Ívarr (Iwar)

Ivar the Boneless is the eldest and by far the cleverest of Ragnar Lodbrok's famous sons — a man born, the legend says, without bones (perhaps from a curse on his parents' haste), so that he must be carried into battle on a shield, yet whose mind is the sharpest weapon his family owns. Where his brothers are warriors, Ivar is a strategist of cold genius. When King Ella kills their father Ragnar in the snake-pit, it is Ivar who masters the brothers' rage and bends it to a long, patient plan; and when he finally takes his revenge he asks Ella only for as much English land as an ox-hide will cover — then cuts the hide into a single thread and rings a whole stronghold with it. The brain behind the Great Heathen Army that the sagas say avenged Ragnar and conquered much of England. Bodiless and unstoppable — the mind that needs no body to rule.