Magnús berfœttr (Barefoot)

Magnus Barefoot was the last great viking king of Norway — a flamboyant throwback who scorned his father's long peace and went a-viking in the old style. Twice he took the finest fleet Norway could raise out into the West sea, conquering through Orkney and the Hebrides to Iona, winning the great battle of Anglesey Sound (the farthest south a Norse king ever reached), and claiming by treaty every island he could sail around — even having his ship dragged across the Kintyre isthmus, himself at the helm, to count the peninsula as an island. He came home so taken with Gaelic dress that he kept the kilt and bare legs that earned his name. He died as he meant to: ambushed by the Irish in an Ulster bog, wounded through both thighs, he broke the spear-shaft and urged his men on before an axe took his neck — leaving the saying that has outlived him, 'kings are made for honour, not for long life.' Father of Sigurd the Crusader; the viking age's last royal flourish.