Ivar The Boneless, The Fearsome Warrior Who Could Not Stand
Public DomainA 15th-century depiction of Ivar and Ubba ravaging the countryside.
Despite his inability to stand on his own, Ivar the Boneless led one of the most fearsome Viking armies to conquer England. In the late ninth century, under Ivar, the Vikings terrorized the nation and conquered everything from Essex to Dublin, ushering in an era of Viking domination over Britain that wouldn’t end until long after his death.
According to Norse legends, Ivar was born “without any bones at all” to his mother Aslaug, a shaman, and his father, the famed warlord chieftain Ragnar Lothbrok. Aslaug warned Ragnar that if he didn’t wait three nights before making love to her, their child would come out deformed, but Ragnar ignored the warning and forced himself on her. Viking sagas described Ivar as having only cartilage where bone should have been, though he grew tall and handsome and was the wisest of his siblings.
Modern historians have theorized about his condition, often suggesting Ivar may have had osteogenesis imperfecta, which leaves sufferers with fragile, glass-like bones.
Wikimedia CommonsRagnar Lothbrok and Aslaug.
Interestingly, records from the 17th century claim a farmer found Ivar’s remains and that he was nine feet tall, suggesting he may have needed leg braces to stand. Another explanation for his nickname could be that he died childless and loveless, referred to by contemporaries as having “no love lust in him,” which would have made him, in a sense, “boneless.”
When Ragnar Lothbrok was captured by King Ælla of Northumbria and thrown into a pit of poisonous vipers, Ivar demanded to know every detail of his father’s death before forming the Great Heathen Army to exact revenge. Ivar was the mastermind behind the army’s tactics, with contemporaries writing, “It is doubtful if anyone has ever been wiser than he.”
After conquering York, Ivar captured Ælla with his brothers and subjected him to the blood eagle — ripping open his ribcage from behind, pulling his lungs out into wing shapes, then sprinkling salt into his wounds.
By 870, Ivar’s dominion stretched to Dublin, but in 873 he died suddenly of what the Annals of Ireland called “a sudden hideous disease.” The author also did not keep the Irish people’s feelings about Ivar’s passing secret: “Thus it pleased God.”
