Tale of Ragnar's Sons

When Sigurd Ring dies, Ragnar Lodbrok succeeds him as the king of Sweden and Denmark.

He gave her a lindworm, but after some time, it encircles her tower and threatens anyone who approaches it, except for her servants who fed it an ox every day.

They had four sons, Ivar the Boneless, Ubba, Hvitserk and Sigurd Snake-in-the-Eye (thus called because there was a mark in his eye, as if a snake lay around the pupil).

One summer when Ragnar is pillaging in the Baltic region, his sons Eric and Agnar came into the lake Mälaren.

Eric declares that after such a defeat he does not wish to live and asks to be raised on spearpoints above the slain so that he will be pierced and killed.

Aslaug does not approve of the idea as the English coast was not fit for such ships, only for longships, but Ragnar does not listen to her advice.

Ragnar's sons attack England but Ivar does not want to fight as the English army is too large; he fears they will lose and will have to go home again.

Ivar, however, stays in England and asks Ælla for weregild, claiming that he can not go home without some compensation to show his brothers.

He cuts it into such a fine long string of hide that he can encircle an area so large that he is able to capture the already existing fortress of York which was the capital of Northumbria, When this is done, he allies himself with all of England and finally all the chieftains in the region become loyal to Ivar and his brothers.

When they come back to Scandinavia, they divide the kingdom so that Björn Ironside has Uppsala and Sweden, Sigurd Snake-in-the-Eye has Zealand, Scania, Halland, Viken, Agder, all the way to Lindesnes and most of Oppland, and Hvitserk receives Reidgotaland (Jutland) and Wendland.