2. Ragnar Lothbrok and the Siege of Paris

0:00Howdy howdy ho and welcome to fantasy fanfellas. I'm Hayden producer of the fantasy fangirls podcast and your resident lover of all things Sanderson and I'm Stephen your bookish internet goofball, but you can call me the smash daddy and we are currently deep diving Brandon Sanderson's fantasy epic Missborn, but here's the catch Stephen here has not read Missborn before that's right. Hey, hey, so each week You'll get my unfiltered raw reactions to every single chip and along the way we'll do character deep dives magic Explanars and Stephen will even try to guess what's next spoiler alert. He'll be wrong news flash I'm never wrong episodes come out every Wednesday and you can find fantasy fanfellas wherever you get your podcasts Explore a new spring collection of pieces that take you to the places you dream about a suitcase filled with heritage inspired Swade jackets relaxed linen and dresses for every adventure discover more at banana republic dot com Okay, I have to tell you I was just looking on eBay where I go for all kinds of things I love and there it was that hologram trading card

1:02One of the rarest the last one I needed for my set shiny like this designer handbag of my dreams one of a kind eBay had it and now everyone's asking Ooh, where'd you get your windshield wipers? eBay has all the parts that fit my car no more knowing Just beautiful Millions of fines each with a story eBay things people love It's spring 845 a.d. We're on the river Sen the broad waterway that winds through northern France A fleet of 120 Viking longships moves majestically along it They are manned by 5,000 warrior sailors Although fitted with masts for now the ships are powered by the muscle of their crudes great oak oars pull against the current A man stands at the prow of the leading vessel is piercing blue eyes scound the terrain ahead

2:08A sword hangs from his belt His red woolen cloak is held by an ornate golden brooch marking him out as a man of wealth and status a YAH an important chieftain His name is Ragnar Lachbrock Ragnar is flanked by his most loyal followers They wear the gold arm rings he has given them to secure their allegiance and as a reward for their support in previous campaigns Oats sworn upon them are sacred As the fleet rounds along slow bend Ragnar sees what he is looking for A huddle of honey-coloured buildings that seem to emerge out of the river itself As they draw closer he can make out the uneven line of the old Roman walls partially fallen into disrepair Here and there bell towers rise into the sky It is the object of Ragnar's expedition the jewel in the crown of the West Frankish realm a city right for Punder

3:18Paris But before Ragnar can lead his men through the city's streets He must confront the army of Charles the bold king of the West Franks Charles has split his army into two divisions One on each side of the set The soldiers stand in disciplined ranks waiting for their orders the sun glinting on their armor Ragnar waves his options If he sells his fleet through the middle of the enemy Charles his archers can rain down flaming arrows upon him from both river banks But Charles has made a huge tactical blunder The force drawn up on the right bank is much larger than that on the opposite side The Frankish king wants to protect the Abbey of Sandani an important Christian shrine with its wealth of gold and silver

4:21Naturally he assumed Ragnar would target it But Ragnar is not a man to be outthought or outthought Instead he decides to attack the smaller weaker division on the left bank With no bridge across the river here the soldiers on the other side will be unable to come to their comrades aid Instructions are issued Ragnar skippers expertly manipulate the tillers which are mounted on the right hand side the boats harps The steon boardy or steer board from which we get our words starboard In silence they drift into position And then as the Viking longboats are pulled ashore down river the Frankish archers unleashed a blizzard of arrows But this holds no threat now for Ragnar Lothbrock He is out of range with his acolytes around him. He throws himself into the midst of the fighting

5:25His keen stare misses nothing he identifies those in the opposing army who are fighting most skillfully and Direction's men not to kill them but to take them captive The action is brief but intense From the other side of the river Charles the bold and his men watch helplessly as the smaller division is routed Many are slain others flee into the countryside By the end Ragnar has taken 111 of the bravest Frankish warriors captive for the Vikings 111 is a magical number But he has not spared them He intends to turn them into another weapon to use against his enemy a weapon of terror Ragnar has the captives dragged to an island in the middle of the river He then calls upon his god Odin to receive the sacrifice he is about to offer

6:30With a hands tie behind their backs the men are hustled to a line of trees and full view of Charles's remaining army A new cis place to round each man's neck and One by one they are strung up King Charles and his soldiers can only look on as the men ride and kick the air until all 111 of them are hanging lifeless Utterly demoralized by the Grimm spectacle many Frankish soldiers deserve Leaving the great city of Paris practically undefended and fully at the mercy of Ragnar's men I'm Ian Glenn from the Noiser podcast network. This is real Vikings part two

7:39Oh But let's go back in the last episode we heard had the Viking attack on Linda's fun The seizure of its religious treasures had left Anglo-Saxon England reeling The devastation visited upon a remote unguarded monastery not to mention the slaughter of its inhabitants is unprecedented Dr. Prager Vora The Viking raid was a Bolt from the blue the idea that there could be a seaborn attack of the kind that happened in 793 is astonishing in general in this period when bad things happen. It's considered a punishment from God The Linda's farm raid is followed by others

8:41The Abbey at Montgomery Mouth Jarrow also in Northumbria is plundered in 796 While in Scotland Iona Abbey in the inner hebrides is repeatedly hit Island 2 is the target of Viking aggression Starting with the monastery at Wrathlin Island of Montenday County, Andrew There are raids in Inishmari and Inish boffin with St Patrick's Isle County Dublin attacked in 798 The shock waves reverberate throughout Europe Dr. Eleanor Barraclough Never before has such a terror appeared. You know these inroads from the sea Professor Elizabeth Row And so these Vikings are described as terrible ferocious. They kill Christians. They desecrate monasteries There is nothing good about them. They are entirely bad characters The Vikings are the ultimate disruptors Their greatest weapon is the terror they inspire

9:44Even in those who have not yet suffered at their hands Every day monks and villagers in coastal communities scour the horizon for the sudden appearance of the distinctive dragon proud boats And no matter how fervently they clutch at their prayer robes Willing these bogements to keep away. There's no question. The world has become a more frightening place But it's not just the remote monasteries of the outlying British Isles that are under attack Across the channel the very heart of chrysanthem is about to find itself plunged into a war against these marauding heathens Up the end of the eighth century mainland Europe is dominated by the kingdom of franquia Which broadly covers modern-day franse the low countries Germany and northern Italy The King of the Franks, Charles I, sweeps all before him Conquering territory and converting pagan tribes to Christianity

10:48We know in better as Charles the Great or in French Charles Le Magne Charles Le Magne He's the grandfather of Charles the bold from our opening Paris raid With fair hair and a drooping moustache beneath the prominent nose Charlemagne is a charismatic and physically imposing man Radiating strength and a serene confidence in the righteousness of his actions He sees himself as God's anointed ruler on earth His reign has been impressive Under Charlemagne, franquia has developed into a sophisticated and cultured society Bastion of the faith and center of western civilization Charlemagne oversees an era of prosperity Building towering cathedrals and establishing his royal capital at Arkham A town which sits today on the German Dutch Belgian border intersection

11:50Other Christian kings, such as the Anglo-Saxon ruler, King Offer of Mercia view him as the model to which they aspire To his loyal subjects, he is both wise and just And as far as the church is concerned, Charlemagne can do no wrong He is the man And so, in the year 800 on Christmas Day Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne Emperor His Carolingian realms will be the basis of a new, revived, and holy Roman Empire He is the first emperor in the west for 300 years Charlemagne's power and prestige are now absolute Revenue from every corner of the expanding Carolingian domains swells his coffers For Charlemagne, conquest and Christianity are inseparable In converting the heathen masses and taking over their lands, he is carrying out God's will after all

12:57It follows that those who defy him are defying the Lord Almighty And it is a position that will bring him into direct conflict with those pagans that sit on the empires northern border Those Viking kingdoms of Scandinavia It won't be long before the Vikings discover what Charlemagne's other enemies already know But behind the emperor's mask of Christian piety lies a ruthless, tyrant capable of acts of barbarous cruelty In 782 in a forest near Verden in what is now northern Germany Charlemagne's men conduct an execution of nobleman from the province of Saxony This is not a discrete killing It's a mass murder, a slaughter on a biblical scale

13:57Four and a half thousand men led into the woods to be richly beheaded And they're crime They are being sacrificed for clinging to the old ways the old pagan gods The emperor even chops down their most sacred shrine It's called Ehrmanzel A wooden pillar dedicated to Woden, the Germanic variant of the Norse god Odin In the most emphatic terms forged in blood Charlemagne has lain down a marker A warning to anyone who would resist both the loving embrace of chrysanthem And the beneficence of his rule With Charlemagne it's not a question of gentle missionary work It's a question of political conquest and enforced Christianity And a strong state that needs to demonstrate its strength through violence News of the massacre of the Saxon nobles, the bloody verdict at Verden

15:01As it becomes known travels fast It reaches the court of King Ziegfred in Denmark He's been sheltering the leaders of the Saxon resistance Denmark as a unified country doesn't exist yet Ziegfred is just one of several chieftains competing for dominance But their collective reaction is one of outrage at the brutality Meted out to their fellow followers of Odin It's also tinged with fear The dread realization that the Danes may well be next in Charlemagne's sites For the Danes the Frankish King's ruthless crusade to conquer and convert represents an existential threat paganism is not just a matter of faith It's the basis of the Viking chieftains power In the pagan belief system the best afterlife goes to men who die in battle These are the men who get to go to Valhalla

16:02And so if the Danish kings want men to fight for them Then traditional Norse belief system is what's going to get those men to fight to the death Rather than Christianity which has a very different idea of the afterlife and who is going to go to it For the Vikings their religion is a fundamental part of life They experience the divine every day wherever they go Their gods are not abstract ideas They are living beings who walk the earth alongside men and other supernatural entities Professor Stefanbrink It was an animistic religion The landscape was considered charged in different ways trees, wells, hills, mountains, groves etc Could be sacred and worshipped

17:03Offer water in the form of wells, rapids, lakes etc Were kind of interfaces in the landscape Where people could communicate via offering rituals with the deities and also the ancestors Lars Brownworth There was no priesthood, there was no holy scriptures or anything who's decentralized There was a famous story of a Swedish Viking being asked, who do you worship? Then he says, I worship my strengths At the head of the Norse pantheon are two families of gods The Asa and the Varnier Although they had once fought each other The Asa and the Varnier now live together in Asgard the realm of the gods Asgard exists in the sky above Midgard Middle earth, the home of men A divine rainbow bridges the two worlds

18:04Below the earth is hell, where those who have not been fortunate enough to die a glorious death spend the afterlife Spelled H-E single L This is not the same sort of place as the Christian hell It's not known if the words are related but there is no sense that Viking hell is a place of punishment The great Odin is the head of the Asa family, husband of the goddess Frig and father of Thor According to the legend, Odin hangs himself on the sacred tree of Eggedrasil equivalent to the Saxon monument which Charlemagne pointedly destroyed Odin embraces death and returns for the ability to read He also sacrifices one of his eyes so that he might gain another kind of vision The ability to see everything that happens in the world

19:06Wisdom and knowledge are clearly important to the one-eyed or father But Odin armed with his spear gun near is also the god of war He rides an eight-legged stallion and is closely associated with the Valkyries In keeping with their name which means choosers of the slain These warrior handmaidens pick out those who will die a glorious death in battle Gladden armor the Valkyries ride across the sky towards the fray They are demonic embodiments of carnage and mayhem The Viking spirit given female form Then there is Thor the mightiest of the gods Who rules over the weather summoning storms and dispensing thunder His trusty weapon is the hammer Mjolnir A popular symbol for armulets throughout the Viking era If Odin is the god of wisdom and foresight

20:07Thor represents the indomitable power of brute force He is a formidable warrior The shape-shifting trickster Loki seems the hardest to pin down A spiritive mischief and chaos he is promiscuously bisexual And could even switch genders both fathering and giving birth to monstrous offspring These children include your manganda the gigantic serpent encircling the earth Loki will ultimately betray the gods and fight on the side of their enemies The Yutna in Ranyarok the battle at the end of the world It's the only religion I know of that has an ending You know like Ragnarok was the end like the wolves chasing the sun and moon would one day catch it And then all the world would be plunged into eternal darkness

21:09And the gods would die and it's incredibly pessimistic The vanyar branch of the gods meanwhile is headed by Nyead Like Odin Nyead is associated with wisdom but also fertility He is the father of frayer and frayer God of sun and rain frayer has dominion over the fuels His sister frayer is the goddess of women and childbirth The The row call of Norse gods is almost endless And then there were minor dates as supernatural such as Alvar, elves, dwarves, giants etc. And they were very important ingredients that we find in the mythological saga

22:10Somewhere between gods and mortals exists the heroes of mythology whose stories are told in the sagas men like Ragnar Lothbrok But if you cut through the bewildering multiplicity of gods supernatural beings and mythological heroes You come to a very simple and powerful principle at the heart of the Norse religion A good life is one which ends in a good death To die in battle heroically would give you a fast ticket up to Odin and to Valhalla And if they were a heroic warrior they could spend the afterlife having fun and by fun they meant Fighting each other in the day and in the evening had a fantastic banquet in the Valhalla Hall Eating the pig, swine, serimner, every evening and every morning he just resurrected and became alive again

23:12That was the ultimate fun life or a warrior This outlook then provides the basis for the Viking code of honor and places Viking paganism on a collision course with Christianity From Charlemagne's point of view the spread of Christianity is inextricably bound up with his political power Once Charlemagne shuts down the path of political conquest and forcible conversion There's really no way to go back from that There was widespread resistance to the conversion and Charlemagne responded with equal or greater force Killing thousands of people whatever the exact number was or may mean them having a hand cut off something like that And so it's necessary in his view to show the unbending power of Christian kingship Remember there is no such country as Denmark not yet

24:16But the threat from Charlemagne prompts the rival chieftains across Jutland and the islands to lay aside their differences By the year 804 the unite under one king Goodfred proving that there is nothing like a common enemy to bring people together And Godfred turned out to be a really effective military leader against the Frankish threat Goodfred is credited with rebuilding the d'Arnavac or Dane work a 20 mile protective earthwork stretching across the Jutland peninsula Along the border between Denmark and old Saxony We often think of Vikings as the aggressors the violent marauders who conduct lightning strikes against defenseless victims In some ways it seems the Vikings are no different to other people They value peace and security at home just as much as anyone else But goodfred knows that the best form of defense is attack

25:19Being a true general he doesn't challenge Charlemagne directly He will instead hit him in his pocket Before Charlemagne rejrew the map of Europe Denmark has been part of a trading network extending across the North Sea and the Baltic It stood at the crossroads of lucrative trade routes passing from both east to west and north to south The enforced christianization of Saxony and neighboring areas has disrupted that flow What's more, the pagan Danes have found themselves excluded from many important trading hubs Not part of the cosy christian club which has led to a significant loss of income In response goodfred plans a brilliant counter strike The year is 808 The place is Reyrik a major trading settlement or imporium on the southern edge of the Baltic Sea

26:25It's a natural harbor in the north of present-day Germany Near what is nowadays the port of Rostov Reyrik is one of those lucrative markets from which Danish traders have been squeezed Like many imporia Reyrik is laid out in a regular grid with streets running parallel to the waterfront Where traders vote some word and business is conducted Today is a day like any other Goods have been traded raw materials, textiles, foodstuffs, metalwork, beads And human beings Silber changes hands Fortunes are made Suddenly the peaceful bustle is disrupted A fleet of longships crashes into the merchant vessels in the port Viking warriors wearing battle armor and wielding axes clamber across the key side

27:27They run at the waterfront stalls smashing up the tables and goods Slicing down awnings and terrifying the traders The intruders rip through the market like a hurricane of literating a shanty town Eventually the havoc and destruction settles The merchants' kaura has an army of thugs looms threateningly over them The mob of north men devise A man whose clothes and bearing mark him out as a chieftain A royal even makes his way to the front At his side is a herald who announces in the local Slavic language that this eminent personage is none other than Goodfred, King of Denmark himself With his rugged features and true gaze, Goodfred cuts an impressive figure His expression is business like one of resignation rather than cruelty

28:31As if to say he didn't want to do this but he had no choice Through his herald, Goodfred points out that the mighty emperor Charlemagne is incapable of protecting them take a look around Goodfred's men have just destroyed Reyric with ease And taken away the traders' livelihoods This should not have been allowed to happen And if the merchants do what Goodfred proposes, it never will again As herald conveys the gist, come with me to a place within my kingdom where I will protect you so that you can trade in peace and prosper The merchants' faces register their astonishment Is this some kind of joke? Seeing their uncertainty, Goodfred expands on his offer This is a great opportunity, he says With his protection they will do bigger and better business than before Besides, as they can see, their current premises are no longer fit for purpose

29:31Like a classic mob boss, Goodfred has made the traders an offer they can't refuse As the sun sets, a convoy of merchant men escorted by Viking longships Begins the voyage north to the port of Jäderby On the Danish side of the great Danavik Like a restless sports franchise owner, Goodfred is relocating their entire enterprise lock, stock and barrel, the very definition of a hostile takeover This was an attack on Charlemagne's allies, so it's indirectly an attack on Charlemagne As a result of Goodfred's initiative, Charlemagne appears weak And the mighty empire of the Franks is shown to be vulnerable Not only that, but by relocating the traders of Reyrik to his own territory Goodfred receives a huge financial boost from the taxes they pay

30:34Taxes that would have gone to Charlemagne This period, early Viking age, as most of the early periods were very violent times Constant wars and fighting How was it possible to have a secure trading place Where traders could trade without being attacked by raiding parties The king guaranteed the traders a peaceful trade Under Goodfred's protection, the town of Heideby thrives It's sort of a proto-urban site that is a place for international trading and for Crafts work and all sorts of interesting things are going on in a place like Heideby The 10th century Arabic traveller Ibrahim Ibn Yakuob A keen chronicler of Viking life Provides us with a fascinating portrait of the busy settlement Ibrahim Ibn Yakuob tells us, for example, that women are able to divorce their husbands in this place

31:38And I think he describes it as this town, the edge of the world or the ocean It's a beautiful way of thinking about it because from his point of view With geographically and culturally it really is He also describes things like how both the women and the men wear eye makeup Sort of cool makeup on their eyes And he describes their singing he says it's absolutely awful They sound like dogs howling but worse Rebriak isn't the only Frankish asset that Goodfred targets In 810 he sends a fleet of 200 ships to raid the coast of Frisia Part of the Carolingian Empire which roughly equates to today's Netherlands He is again showing up Charlemagne's weakness by targeting one of his vassal states The growing impression is that the Danish force can now strike with impunity Whenever they like The Franks don't have ships Understandably they're a land-based empire

32:39Their armies are foot soldiers and cavalry And so the Vikings can come and go a lot faster in their attacks Then Charlemagne can pull his forces together And move them across the countryside So we see from all of these actions said Godfred is really extremely effective and more than a match for Charlemagne In the end Goodfred becomes a victim of his own success Emboldened by his power he plans a whole scale invasion of the Frankish lands It's a step too far for the Danish nobles on whose support he depends Soon after Goodfred is assassinated according to one version of the story during the dark hunt But then plot twist four years later in 814 Charlemagne dies too The twin bonds that held the Danish territories together

33:40The external threat to its existence and the strong unifying leadership of Goodfred are dissolved Once again the country is divided After a period of turmoil in 827 Goodfred's son Horig emerges as king of Denmark Meanwhile in reversal of fortune it is now frankier that is fast ascending into chaos It is a situation ripe for exploitation The Vikings are attracted essentially to places that are wealthy and that show weakness So they see some increased opportunities here as opposed to when Charlemagne was in control And he was building fortresses along the coast and keeping it in that bay And so Horig resumes his father's policy of harrying the Franks

34:41In 834 Horig's Viking army attacks the trading settlement of Doorsstad on the river Rhine Located in the present day province of Utrecht it's a major source of revenue for the Carolingian Empire Compared to Lindersvarn and the other soft targets Doorsstad represents an escalation in Viking raiding strategy The psychological impact on the Franks is devastating Doorsstad is the equivalent of a terrorist attack on a western financial center today With Horig's encouragement Viking raiders plunder the region every year for the next fall slaughtering terrorizing and enslaving the inhabitants Again without a navy the new Carolingian emperor Louis the pious is unable to defend his territory against these incursions He hits upon a unique solution

35:44He turns to Viking mercenaries to police his vulnerable coastline But hiring professional Vikings as coast guards as little like allowing a pack of wolves to look after your sheep Between 834 and 836 the island monastery of Noir Mutye at the mouth of the Loire is repeatedly targeted The attacks are so intense that the monks abandon it the Vikings move in and establish a permanent base there From Noir Mutye they can now control the coast of Brittany and carry out further raids along the Noir And there is nothing Louis the pious can do about it When Louis dies in 840 Civil war flares up once more as his three sons fight for control of the Frankish Empire The Danes once again are poised to take advantage

36:45With their new base of Brittany their actions are no longer limited to coastal raids now And the amazing versatility of their shallow keeled longships enables them to penetrate deep within Frankish territory The major rivers of the empire the Senn the psalm and the Loire become conduits of mayhem and destruction The Viking spirit thrives on chaos and the particular chaos of the Frank's internal conflict draws them like blood in the water attracting sharks As the sons of Louis the pious deplete their resources fighting each other Viking bans identify an attack weak spots Some of them even profit by serving not just as coast guards but as full blown mercenaries for one side of the other Stoking the conflict extending the bloodshed feeding the disorder In 843 the Treaty of Adon settles the issue by dividing the Carolingian Empire into three parts

37:52With each of Louis three sons taking a share Before in the time of Charlemagne and the time of Louis the pious those rulers could command the entire resources They had the entire empire to draw on to counter Viking attacks When the empire was divided into three pieces each piece was a much weaker than the empire that had preceded it It's peace of a kind for the empire But it's an invitation to create more mayhem for the Vikings And one of the men to take up that invitation a man whose name will enter the pages of legend Is Ragnar Ragnar Lothbrok When talking about Ragnar we have to be careful to separate the historical from the legendary Ragnar was Danish we don't know much about him personally on the basis of his name

38:52It's possible that he was a member of the royal dynasty of Denmark But in any case because he was a war leader of a large Viking force It seems very likely that he was an aristocrat Possibly a chieftain maybe more likely a yaro the highest level of aristocracy He appears in several Scandinavian saga sources which are legendary and mythic and have things like dragons and valkarees And ties to Sigurd the dragon slayer Ragnar is a king in Denmark and he has these famous sons Ivar the boneless and Sigurd snake in the eye and Bjorn ironside great names all of them for sure In Ragnar those things like he kills a dragon and wins a princess But then he also appears in some other sources from continental Europe and in Britain Maybe Perhaps it's a different person or perhaps it's the same

39:53There's a lot when we're talking about Viking history that is sort of on that hazy cusp Between what we would think of as history something that is historically verifiable You know with proper dates and evidence versus the more story telling aspect of these legends and myths So Ragnar well we know if anyone's a fan of the tv series Vikings Ragnar of course is the chief protagonist But at the siege of Paris in 845 it's said that the Vikings are led by someone called like Reagan Harris And he's been linked to that legendary character Ragnar Lothbrok Howdy howdy ho and welcome to fantasy fanfellas I'm Hayden producer of the fantasy fangirls podcast and your resident lover of all things sanderson and i'm steven your bookish internet

40:59Goofball, but you can call me the smash daddy and we are currently deep diving Brandon sanderson's fantasy epic misborn But here's the catch Steven here has not read misborn before that's right hey hey so each week you'll get my unfiltered raw reactions to every single And along the way we'll do character deep dives magic explainers and steven will even try to guess what's next spoiler alert He'll be wrong news flash. I'm never wrong episodes come out every Wednesday And you can find fantasy fanfellas wherever you get your podcasts the youth mental health crisis is growing And social media is a major driver kids are spending up to nine hours a day on screens often unsupervised And studies show a direct link to anxiety depression and even suicidal thoughts That's where gab comes in gab offers safer phones and watches for kids with no social media tailored to every age offering the right tech at the right time or tech in steps From GPS tracking enabled watches for younger kids to phones with parent-enabled apps for teens

42:00Each device allows kids to more safely grow their independence Visit gab.com slash get gab and use code get gab for an exclusive offer That's g-a-b-b.com forward slash get gab gab tech in steps independence for them peace of mind for parents Back on the left bank of the river Sen where we began this episode Having executed 111 of the bravest Frankish warriors Ragnar's army sweeps on Charles the bold watches powerless Ragnar leads his men towards the ill-deless city The island in the same where the city of Paris is concentrated On the way they come across the undefended abbey of surja manda pray It's too big a temptation to resist

43:03The Danes don't just loot the abbey they take it over and use it as the base for which to launch their Parisian siege On Easter Sunday March the 29th they enter the city over the pitipan Conveniently it takes them close to the cathedral of Notre Dame Another soft target with easy pickings If Ragnar chose the date of his attack deliberately He couldn't have picked one more likely to shock the Christian defenders Their god cannot protect them even on this holy day The Danes go on the rampage destroying buildings and setting fires Anyone unlucky enough to get in their ways either killed or taken into slavery But But perhaps the Christian god has not turned his back on Paris after all

44:04And the days that follow the Vikings are struck down by a mysterious illness The symptoms described are similar to dysentery Many men die and Ragnar can do nothing but watch as his forces dwindle The pagan warlord doesn't know much about Christianity But he understands the principle of revenge Could it be that his blasphemous occupation of the abbey of Sahaja Ma As aroused the wrath of the holy saint who protects Paris Is the sickness punishment Ragnar summons Odin once again But to no avail his men continue to die Finally he orders one of the Christian prisoners to be brought before him And In desperation he demands the man tell him what he should do to save his army The prisoner instructs Ragnar in the ways of Christian penance

45:04Advising him and his men to fast Whether it is spiritual intervention or simply the effect of abstaining from possibly contaminated food Ragnar's men begin to get better But the sickness has taken its toll on his army Fortunately for Ragnar Charles has had enough of the fighting He simply wants the pagans out of the abbey and his city back And we have our first mention of what will later be called Dane Guild Which is essentially tribute the kings of western Europe start to pay off the Vikings to lead them alone At least for a season so Charles the bald coughs up 7,000 pounds of silver to get Ragnar and his band Of Vikings to leave that's a substantial amount of wealth and it turns out not to be a winning strategy Because this is not you know modern diplomacy You can't really hold them to their agreement. So buying them off you might get a year, but they'll be back

46:08The problem is and this is something that's monarchs on both side of the channel will realize quite quickly Paying off the Vikings is essentially like trying to get a stray cat to leave By feeding it. It's just going to keep coming back and this is very much the Viking tactic Basically, okay, we'll go away now, but once we've spent all that money Then well now we know that that's what you'll do We'll come back and scare you again and take some more. Thank you very much The concept of Dane Guild Literally Dane Yield or Danish payment is going to add a whole new dimension to the Viking Age Not surprisingly Ragnar accepts the offer of good hard cash his army is weakened by war and disease He was ready to leave anyway So why does Ragnar lead a Viking fleet 200 miles up the river sand to attack Paris

47:12Of course the need to acquire wealth is a constant in all Viking operations But there are surely sources of silver and slaves closer to home and less fraught with risk Paris is an extremely significant choice a major center of both religious and political power deep in the heart of the Frankish empire The very hazard of the undertaking is the point Paris wouldn't be a very symbolic symbolically important target to choose Some historians suggest that Ragnar may have believed he was a distant relative of King Horic And thus had acclaimed to the Danish throne The scale and ambition of his baritian expedition can be read as a power play a bid for the crown Alternatively, Horic himself may have encouraged Ragnar's activities Either way, after the raid on Paris, Ragnar presents himself at Horic's court

48:15Here he boasts of how he defeated the cowardly Franks He even has a piece of the abbey of Sarjama to back up his claims But then it seems as though in front of all this boasting before the king Ragnar himself is finally struck down with disease And he suffers a terrible and it must have been just horribly embarrassing attack of Distantry in front of everybody in front of the court and he dies three days later Not surprisingly this ignominious end is not the one recorded in the saga According to legend Ragnar then leads an expedition to England where he is defeated and battled by King Eilah of Northumbria The proud Viking is captured and as a punishment for his attack is thrown into a deep pit

49:16As his eyes adjust to the gloom Ragnar realizes that he is not alone in there In the flickering torchlight he sees that the ground is seeding with movement Snakes I don't know if he had this pit prepared before or if you can get enough snakes and Britain to fill a pit of venomous snakes But the story says that Ragnar is thrown by Eilah into his snake pit And he's wearing a magical shirt in the saga legend which Eilah has to remove After the shirt is removed the snake's bite him and he's going to die His death speech is famous and the sentence that he says Resonates across the northern world is something along the lines of The piglets would grunt if they heard about the suffering of the boar Now Ragnar in that analogy is the boar the dead pig And the piglets are the vicious sons of Ragnar

50:21His final words are according to the poets The gods will invite me in In death there is no sighing the hours of life have passed Laughing shall I die Unlike in real life in the great Norse myths Ragnar achieves an ending worthy of a great Viking hero Guaranteeing him a place in Valhalla And it is a death that is going to be avenged You In the next episode Emboldened by their forays the Vikings escalate their raiding Under the sons of Ragnar Lothbrok a massive invasion force the great heathen army Overwhelms England The only holdout is the kingdom of Wessex whose ruler Alfred

51:22Must reconcile with this unstoppable foe That's next time You can listen to the next two episodes of real Vikings right now Without waiting and without ads by joining Noiser Plus Click the banner at the top of the feed or head to Noiser.com forward slash subscriptions to find out more Howdy howdy ho and welcome to fantasy fanfellas I'm Hayden producer of the fantasy fangirls podcast and your resident lover of all things Sanderson And I'm Stephen your bookish internet goofball, but you can call me the smash daddy And we are currently deep diving Brandon Sanderson's fantasy epic misborn But here's the catch Stephen here has not read misborn before that's right. Hey, hey So each week you'll get my unfiltered raw reactions to every single chip and along the way

52:25We'll do character deep dives magic explainers and Stephen will even try to guess what's next spoiler alert He'll be wrong news flash. I'm never wrong episodes come out every Wednesday And you can find fantasy fanfellas wherever you get your podcasts over 90 of the top 100 US accounting firms trust bill to handle bill pay processes Why? Because our tools are built on over a trillion dollars of secure payments We're not just moving money. We're powering financial workflows for half a million customers That's a level of expertise. You just can't fake ready to talk with an expert Visit bill.com slash proven to get started and grab a $250 gift card as a thank you Terms and conditions apply see offer page for details Explore a new spring collection of pieces that take you to the places you dream about A suitcase filled with heritage inspired swayed jackets Relaxed linen and dresses for every adventure Discover more at banana republic dot com