Ragnar Lodbrok

Ragnar Lodbrok has no awards in the modern sense, but he has something rarer: a place in the founding narrative of the Viking Age. The Great Heathen Army of 865 is tied to his sons in the tradition, which makes him the ancestral figure of the invasions that reshaped England. His saga is one of the most copied and adapted texts of the medieval North, and the snake pit scene is one of the most quoted death scenes in Norse literature. In the modern era the measure is reach rather than trophies: six seasons of Vikings, a playable role in World of Warships in 2025, and a London immersive exhibition in 2026.