Carried aloft on a shield by his warriors, he conquered England

January 10, 2018 1:10 PM

The Strangest Viking: was Ivar the Boneless (son of Ragnar Lothbrok and commander of the Great Heathen Army that attacked and conquered most of England in 865 C.E.) born with osteogenesis imperfecta, aka "Brittle Bone Disease"? Author/actor Nabil Shaban, himself born with the condition, explores the question: was the most savage viking of the sagas both disabled, and still capable of becoming the leader of the largest band of bloodthirsty killers ever to sail their longboats up an English river?

Ivar supercut from Vikings. In the 1969 movie Alfred the Great, Ivar the Boneless is portrayed as a lithe, acrobatic warrior desperately in need of some hair product.

posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey (10 comments total)

Is there a link missing to article by Shaban?
posted by slipthought at 1:52 PM on January 10, 2018

and still capable of becoming the leader of the largest band of bloodthirsty killers ever to sail their longboats up an English river?

*looks up estimated size of the Great Heathen Army*



Huh, somewhere between 1000 and 10,000...

OK, EVERYBODY- HEADCOUNT! SOUND OFF!
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 2:19 PM on January 10, 2018

is this the longboat thread?
posted by mwhybark at 2:28 PM on January 10, 2018 [5 favorites]

Is there a link missing to article by Shaban?

Indeed there is.

Ivarr the Boneless: Disabled Viking Leader By Nabil Shaban.
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 2:40 PM on January 10, 2018 [1 favorite]

Maybe 9 feet tall; maybe 3 feet tall. Maybe gigantism; maybe brittle bone disease; maybe impotence. Fascinating story, as much for the prejudices and assumptions and hopes of modern researchers as for Ivar himself.
posted by clawsoon at 2:46 PM on January 10, 2018 [1 favorite]

That Shaban article is ... not great. It leads with the misperception that a low average lifespan (actually an indicator of high infant and child mortality) means that 50 was an unusually long life, and then proceeds to go into an in-depth discussion of dates without offering really any arguments that Ivar had OI other than "some scholars have said."

The OI hypothesis is an interesting one and I'd love to read some research that cites saga language as a direct support of the theory.
posted by anastasiav at 3:00 PM on January 10, 2018 [9 favorites]

We'll never know what sort of disability Ivar the Boneless had or even if he had a disability. In some sagas he's depicted as a fearsome warrior, and there are plausible theories that his nickname refers to erectile dysfunction or an unusual degree of flexibility. The sagas are also full of characters with wacky nicknames that only make sense in the context of some specific biographical context. For example, it would be basically impossible to figure out why the sons of Njal were called the dung-beardlings if Njal's Saga didn't relate a specific nasty joke told about Njal's lack of facial hair. It's entirely possible that Ivar's nickname doesn't refer to any general characteristic of his at all, and is instead a reference to some specific event or inside joke that is lost to the sagas and history.
posted by firechicago at 3:57 PM on January 10, 2018 [8 favorites]

Whether his idea is baseless or not, I'm always pleased to see anything involving Nabil Shaban. You might have first seen him as Sil on Doctor Who, but I have fond memories of him narrating stories on a BBC children's television years before.
posted by scruss at 5:19 PM on January 10, 2018 [2 favorites]

Sleep! That's where I have NO BONES AAAGGGHHH
posted by FatherDagon at 10:33 AM on January 11, 2018 [1 favorite]

It's a nice companion to the speculation that Egil Skalla-Grimsson had Paget's disease. Who knew that speculative about what exotic bone disease Vikings may have had was thing?
posted by euphorb at 12:51 PM on January 11, 2018 [3 favorites]