Ragnvald the Mountain-High

Who is Ragnvald the Mountain-High?

Ragnvald "the Mountain-High" Olafsson was a petty king of Vestfold in what is today Norway. He was the son of Olaf Geirstad-Alf.

His greatest contribution to posterity was that he asked the skald Þjóðólfr of Hvinir to compose a poem about his ancestry. This poem is known as Ynglingatal and is not only one of the oldest, but also one of the most famous and debated of the Old Norse poems.

Þjóðólfr ended the poem with these lines:

The 13th century history Heimskringla, which used Ynglingatal as a source but contains much additional material that is not considered reliable, makes him a cousin of Harald Fairhair, while late and dubious pedigree material assigns him a daughter Åsa Ragnvaldsdatter, who married Eystein Ivarsson. As a purported ancestor to William the Conqueror, it would be through this connection with Ivarsson that the current British royal family traces its roots all the way back to the Yngling bloodline mentioned in, among other sources, Beowulf.