Little Treasures of History Or how Ragnar Lodbrok and Hamlet Turned out to be Cousins

One of my hobbies is medieval history, especially the Viking Age. Perhaps my distant Danish ancestors (there are some in my family’s genealogical tree) have something to do with it. But, anyway, I love digging through history books, reading medieval chronicles, and — in this case — Scandinavian sagas. When you delve deep enough into the specific historical era, your brain starts ticking on its own. It suddenly picks up unexpected coincidences and facts that you might otherwise never think about. Sometimes these facts can be unpredictable to the edge of paradox.

The terror of English shores, merciless viking Ragnar Lodbrok. Elegant noble Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, connoisseur of philosophy and poetry… Who would have thought that these two men were quite close relatives?

Surprisingly, they were!

It is a fact that Shakespeare had not invented the plot of his brilliant tragedy himself but borrowed it from a chronicle called The Deeds of the Danes (Gesta Danorum), written by Saxo Grammaticus. The chronicle describes the story of a certain Amleth, son of the Horvendil, the king of Jutland. Shakespeare only changed the timing of the events and “modernized” a bit the main characters to suit the tastes of the Elizabethan era.

What does this have to do with Ragnar? Very simply. Whenever and by whomever they were recorded, the Scandinavian sagas have one very characteristic feature. They are attentive to all characters: who was called, who ruled where, and who was related to whom. And so, if we trace the genealogy of both of our figurants, it turns out that they had the same grandmother: the legendary Danish princess Auðr the Deep-Minded, the daughter of king Ivar Widefathom.

The princess had been married twice — to Hrörik the Ringscatterer, by whom she gave birth to Harald Battletooth and daughter Geruta, the future mother of Amleth, and to a certain Randver, by whom was born Sigurd the Ring, the future father of Ragnar Lodbrok. Of course, all these men were kings — who else could they be…

Here you go: Ragnar and Amleth were cousins!

Moreover, assuming they were not legendary characters but real people, they might well have known each other. If the chronicles are to be taken for granted as the source, around the same time that Ragnar was ravaging the English coast, Amleth was doing precisely the same thing in Ireland. The Amleth of the saga is much more like his famous cousin than the philosopher prince of Shakespeare’s tragedy. Two versions of Amleth’s revenge are known, and both are much harsher and darker than a graceful sword fight.

All Scandinavian sagas (and there are surprisingly many lived to be read by us, thanks to Snorri and Saxon!) - the blood feud. As a matter of fact, most of the sagas (especially the Icelandic ones) are written about it and only about it. The tradition of blood feuds was deeply rooted in Scandinavian society during the Viking Age (and obviously in the times before that). There was a good reason for that: the absence of any reasonable central government or any systematic legal procedure or legislation. No matter how "great" a king was at that time, his power was, in fact, based solely on his authority, which, in turn, was based almost exclusively on military power.

And we should also mention such vague (but essential to the Scandinavians of that era) notions as luck and the gods' benevolence. In reality, it meant that the king's power was like the force of gravity: it was decreasing in proportion to the square of the distance, and away from the king's iron grip, the potential threat of blood vengeance ended up being the only possible way to prevent the violence. Frankly speaking, even this factor did not work very well, and now we have such masterpieces of ancient literature as the Njáls saga or, in our case - the story of Amleth/Hamlet.

Dave Eggers' recently released film Northman generally gives a good idea of the emotional atmosphere of the original Amleth Saga, even though have taken a very, very liberal approach to the plot. I mentioned that sagas are usually highly meticulous and detailed in listing all the characters and their family connections, didn't I? But the gruesome way of revenge is authentic - this was the true way of the Vikings.

History is a fantastic thing. The more one studies it, the more one is struck by how vivid it is. One of the big reasons to know it and not to forget it.