Note to Anon Krm 15^VIII

[6] Rögnvaldr ‘Rǫgnvaldr’: This Rǫgnvaldr is almost certainly to be identified with the Rǫgnvaldr presented in the 1824b text of Ragn (and in all likelihood the 147 text also, see Ragn 1906-8, 180, 183) as the youngest of Ragnarr’s sons by his wife Áslaug (before the birth of their son Sigurðr, born after his death) and as dying heroically at Hvítabœr (Whitby in Yorkshire or Vitaby in Skåne, see Ragn 7/4, 6 and Note there); he is not mentioned at all in RagnSon and in Saxo’s account is mentioned only once as one of Ragnarr’s three sons by his wife Suanlogha who are too young to wield weapons (Saxo 2015, I, ix. 4. 17, pp. 644-5). His likely historical prototype is Rægnald, the viking king of York from 919 until his death in 921 (Stenton 1971, 333, 338; cf. Downham 2007, 91-5). If so, he cannot historically have been a son of Reginheri (d. 845), Ragnarr’s likely historical prototype, though he may have been a grandson of Imhar (d. 873), the viking king of Dublin who is himself a likely prototype of Ragnarr’s son Ívarr (McTurk 1991a, 99, 111; Downham 2007, 1-9, 29). The brevity of Rægnald’s reign in York (919-21) perhaps explains the emphasis on his youth in Ragn and by Saxo. In Krm, however, he is described, as will be evident, neither as a son of Ragnarr, nor as young, and as having died neither at Whitby nor at Vitaby, but in the Hebrides. It has been argued that Krm reflects here the western branch, spreading in the direction of the Hebrides, of an originally Northumbrian tradition of Rægnald, the eastern branch of which, reflected in Ragn and Saxo’s account, spread independently to Norway and Iceland by way of Denmark (McTurk 1991a, 98-114). For a modified version of this view, see Rowe (2012, 176).

References

1. Bibliography
2. McTurk, Rory. 1991a. Studies in Ragnars saga loðbrókar and Its Major Scandinavian Analogues. Medium Ævum Monographs new ser. 15. Oxford: Society for the Study of Mediæval Languages and Literature.
3. Ragn 1906-8 = Olsen 1906-8, 111-222.
4. Rowe, Elizabeth Ashman. 2012. Vikings in the West: The Legend of Ragnarr Loðbrók and his Sons. Studia Medievalia Septentrionalia 18. Vienna: Fassbaender.
5. Stenton, F. M. 1971. Anglo-Saxon England. 3rd edn. Oxford: Clarendon.
6. Saxo 2015 = Friis-Jensen, Karsten, ed. 2015. Saxo Grammaticus: Gesta Danorum: The History of the Danes. Trans. Peter Fisher. Oxford Medieval Texts. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon.
7. Downham, Clare. 2007. Viking Kings of Britain and Ireland: The Dynasty of Ívarr to A.D. 1014. Edinburgh: Dunedin Academic Press.
8. Internal references
9. 2017, ‘ Anonymous, Ragnars saga loðbrókar’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 616. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=81> (accessed 3 June 2024)
10. 2017, ‘ Anonymous, Ragnars sona þáttr’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 777. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=85> (accessed 3 June 2024)
11. Rory McTurk 2017, ‘ Anonymous, Krákumál’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 706. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=1020> (accessed 3 June 2024)
12. Rory McTurk (ed.) 2017, ‘Ragnars saga loðbrókar 37 (Anonymous Lausavísur, Lausavísur from Ragnars saga loðbrókar 7)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 697.