Re: for all you cat owners out there...
Posted by:
jon (---.abel.net.uk)
Date: June 13, 2003 01:11PM
Well, the nickname is very contentious. Ivarr's only comtemporary notices are in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and no byname at all is recorded there. 'Boneless' appears first in a much later and very imaginative work, the 'Ragnarssaga' first written down in Iceland in the 12thC, i.e. nearly 300 years after his death. So it may not be genuine at all. The Saga explains it by saying he was born under a curse, and had only gristle where his bones should be; it goes on to say that he could not walk and had to be carried into battle, where he fought only with a longbow. This account is what leads Shaban to believe he was a brittle-bone sufferer, and if it were true that is not of itself unreasonable.
However. The saga-story might be a 'back-formation', that is a story invented to explain something no longer understood; Dark Age history is full of these. A fatal objection to Shaban's theory is that one has grave difficulty imagining a Viking army accepting as leader and taking orders from a cripple, and Ivarr headed a very large and successful army, which conquered most of England and also Dublin. Assuming that the byname is genuine and that he was not a cripple, there are three possibilities; 1. that 'boneless' refers to his er, amorous exploits, or lack of same; i.e. he was inoperative in the lerve department. 2. it is a joke name on the lines of Little John; the real Ivarr was a huge great bony man. or 3. boneless is a misunderstanding of his real name, which was actually something else, perhaps 'baneless' meaning lucky. Other explanations might be devised.
The short answer is, nobody knows. I incline to option 1 myself, but my guess is as good as anyone's really. I love Dark age history. It's so easy to become an expert.
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I am very interested in the Universe. I am specialising in the Universe and everything surrounding it. - E. L. Wisty