Matheson Collection > Macleods of Dunvegan from the time of Leod to the end of the seventeenth century

i8 THE MACLEODS OF DUNVEGAN
(see page 197) is an emphatic statement that the
MacLeods were of Norse descent, and this lullaby is
probably older than any of the manuscripts.
2. He was certainly a man of ancient and honourable
ancestry. Here again the traditions and manuscripts
agree. According to one tradition, he was the son of a
King of Denmark ; according to three others he was
descended from the royal race who ruled in Man. One
of the manuscripts traces his descent from the heroic
King of Norway, St. Olaf, who was killed in 1030, and
through him from a long line of kings who Uve in the
dim and distant past.
It may be interesting if I give briefly what is known
of some of Leod's most distinguished ancestors. Three
out of the four traditions and two out of three MSS.
trace his descent from ' Ivar the Boneless, High King
of the Norse in Britain and Ireland,' and he was a very
important person indeed. He was the son of Ragnar
Lodbrok, and Ragnar was the son of Sigurd Ring. These
early ancestors of Leod were the most famous men of
their time in all Scandinavia. Sigurd Ring, whose
adventures are related in the Volsunga Saga, was King
of Denmark and Sweden, and also, the sagas tell us, of
Viken (Oslo) in Norway.
He was a famous Viking ; he commanded the Danish
fleets which destroyed Lindisfarne in 793, and harried
all Northumberland, which indeed he claimed to have
conquered. He appears to have ravaged many places
in England, France, and Ireland, and to have gone as
far as the Mediterranean.
His son, Ragnar Lodbrok, whose life is recorded in
a saga which bears his name, was even more famous than
his father. He also was King of Denmark and Sweden,
and perhaps the most formidable of aU the Vikings. He
commanded the Danes who attacked Paris in 845, and
carried the dread of his name over the whole seaboard