Ælla (Ella)

King Ella is the English king — ruler in Northumbria — who brings about the death of Ragnar Lodbrok and, in doing so, the doom of his own kingdom. When the aging Ragnar, on one last reckless raid, is shipwrecked on the English coast and captured, Ella does not recognise the famous viking in the ragged old man — and has him thrown into a pit of serpents to die. Ragnar dies singing that his sons will avenge him: 'the piglets would grunt if they knew how the old boar suffered.' They do. Ella's killing of Ragnar summons the Great Heathen Army of Ragnar's sons down on England, and when they take him they repay the snake-pit with the 'blood-eagle', the most terrible of the legendary vengeances. Ella is the saga's image of the fatal mistake — the king who killed a captive without knowing whom he killed, and brought a brood of avengers down on his whole land.