The Corpse and the Conqueror: The Curious Afterlife of Ívarr inn beinlausi

Set during the Viking Age, Ragnars saga loðbrókar ok sona hans relates the exploits of the legendary warrior and king Ragnarr loðbrók (hairy breeches) and his sons. While it is debated to what extent the figure celebrated in Old Norse and Scandinavian Latin medieval texts corresponds to a historical figure or figures mentioned in Viking Age sources, it would be difficult to overstate Ragnarr's importance for medieval Icelandic and Danish conceptualizations of a glorious past.¹ The fullest version of Ragnars saga is the Y redaction, which is extant in a single medieval Icelandic manuscript,² Ny kgl. saml. 1824b 4to, now held in the Royal Library in Copenhagen. The manuscript is dated to ca. 1400, but this version of the saga was probably composed in the late thirteenth century.³ In addition to Ragnars saga, Ny kgl. saml. 1824b 4to contains two other texts: the only extant medieval version of Vǫlsunga saga, and an incomplete version of Krákumál, a poem attributed to Ragnarr as he lay dying. In this version of the saga, Ragnarr's second wife is Áslaug, the daughter of the famed dragon-slayer Sigurðr and the valkyrie Brynhildr, whose doomed love affair is recounted in Vǫlsunga saga; it is has been suggested that Vǫlsunga saga may have been composed as a "preamble" to Ragnars saga.⁴ Áslaug bears five sons to Ragnarr: Ívarr inn beinlausi (the boneless), Bjǫrn járnsíða (ironside), Hvítserkr, Rǫgnvaldr, and Sigurðr ormr-í-auga (snake-in-theeye). Áslaug advises Ragnarr to wait three nights after their wedding before consummating the marriage, predicting that if they do not abstain, the resulting child will lack bones; Ragnarr will not wait, and Ívarr is born, as prophesied, boneless. Ragnarr is later killed in a dramatic fashion by Ælla, king of Northumbria, prompting Ragnarr's sons to sail to England in order to avenge their father. After killing Ælla, the younger sons divide Scandinavia among themselves, while Ívarr remains in England to rule.

This version of Ragnars saga gives an intriguing account of Ívarr's death, burial, and later exhumation. The account is as follows:

En Ívarr réð fyrir Englandi allt til dauðadags ok varð sóttdauðr. Ok þá er hann lá í banasótt, mælti hann, at hann skyldi þangat færa, er herskátt væri, ok þess kvaðst hann vænta, at þeir mundi eigi sigr fá, er þar kæmi at landinu. Ok er hann andast, var svá gert sem hann mælti fyrir, ok var þá í haug lagiðr. Ok þat segja margir menn, þá er Haraldr konungr Sigurðarson kom til Englands, at hann kæmi þar at, er Ívarr var fyrir, ok fellr hann í þeiri för. Ok er Vilhjálmr bastarðr kom í land, fór hann til ok braut haug Ívars ok sá Ívar ófúinn. Þá lét hann gera bál mikit ok lætr Ívar brenna á bálinu, ok eftir þat berst hann til landsins ok fær gagn.⁵

(Ívarr ruled over England until his dying day, and he died from illness. And when he lay on his deathbed, he said that he should be brought thence to where the land would be exposed to raids, and he said that he expected that those who came to land there would not have victory. And when he died, it was done as he had said before, and he was laid in a burial mound. And many men say that when king Haraldr Sigurðarson came to England that he landed there, where Ívarr was, and he died on that journey. And when William the Bastard invaded, he went there and broke into Ívarr's burial mound, and saw that Ívarr was undecayed. Then he had a great pyre kindled and had Ívarr burned on the pyre, and after that he invaded the land and gained the advantage.)

In some respects, this is a typical account of an encounter with the undead in medieval Icelandic literature. Known by various terms, including draugr, aptrganga (after...