King Skallagrim "the Tall" of Rogaland

Skallagrim "the Tall" Halfsson (770-845) was the petty king of Rogaland, in Norway.

## Biography

### Early Life

Skallagrim was born in the petty kingdom of Rogaland, in Norway, in AD 770 to its king Halfur Hjorlieffsson and his queen Geirlaug Halfdansdottir. The ancestry of his father's line is obscure but was known to have ruled in Rogaland at least as far back as Skallagrim's grandfather, King Horlieff Hjorsson. His mother on the other hand was the daughter of King Halfdan "the Mild" Eysteinsson of Romerike and Vestfold, scion of the legendary Yngling dynasty said by skalds to descend from the god Freyr himself.

Skallagrim grew tall and very strong, a proud and mighty warrior by his seventeenth winter. As a young prince he went on many adventures and became known as an accomplished Viking. In AD 793 he participated in the Sack of Lindisfarne, an event which came to be infamous in Saxon legend.

### Reign

In AD 805 he ascended to the throne of Rogaland upon his father's death.

In AD 810 he married a noblewoman of Telemark called Rannveig Olvirsdottir, siring three sons by her:

* Hoskuld (815-875), later called Fjandi-Hoskuld
* Sulke (820-875)
* Frodi (825-875)

In the early part of his reign, as had been the case before it, Skallagrim was seldom to be found in his own hall except in winter, and even then he may have been as likely to be wintering as the guest of any other hall than as the master of his own. He was largely content to leave the governance of his lands in the capable hands of his wife Queen Rannveig while he voyaged across the seas pillaging many lands. In AD 835 Queen Rannveig died, which at long last obliged Skallagrim to retire from the Viking life at the age of sixty winters.

Not one much for mourning, he decided to procure for himself a new pretty young wife to comfort him in his old age. The next year he dispatched messengers across the sea to the king's halls of many lands in search of a fair young beauty, promising to pay generous bride price (the greater part of a lifetime of plunder) for any maiden who he found to his liking. The search concluded after four years when all the messengers had returned and agreed that one called Ingrid "the Fair", daughter of King Horik of Denmark, was the most beautiful maiden in that part of the world.

In AD 840 King Skallagrim dispatched his son Prince Hoskuld to Denmark bearing a great fortune with which to retrieve Princess Ingrid, but on the voyage back, the young prince and princess fell in love and began having an affair which did not end after she became his stepmother.

In AD 843 a son was born to Ingrid named Skallagrim, and although it was then supposed that he was King Skallagrim's son, he was in fact the son of Hoskuld, known only at that time to Hoskuld, Ingrid, and Ingrid's maid Thorkatla.

After four years of being unknowingly cuckolded by his own son, in AD 844 Skallagrim and his two other sons (Sulke and Frodi) at last discovered Hoskuld and Ingrid *in flagrante delicto* in his own bed. In a jealous rage, Olaf at once drew his sword, split open Ingrid's skull, and castrated Hoskuld before Sulke and Frodi restrained him from dealing the final death blow. Once his murderous ire abated, Skallagrim summoned Ingrid's maid Thorkatla to demand, on pain of death, what she knew of the affair. The maid confessed that she hade known of the affair and knew the true parentage of Ingrid's son. King Skallagrim then pronounced his son Fjandi-Hoskuld (literally "Hoskuld the Fiend"), giving him only enough time to heal from his injury before banishing him (along with Thorkatla and the infant Skallagrim) from the kingdom and depriving him of his inheritance.

After the exile of Hoskuld, Skallagrim settled the inheritance of his lands and fortune between his two remaining sons, making Sulke heir to the greater Kingdom of Rogaland, and partitioning off the Earldom of Haugaland for Frodi.

### Death

One day in AD 845 Skallagrim was riding a marvelous white horse called Hvitefrax near some cliffs overlooking the fjord. The animal had been part of his wife's dowry and had been brought all the way from King Horik's own herd in Denmark. Suddenly starting for no apparent reason, the horse bolted, Skallagrim lost control of the reins, and both rider and horse went plummeting off the cliff to their deaths.