Ragnar Lothbrok Trivia
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47 free Ragnar Lothbrok trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
This Ragnar Lothbrok trivia quiz covers the legendary Viking from three angles: the medieval sources (the Saga of Ragnar Lothbrok, the Tale of Ragnar's Sons, Saxo Grammaticus's Gesta Danorum and the death-song Krákumál), the history behind them (the 845 siege of Paris, the Great Heathen Army of 865, King Ælla of Northumbria and the very real sons Ivar the Boneless, Björn Ironside, Halfdan, Ubba and Sigurd Snake-in-the-Eye), and the History Channel drama Vikings, in which Travis Fimmel made the farmer from Kattegat a household name. Expect questions on where the nickname 'hairy-breeches' comes from, the riddle Ragnar set for Kráka, why the serpents would not bite him, what Lagertha kept guarding her house, and how much of any of it modern historians believe. BrainPickle also has a broader Vikings quiz if you want the whole Viking Age. Every answer has been checked against Wikipedia and each question carries a citation to the page it came from.
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Q 01What does the Old Norse nickname 'loðbrók' literally mean?
Hairy-breeches
Hairy-breeches: loð means shaggy and brók breeches. In Saxo's telling a king looked over Ragnar's rough outfit, laughed at his shaggy trousers and gave him the nickname as a joke.
Q 02According to the sagas, what was Ragnar doing when he earned his nickname?
Fighting a giant serpent
Fighting a giant serpent that guarded a jarl's daughter, Ragnar wore protective clothing boiled in pitch to foil its venom, and the nickname stuck.
Q 03In the sagas, which legendary king is named as Ragnar's father?
Sigurd Ring
Sigurd Ring is said to have beaten his uncle Harald Wartooth at the Battle of Brávellir.
Q 04Lagertha is Ragnar's first wife on TV, but who is his first wife in the Saga of Ragnar Lothbrok?
Thora
Thora, a jarl's daughter, bore Ragnar two sons and then died of an illness; the saga says the grieving king handed his realm to others and went back to raiding.
Q 05Ragnar's wife Kráka turns out to be Aslaug, the secret daughter of which hero?
Sigurd Fafnesbane
Sigurd Fafnesbane, the dragon-slayer, was her father. The peasants who raised her rubbed her with tar and kept her under a long hood so nobody would guess her birth, and called her Kráka, 'Crow'.
Q 06How was the infant Aslaug smuggled to Norway by her foster-father Heimer in the Tale of Ragnar Lodbrok?
Hidden inside a harp
Hidden inside a harp, Aslaug reached Norway with Heimer; a peasant couple who spotted rich cloth poking out of the harp killed him in his sleep for its treasure and found the girl inside.
Q 07Told to come to Ragnar neither dressed nor undressed, Kráka arrives wearing what?
A fishing net
A fishing net, with her long hair let down over it, met Ragnar's first condition; she also bit into an onion to be neither fasting nor fed, and brought a dog so as to be neither alone nor in company.
Q 08Saxo Grammaticus's Latin chronicle of about 1200, with Ragnar in Book Nine, is titled what?
Gesta Danorum
Gesta Danorum, 'Deeds of the Danes', gives much of its ninth book to Ragnar; an earlier book tells of Amleth, the prince feigning madness whose story Shakespeare turned into Hamlet.
Q 09In Saxo's telling, Lagertha first catches Ragnar's eye by doing what?
Fighting at the front of his army
Fighting at the front of his army: women a Swedish king had forced into a brothel joined Ragnar dressed as men, and he said afterwards that he owed the victory to one woman.
Q 10How does the legendary Ragnar die?
Thrown into a pit of snakes
Thrown into a pit of snakes by the Northumbrian king, Ragnar was unharmed until his protective shirt was stripped off, the saga says; only then did the serpents bite.
Q 11Which king of Northumbria is said to have executed Ragnar?
Ælla
Ælla had taken the Northumbrian throne from Osberht with no real claim to it; in 867 the two rivals joined forces against the Vikings at York, and both kings were killed.
Q 12In the saga, why does Ragnar invade England with only two ships?
To rival his sons
To rival his sons: Ragnar said there was no glory in conquering with many ships and brushed off his wife's warning. Both ships were wrecked on the English coast and he was captured.
Q 13Ragnar's death-song, put in his mouth as he lies dying, is which skaldic poem?
Krákumál
Krákumál, 'Kráka's lay', has the dying king tally up his battles and end with the boast 'laughing I shall die'; it was composed in the 12th century, long after any historical Ragnar.
Q 21Legend says Ragnar's daughters wove a magic war banner for their brothers that showed which bird?
A raven
A raven: the Annals of St Neots say the sisters wove the banner in a single midday, and that the bird flapped its wings before a victory and hung motionless before a defeat.
Q 22A Viking chief named Reginherus, often identified with Ragnar, attacked which city in 845?
Paris
Paris was plundered by Reginherus's fleet until the Franks bought it off. The raid inspired the Paris storyline of the TV series Vikings, where Ragnar feigns death to be carried into the city for a Christian funeral.
Q 23In his famous last words, the dying Ragnar calls himself an old what?
Boar
Boar: 'How the piglets would grunt if they knew what the old boar suffers,' he says. The piglets are his sons, and the line is a promise that they will come to avenge him.
Q 14Ragnar's sons are said to have executed the Northumbrian king by which gruesome method?
The blood eagle
The blood eagle appears in an 11th-century praise poem saying one of Ragnar's sons had an eagle cut on the king's back; historians still dispute whether it was a real rite or a poet's image later misread.
Q 15Which Viking force, said to be led by Ragnar's sons, invaded England in 865?
The Great Heathen Army
The Great Heathen Army wintered in East Anglia, where the locals bought peace and supplied horses; the newly mounted Vikings then moved north and seized York.
Q 16Ivar the Boneless is often identified with Ímar, a Viking king who ruled from which city?
Dublin
Dublin: Ímar vanishes from the Irish annals between 864 and 870, the very years Ivar was campaigning in England, which is why many take the two for one man.
Q 17In the saga, why was Ivar born 'boneless'?
His father ignored Aslaug's three-night wait
His father ignored Aslaug's three-night wait, the saga says, and the boy was born with gristle where bone should be; carried everywhere by his men, he still became the brothers' strategist.
Q 18Björn Ironside is said to have co-led a Viking raid of 859–861 into which sea?
The Mediterranean
The Mediterranean raid passed Gibraltar to plunder Iberia and Italy, and a Norman chronicler later named Björn among its leaders; saga and chronicle alike have the raiders aim for Rome and stop at the town of Luna.
Q 19A Norman chronicler names which Viking as Björn Ironside's foster-father and fellow raider?
Hastein
Hastein stars in a ruse Norman legend tells: he plays dying, or dead, to be carried inside a walled town for Christian rites, then springs up to sack it.
Q 20In the saga, Aslaug foretells a snake mark in her unborn son's eye to stop Ragnar doing what?
Leaving her for a king's daughter
Leaving her for a king's daughter was Ragnar's plan until Aslaug revealed she was no peasant and named the proof in advance; the boy was born with the mark and became Sigurd Snake-in-the-Eye.
Q 24Which Frankish king paid Reginherus 7,000 pounds of silver and gold in 845 to withdraw his Vikings?
Charles the Bald
Charles the Bald set out to fight the raiders but, judging that his men could not win, gave up the fight and struck a bargain with them instead.
Q 25The Viking chief Reginherus, who raided Francia in 845, served which Danish king?
Horik I
Horik I is himself one of the candidates scholars have proposed for a 'historical Ragnar'.
Q 26A 12th-century runic inscription naming Lodbrok is carved inside which prehistoric tomb?
Maeshowe on Orkney
Maeshowe on Orkney, a Neolithic chambered tomb, was broken into by Norse crusaders in the 12th century, who left some thirty runic graffiti, one naming Lodbrok.
Q 27The Viking army said to have been brought to England by Ragnar's sons was beaten in 878 by which king?
Alfred the Great
Alfred the Great had been driven into hiding in the Somerset marshes months earlier; he rallied his men, won at Edington, and the beaten Viking king accepted baptism with Alfred as his sponsor.
Q 28The 13th-century Saga of Ragnar Lothbrok is written as a sequel to which other saga?
Völsunga
Völsunga saga comes first in the one medieval manuscript that holds both; Aslaug, born to its heroes and married to Ragnar in the sequel, is the thread that joins the two stories.
Q 29In the saga, which enchanted animal helps a Swedish king defeat Ragnar's sons?
A cow
A cow called Síbilja, whose bellowing made enemy armies panic and turn on each other; Ivar finally brought her down by shooting out her eyes with a giant bow and having himself hurled onto her back.
Q 30In Saxo's telling, Ragnar's captured son Hvitserk turns down a princess and chooses what instead?
Burning alive
Burning alive with his captured friends was Hvitserk's own request: he reasoned that Ragnar would take a milder revenge if his son had chosen the manner of his death himself.