Ingjaldr illráði (the Wicked)

Ingjald the Wicked is the cruelest of the Yngling kings — the unifier as arsonist, who tried to reunite the fragmented realm of Sweden by the blackest treachery the Norse mind could imagine. He built a great new feast-hall, invited rival district-kings to its dedication, and when they were drunk inside it, burned them all alive and seized their lands; and he did this again and again, widening his kingdom by fire and murdered guests. The breach of the guest-bond was the worst crime in that world, and Ingjald committed it as policy. His reckoning came in kind: when the dread war-king Ívar rose and all Sweden turned against his house, Ingjald chose his own end, setting fire to his hall and burning himself and his daughter within it — the arsonist consumed at last by his own fire. He is the dark mirror of Harald Fairhair's coming unification: the drive to rule all, curdled into atrocity.