Vikings T.V. Show Season 2 Cast News and History: Who Was the Real Princess Aslaug?
Another episode of Vikings airs tonight at 10 p.m. on The History Channel, and of course, we can expect more trials, travails, and tribulations from the Lothbrook family... which includes Princess Aslaug, played by Australian actress and model Alyssa Sutherland. While Aslaug has an amazing story on Vikings, we were left to wonder -- who is the real Princess Aslaug?
Aslaug, also called Aslög, Kráka, Kraba or Randalin, was a queen in Norse mythology who appears in Snorri's Edda, the Völsunga saga and in the saga of Ragnar Lodbrok as his wife.
According to the thirteenth-century Tale of Ragnar Lodbrok, Aslaug was the daughter of Sigurd and the shieldmaiden Brynhildr, but was raised by Brynhildr's foster father Heimer. At the deaths of Sigurd and Brynhildr, Heimer was concerned about Aslaug's security, so he made a harp large enough to hide the girl.
He then traveled as a poor harp player carrying the harp containing the girl. They arrived at Spangereid at Lindesnes in Norway, where they stayed for the night in the house of the peasants áke and Grima. Áke believed the harp contained valuable items and told his wife Grima. Grima then convinced him to murder Heimer as he was sleeping. However, when they broke the harp open, they discovered a little girl, whom they raised as their own, calling her Kráka ("Crow"). In order to hide her beauty -- the accepted sign of her noble origins -- they rubbed her in tar and dressed her in a long hood.
However, once as she was bathing she was discovered by some of the men of the legendary king Ragnar Lodbrok. Confused by Kráka's beauty, they allowed the bread they were baking to burn; when Ragnar inquired about this mishap, they told him about the girl. Ragnar then sent for her, but in order to test her wits, he commanded her to arrive neither dressed nor undressed, neither hungry nor full, and neither alone nor in company.
Kráka arrived dressed in a net, biting an onion and with only a dog as a companion. Impressed by her ingenuity and finding her a wise companion, Ragnar proposed marriage to her, which she refused until he had accomplished his mission in Norway. She gave him three sons: Ivar the Boneless, Hvitserk, and Ragnvald the Mountain-High.