Has the Viking Ragnar Lodbrok ever visited our lands?

Answer

Ragnar Lodbrok is a rather mythical figure, who performs miraculous deeds, especially in Icelandic and Norse sagas – there is no historical ground for a person who successively unified Scandinavia, invaded Britain, conquered Western Francia, then once more was active in Russia and that Viking empire among his numerous sons.

Ragnar was a popular first name, and one Ragnar led a Viking army that advanced along the Seine from Rouen to Paris in 845. However, he died shortly afterwards of an illness, and was not a king but a general of the Danish king Horik I. Another Viking with the first name Ragnar is said to have borrowed the area around Torhout from Charles the Bald in the same period or slightly before. and lost again – some historians suspect that it is the same Ragnar, who then marched further south against the Franks.