1. Sigfrid – alias Sigurd, the nephew of Godefrid, King of the Danes, or, perhaps more accurately, as ruler in Hedeby, a modern spelling of the runic Heiðabý(r), which was an important trading settlement in the Danish-German borderland, located towards the southern end of the Jutland Peninsula.
1.1. Reginheri – alias Ragnar Lodbrok, the leader of the Viking attack on Paris in 845. The first recorded instance of the names being so used [Ragnar + Lodbrok] is Ari Þorgilsson’s reference to Ívarr Ragnarssonr loðbrókar in his Íslendingabók, written between 1120 and 1133 [McTurk, Studies in Ragnars saga loðbrókar and its major Scandinavian analogues, 1991].
1.1.1. Ivar – alias Ivarr Ragnarssonr loðbrókar, with many variations, including Inguar/Hinguar/Ingar, which seem to be variants of the Norse name Ingharr, literally meaning the chieftain’s army, from the adjective element ing, meaning the first one/ahead of all others. His nickname, ‘beinlauss’, is wrongly interpreted as ‘boneless’, reflecting a misunderstanding of the written source of exosus [cruel], which was abbreviated to exos [boneless], hence stories invented to explain this strange epithet. Exosus accords well with Adam of Bremen’s description of Ivarr as crudelissimusis [J. de Vries, ‘Die westnordische Tradition der Sage von Ragnar Lodbrok’. Zeitschrift für deutsche Philologie 53, 257-302, 1928]. Traditionally, Ivar has been assigned two sons, viz. Sitric [Sigtryggr]; and Godfrey [so called in Cod. Clarendon, tom. 47], alias Guthfrith. Sitric I. is not known to have left any descendants; thus Guthfrith is assumed to have had had four sons, Anlaf, Guthfrith; Ragnal alias Ragenold, and Sitric II. I would consider it more reasonable that, as a son was rarely named after his father in this period, Sitric I. was the father of Guthfrith II., and Guthfrith I. was father of Sitric II.; a view partly supported by Adam of Bremen, who identifies only Ragnall and Sitric as the sons of Guthfrith Ivarsson, on the authority of a work not now extant.
1.1.1.1. Sitric 1 [Sigtryggr].
1.1.1.1.1. Guthfrith Sigtryggsson, Gofraid ua Ímair, king of York in 927. Died 934. The first report of Guthfrith is in 918, when he accompanied Ragnall’s expedition to Northumbria.
1.1.1.1.1.1. Olaf Guthfrithson/Óláfr Guðfriðarson/Ánláf King of Dublin from 934 to 941. He married the daughter of king Constantine II of Scotland. in 939, he invaded York, forcing Athelstan’s successor, Edmund, into a treaty which ceded to Olaf Northumbria and part of Mercia. Died 941. Bore the raven emblem.
1.1.1.1.1.2. Blacair Guthfrithson, jarl of Dublin, 943.
1.1.1.2. Guthfrith Ivarsson – alias Guthfrith, “Duke of Frisia” and ruler in Dublin [883]. The Danish Viking leader who had probably been with the Great Heathen Army [led by Sigifridus, 882-6], which descended on the Continent. He became a vassal of the Emperor Charles III., after that ruler sued for peace, giving Godfrey most of Frisia to rule. Charles also gave him Gisela [865-908], illegitimate daughter of King Lothair II. [839-869], as his wife.
1.1.1.2.1. Sitric II. He commanded Viking forces in the Battle of Confey and other battles, the Annals of Ulster records the arrival of two viking fleets in Ireland in 917, one led by Ragnall ua Ímair and the other by Sitric, both of the House of Ivar. It may be worth noting that ‘Torf le Riche’ held the fief of Trigevilla ( the vil of Sigtryggr als Sitric), in Normandy.
1.1.1.2.1.1. Harald: ‘Aralt [great] grandson of Ivar and son of Sitric lord of the foreigners of Limerick’ [Four M.]. Harald was also known as Harald ua Imair, proposed as synonomous with Harald of Bayeux, noted ally of Rollo’s family, who came to hold land between Bayeux and Coutances, possibly connected to the family of the Duchess Gunnor, and the person called on for assistance by Bernard the Dane when the Scandinavian colonists came under attack by Frankish forces [Hudson, Viking Pirates, p. 65, 2005].
1.1.1.2.2. Bernard the Dane. (Beorn) ‘Of the blood royal of Saxony’. Lothair II had one son and probably three daughters, all by Waldrada, and all of whom were declared illegitimate: Waldreda was the niece of Gunther or Gunthar (German: Günther; died 8 July 873); Archbishop of Cologne in Germany from 850 until he was excommunicated and deposed in 863.
1.1.1.2.3. Ragnall ua Ímair. The identity between the Ragnall of the Irish Sea and Ragnald of northern Britain is no longer in doubt. (Downham, Viking Kings, p. 94). I equate him with this Ragnall: The annalist Flodoard mentioned a Viking named Ragenold, like Rollo, called princeps Nortmannorum, leader of the Loire Vikings, who were regarded as a menace, especially to Brittany. He is noted as being a man of Rollo, who attended the coronation of Rollo’s son, William Longsword, in 931, and was probably of Rollo’s family [A. Hugo, France Historique, p. 416, 1837]. ‘In 924 Ragenold, although he had accepted a grant of lands within the borders of France, laid waste the country of Duke Hugh’ [Reginald Lane Poole, The English Historical Review, p. 16, 1911]. Later that year, Ragenold was party to a treaty with Hugues le Grand, in which he relinquished lands he had siezed in Maine [Bulletin de la Société d’agriculture, sciences et arts de la Sarthe, xiii., 1858]. Although Ragenold was not Rollo, with whom he has been confounded, he places Rollo within the Hiberno-Norse kinship network as the ui Imhair.
1.1.1.3. Osketil – if he can be the same Ketil that was said by Richer of Reims [Historia, i, 28 (vol. 1, p. 62] to be the father of Rollo [‘filio Catilli’], then Rollo is closely related to the Dano-Hibernian family of the Ui Imair. Writing a generation after Roll, Flodoard describes Rollo’s son, William Longsword as having a mother ‘concubina Brittana’. The contemporary Frankish eulogy, ‘lament for William’, seems to suggest that Brittana equates to Britain rather than Brittany. This identification of Rollo’s father is supported by David Crouch [The Normans: the history of a dynasty, pp. 297-300, 2002]. Professor Crouch also suggests that Rollo’s uncle was probably someone called Malahulc, identified by Orderic Vitalis c. 1113 [GND, ii., 94-5, Musset, 1977, 48-9], but not known from any other source, whom I would equate with Helgi, alias Hulci. Rollo and Helgi were more likely second-cousins.
1.1.2. Healfdene – The Albann/Healfdene of the Annals of Ulster and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, mentioned above, may also be identified with an Halbdeni mentioned in the Annales Fuldenses for 873 as the brother of the Danish king Sigifridus and as active on the European continent [in Metz] in that year.
1.1.3. Sigifridus Ragnarsson – alias Sigurðr ormr-í-auga – ‘king’ in Denmark in 873. In this year, Hedeby, and thus the fortress of Hochburg, was controlled by Sigifridus, who negotiated its trade with King Ludwig of Germany [Angelo Forte, Richard D. Oram, Frederik Pedersen, Viking Empires, p. 46, 2005]. According to the testimony of Svein II. Estridsen, Sigfrid was succeeded as a king in Denmark by Helgi, probably after the battle on the Dyle in 891 [Gwyn Jones, A History of the Vikings, p. 111, 2001].
1.1.3.1. Helgi, who succeeded his father as ruler of Hedeby. I would further suggest that Helgi was the father of Gorm the Old [Gorm den Gamle], who is mentioned in the work called Cogadh Gall fri Gaedh-alaibh under the name of Tamar Mac Elgi. In the copy of that work preserved in the Library of Trinity College, Dublin, H. 2, 17, p. 359, he is said to have come with a royal great fleet, some time after the death of the monarch Niall Glun-dubh, who was slain in the year 915, and to have put in at Inis Sibtond, at Limerick. This is evidently the Tamar mac Elgi of H. 2, 17, the ‘earl of the strangers in Limerick’. “Tomar = Gormo Gamle, called by the Irish Tomar” [Great Britain. Public Record Office Rerum Britannicarum Medii Ævi Scriptores: Or, Chronicles and Memorials of Great Britain and Ireland During the Middle Ages, p. 264, 1965].
1.1.3.1.1. Gorm den Gamle – alias Gorm the Old – ruler in Jutland – father of King Harald Gormsson [Bluetooth].

Much of ‘le Danois’ section of the early Norman colonisers probably derived from this kinship group.

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