was n’t . Like a lot of period drama , the " Vikings " television show use venture and illusion to plug gaps in our diachronic knowledge .
Vikings: Real and Imagined
" It ’s OK to savour the fiction , but it ’s important to think back that popular TV is not research , " Teva Vidal , a historiographer who specializes in medieval study and the Viking world , says via e-mail . Viking are a group we tend to misremember ; Vidal points out that their modern report as " sanguinary maniac " is deep deceptive .
The blossom of the Vikings lead off in the former 700s C.E. — as did the earliest known Viking raids . " The rapid Norse expanding upon into Europe and beyond , starting in the eighth 100 but most pronounce as of the 9th century , was sure violent , " Vidal note .
" Raids fall out . material was stolen . construction were combust and destroy . People were killed , " he say . " The Vikings did have a particular ability to inflict damage in their score - and - ravel raids , at least at first . But the citizenry they aggress adjust and answer in kind .
" You see , the Vikings were red … but no more violent than anyone else at the time . They were a product of the early medieval human beings , and no more , no less vehement than anyone else they had traffic with . "
Points of View
ConsiderCharlemagne , a ( non - Viking ) Christian Emperor . harmonise to the " Royal French Annals , " he ordered thebeheadingof 4,500 Saxons on one especially bloody day in 782 C.E.
But as Anders Winroth observed in his 2016 record , " The Age of the Vikings , " we do n’t have any survive history written by the victim of that incident .
On the other paw , there wereplentyof literate Europeans who saw Viking attacks at first hand — and then live to tell next propagation .
" The image of the Vikings as irreverent barbarians is one that was given to them by some of the first victims of their raids — unprotected Christian monk — who were n’t probable to view the Vikings complexly with an objective cultural genus Lens , " Vidal says . " We can earmark them that . Butwehave to do well , and not just gobble up wholesale an soft and convenient , one - sided effigy . "
The Great Heathen Army
Late in the ninth century C.E. , the " Anglo - Saxon Chronicle " get along into being . A collecting of records about English account , this authoritative text would be retool and updated by later scholars for more than 200 years .
Inside , we find a description of what ’s sometimes called " the Great Heathen Army , " or just " the Great Army . " Made up of Norse invaders , this immense Viking power originally set down on the British Isles in 865 C.E. It conquered three of England ’s occupant kingdom before Alfred the Great , the King of Wessex , defeat the army at theBattle of Edingtonin 878 . Thereafter , the Scandinavians agreed to apeace treatyand settled parts of the English countryside .
Other written document reaffirm the Great Army ’s existence . Just as we ’d expect , it leave archaeological evidence ( like Vikinggrave sites ) behind as well .
Even so , Clare Downham — a historian at the University of Liverpool — quote the " Anglo - Saxon Chronicle " as our " main source " of info about this big - scale Viking encroachment .
" The Chronicle tells us about the arrival and movement of the regular army and its different components ( it was an amalgamation of armies ) from 865 to 878 , " Downham explain in an e-mail .
She adds that the Chronicle also mention a " buddy of Ívarr . " ( " Ívarr " being the Old Norse spelling of " Ivar . " )
Ivar’s Legacy
Ivar himself has been identified as a major role player in the Great Heathen Army . Vidal says our " portraiture " of this man is " a composite plant derived from several sources . Some of them , such as the diachronic annals , appropriate us to take the stand , with comely reliability , to the comportment of a leader of the Great Army who was called Ivar . "
write accounts also say Ubbi and Halfdan , two of the Great Army ’s fellow higher - ups , were Ivar ’s sib .
And that ’s not all . Irish written phonograph record ( specifically the " Annals of Ulster " ) expose that a Viking cognise as Ivaror Ímarhad become " king of the Northmen in all Britain and Ireland " by the metre he died in 873 C.E.
Was this the same bozo ? " We ca n’t be 100 [ percent ] certain , " Vidal caution . " There is no utterly certain , convinced evidence that they were the same mortal . But there ’s nothing telling us they were n’t the same , either . "
" I think it very probably that the Ivarr active in England is the same as the one in Ireland , " opines Downham . Most of her colleaguestend to agree .
Boneless, Or Just Frustrated?
None of this explains where the " Boneless " nickname came from . Experts can find no book of facts to it in the chronological record and history written during Ivar ’s lifetime .
" The modern-day … source do not give Ivarr this nickname , it is later Norse sources which do and that may meditate the development of legend around him , " Downham says .
Enter the Icelandic Sagas . Transcribed in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries C.E. , these are a series of heroic prose story . They ’ve been compare to historical novels : Although the sagas were breathe in — to some degree — by real event , we ca n’t needs take them at their word .
The sagas peg Ivar , Halfdan and Ubbi as the sons ofRagnar Lothbrok , a fabled Viking ruler . " Literary " text like these are the reason why Ivar is remembered as " the Boneless . "
And there ’s no telling how he earned that bizarre title .
" The Old Norse / Norse wordbenorbeincan have in mind either bone or stage : Ivar ’s nickname can therefore mean ' Boneless ' or ' Legless , ' " note Vidal . " This definitely conjures up the image of someone with a bone - related ailment . "
Unfortunately , it ’s doubtful that a hard handicapped Viking — or one with a skeletal disorder — could have come up to military gibbosity the way Ivar did . At the very least , there ’s no compelling grounds to back up the History Channel ’s portrait .
But we have other explanations to work with . Downham says mediaeval writers might ’ve confound the Romance words " exos " and " exosus , " which mean " boneless " and " repulsive , " severally . So maybe Ivar was just a fearsome Viking with a report to match .
" Another possibility is that the ' bonelessness ' is figural and denote to manlike impotence , " says Vidal . " Poor chap . "
FAQs
Yes , Ivar the Boneless was a tangible person , although the origins of his nickname remain unsettled .
save accounts and historical annals advise Ivar ’s involvement in leading the Great Heathen Army , along with his siblings Ubbi and Halfdan .
