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"Hyngwar", Ivar's name as it appears in Harley MS 2278, a fifteenth-century Middle English manuscript.^[1]

Ivar the Boneless (Old Norse: Ívarr hinn Beinlausi; Old English: Hyngwar) (also known as Ivar Ragnarsson) was a Viking leader and a commander who invaded what is now England. According to The Saga of Ragnar Lodbrok, he was the son of Ragnar Loðbrok and Aslaug. His brothers included Björn Ironside, Halfdan Ragnarsson, Hvitserk, Sigurd Snake-in-the-Eye and Ubba.

The origin of the nickname is not certain. Several of the sagas describe him as lacking bones, while a passage in Ragnarssona þáttr (Also known as the tale of Ragnar's sons) suggest it refers to male impotence ^[2] with Ivar's "Bonelessness" being merely figurative.

According to the Tale of Ragnar Lodbrok, Ivar's bonelessness was the result of a curse. His mother Aslaug was Ragnar's third wife. She was a völva. She said that she and her husband must wait three nights before consummating their marriage after his return following a long separation (while he was in England raiding). However, Ragnar was overcome with lust after such a long separation and did not heed her words. As a result, Ivar was born with weak bones.^[3]

Another hypothesis is that he was actually known as "the Hated", which in Latin would be Exosus. A medieval scribe with a basic knowledge of Latin could easily have interpreted it as ex (without) os (bones), thus "the Boneless",^[4] although it is hard to align this theory with the direct translation of his name given in Norse sources.^[3]

While the sagas describe Ivar's physical disability, they also emphasise his wisdom, cunning, and mastery of strategy and tactics in battle.^[5]

He is often considered identical to Ímar, the founder of the Uí Ímair dynasty which at various times, from the mid-ninth to the tenth century, ruled Northumbria from the city of York, and dominated the Irish Sea region as the Kingdom of Dublin.^[6]

Chronology

• 865 the Great Heathen Army, led by Ivar, invades the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy.^[7] The Heptarchy was the collective name for the seven kingdoms East Anglia, Essex, Kent, Mercia, Northumbria, Sussex and Wessex. The invasion was organised by the sons of Ragnar Lodbrok, to wreak revenge against Ælla of Northumbria who had supposedly executed Ragnar in 865 by throwing him in a snake pit, but the historicity of this explanation is unknown.^[8][9] According to the saga, Ivar did not overcome Ælla and sought reconciliation. He asked for only as much land as he could cover with an ox's hide and swore never to wage war against Ælla. Then Ivar cut the ox's hide into such fine strands that he could envelop a large fortress (in an older saga it was York and according to a younger saga it was London) which he could take as his own. (Compare the similar legendary ploy of Dido.)


• Late the next year the army turned north and invaded Northumbria, eventually capturing Ælla at York in 867.^[10] According to legend, Ælla was executed by Ivar and his brothers using the blood eagle, a ritual method of execution of debated historicity whereby the ribcage is opened from behind and the lungs are pulled out, forming a wing-like shape.^[6] Later in the year the Army moved south and invaded the kingdom of Mercia, capturing the town of Nottingham, where they spent the winter. King Burgred of Mercia responded by allying with the West Saxon king Æthelred of Wessex, and with a combined force they laid siege to the town. The Anglo-Saxons were unable to recapture the city, but a truce was agreed whereby the Danes would withdraw to York.^[10] The Great Heathen Army remained in York for over a year, gathering its strength for further assaults.^[10]
  


• Ivar and Ubba are identified as the commanders of the Danes when they returned to East Anglia in 869, and as the executioners of the East Anglian king, Edmund the Martyr, for refusing their demand that he renounce Christ.^[11] How true the accounts are of Edmund's death is unknown, but it has been suggested that his capture and execution is not an unlikely thing to have happened.^[12]
  


• Ivar disappears from the historical record sometime after 870.^[10] His ultimate fate is uncertain.

Death

The Anglo-Saxon chronicler Æthelweard records his death as 870.^[13] The Annals of Ulster describe the death of Ímar in 873. The death of Ímar is also recorded in the Fragmentary Annals of Ireland under the year 873.^[14]

The identification of the king of Laithlind as Gothfraid (i.e. Ímar's father) was added by a copyist in the seventeenth century. In the original eleventh-century manuscript the subject of the entry was simply called righ Lochlann ("the king of Lochlainn"), which more than likely referred to Ímar, whose death is not otherwise noted in the Fragmentary Annals. The cause of death – a sudden and horrible disease – is not mentioned in any other source, but it raises the possibility that the true provenance of Ivar's Old Norse sobriquet lay in the crippling effects of an unidentified disease that struck him down at the end of his life.

In 1686, a farm labourer called Thomas Walker discovered a Scandinavian burial mound at Repton in Derbyshire close to a battle site where the Great Heathen Army overthrew the Mercian King Burgred of his kingdom. The number of partial skeletons surrounding the body – over two-hundred and fifty – signified that the man buried there was of very high status. It has been suggested that such a burial mound is possibly the last resting place of the renowned Ivar .^[15]

According to the saga, Ivar ordered that he be buried in a place which was exposed to attack, and prophesied that, if that was done, foes coming to the land would be met with ill-success. This prophecy held true, says the saga, until "when Vilhjalm bastard (William I of England) came ashore[,] he went [to the burial site] and broke Ivar's mound and saw that [Ivar's] body had not decayed. Then Vilhjalm had a large pyre made upon which Ivar's body was] burned... Thereupon, [Vilhjalm proceeded with the landing invasion and achieved] the victory."^[16][17]

Fictional portrayals

• Ivar the Boneless is a minor character in the film Alfred the Great,^[18] portrayed as an acrobatic and agile warrior.


• In the film Hammer of the Gods, Ivar the Boneless appears, played by Ivan Kaye, who would later portray King Aelle in the History Channel's TV series Vikings.^[19]
  


• In the History Channel's TV series Vikings, Ivar is portrayed as the son of Ragnar and Aslaug and a younger half-brother to Björn Ironside. He first appeared in Season Two as a baby, and later was played by James Quinn Markey and Alex Høgh Andersen.


• Ivar is a minor character in The Last Kingdom, the first of Bernard Cornwell's Saxon Stories. He is portrayed as an expert strategist and shrewd leader of the Danish Grand Army. He is killed during the events of the first book, but his sons and later descendants appear and reappear throughout the series.


• Ivar appears in Nancy Farmer's Sea of Trolls trilogy as a weak king married to a half-troll.


• Ivar's invasion of East Anglia and killing of Edmund the Martyr are depicted in The Darkness's song Barbarian.


• Ivar appears in Harry Harrison's alternate history The Hammer and the Cross.


• Ivar appears as a ruler of a small kingdom on the planet Riverworld in the short story Crossing the Dark River by Philip Jose Farmer, contained in the 1992 collection Tales of Riverworld, edited by Farmer. Farmer claims therein that Ivar's nickname is a mis-translation of the Old Norse "Merciless."

References