Helge was a

Danish Danish may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to the country of Denmark People * A national or citizen of Denmark, also called a "Dane," see Demographics of Denmark * Culture of Denmark * Danish people or Danes, people with a Danish a ...

king who ruled at the end of the 9th century. There is no contemporary evidence for his existence, since he is only mentioned in a source from the 11th century.

Adam of Bremen's account

Danish

Viking Vikings ; non, víkingr is the modern name given to seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway and Sweden), who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded and se ...

armies in the

Frankish Frankish may refer to: * Franks, a Germanic tribe and their culture ** Frankish language or its modern descendants, Franconian languages * Francia, a post-Roman state in France and Germany * East Francia, the successor state to Francia in Germany ...

kingdoms suffered a series of defeats in the late 9th century, culminating with the

Battle of Leuven (891) The Battle of Leuven, also called the Battle of the River Dyle, was fought in September 891 between East Francia and the Vikings. The existence of this battle is known through several different chronicles, including the ''Annales Fuldenses'' and t ...

. In the last-mentioned confrontation the Vikings, according to the ''

Annales Fuldenses The ''Annales Fuldenses'' or ''Annals of Fulda'' are East Frankish chronicles that cover independently the period from the last years of Louis the Pious (died 840) to shortly after the end of effective Carolingian rule in East Francia with the a ...

'' were killed or drowned in the hundreds or thousands, and the Danish kings Sigfred and Gudfred were among the slain. It has been guessed that Sigfred is identical with a king in the Danish homeland mentioned in 873. According to the ecclesiastic chronicle of

Adam of Bremen Adam of Bremen ( la, Adamus Bremensis; german: Adam von Bremen) (before 1050 – 12 October 1081/1085) was a German medieval chronicler. He lived and worked in the second half of the eleventh century. Adam is most famous for his chronicle ''Gesta ...

(c. 1075), a certain king Helge ruled in Denmark after the defeat of the Norsemen. He was beloved by his people on account of his sense of justice and sanctity. Helge's reign ended abruptly when a conqueror called Olof came down from the land of the Swedes. Olof subdued the Danish kingdom with the arms, after which his dynasty ruled for three generations. What happened to Helge we are not told. Adam claims the Danish King Sven Estridsen as his informant; on the request of Adam, the king enumerated his forefathers.

Later accounts

High medieval Norse tradition took up elements of Adam's account and blended them with Scandinavian saga characters. According to the '' Tale of Ragnar's sons'', one of the kings killed in 891 was a son of the Viking ruler

Ragnar Lodbrok according to legends, was a Viking hero and a Danish and Swedish king.Gutenberg Projec ...

Sigurd Snake-in-the-Eye Sigurd Snake-in-the-eye ( non, Sigurðr ormr í auga) or Sigurd Áslaugsson was a semi-legendary Viking warrior and Danish king active from the mid to late 9th century. According to multiple saga sources and Scandinavian histories from the 12th ...

, thus Sigfred of the older sources. His companion Gudfred is identified as Gudrød Olafsson of the

Dagling The Dagling or ''Dögling'' dynasty was a legendary Norse clans, clan of the petty kingdom Ringerike (traditional district), Ringerike in what today is Norway. It was descended from a Dag the Great. In the ''Ynglinga saga'', Snorri Sturluson writes ...

Dynasty of Ringerike in

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the ...

. "Helge the Sharp was the name of Gudrød’s brother. He escaped from the battle with the standard of Sigurd Snake-in-the-Eye, and his sword and shield. He went home to Denmark with his own forces and there found

Aslaug Aslaug ( non, Áslaug ), also called Aslög, Kráka (O.N.: ) or Kraba, is a figure in Norse mythology who appears in Snorri's Edda, the Völsunga saga and in the saga of Ragnar Lodbrok as one of his wives. Aslaug in legend According to the ...

, Sigurd’s mother, and told her the tidings." Since Sigurd's son Hardeknud I was still young, Helge stayed with Aslaug and acted as protector-ruler in Denmark, thus performing the same role as the legendary hero Beowulf in the Geatic court. Later on he married Hardeknud's twin sister Aslaug the Younger and sired a son,

Sigurd Hart Sigurd Hart or Sigurd Hjort was a legendary king of Ringerike (modern central south Norway), during the late 9th or early 10th centuries. he is mentioned in ''Ragnarssona þáttr'' ("The Tale of Ragnar's Sons") and in '' Halvdan Svartes saga'' ("H ...

. Sigurd was a contemporary of the next Danish ruler

Gorm the Old Gorm the Old ( da, Gorm den Gamle; non, Gormr gamli; la, Gormus Senex), also called Gorm the Languid ( da, Gorm Løge, Gorm den Dvaske), was ruler of Denmark, reigning from to his death or a few years later.Lund, N. (2020), p. 147

and acquired the kingdom of Ringerike. He was the maternal grandfather of

Harald Fairhair Harald Fairhair no, Harald hårfagre Modern Icelandic: ( – ) was a Norwegian king. According to traditions current in Norway and Iceland in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, he reigned from 872 to 930 and was the first King of Nor ...

.The Tale of Ragnar's Sons
/ref>

References

{{authority control Danish monarchs 9th-century rulers in Europe

Adam of Bremen's account

Later accounts

See also

References