Haraldr Sigurðarson (Hardrada)

Harald Hardrada — 'Hard-Ruler' — is the most formidable of the kings and the last great viking, the man whose death is often taken to close the viking age. Half-brother of St Olaf, he survived the slaughter of Stiklestad as a wounded boy and fled east, rising to command the Varangian Guard of the Greek emperor at Constantinople, where he fought across the Mediterranean and gathered a fortune. He came home down the river-road with gold and reputation and bought his way to half of Norway, then all of it, ruling with a hard, brilliant ruthlessness. Restless to the last, he sailed in 1066 to claim the throne of England — and at Stamford Bridge, offered by his rival just 'seven feet of English ground, or as much more as he is taller than other men,' he fell, and the viking age's great gamble fell with him. A poet, a schemer, and a warrior who reached from Byzantium to a Yorkshire river and overreached at the end.