Ragnar Lothbrook is one of the most famous Vikings in history, but his brother, Rollo, is also a major player in the Viking saga. So, who was the real Rollo Lothbrook?

Well, the chances are pretty good that he wasn't a "Lothbrook" to begin with! In fact, the chances are pretty high that, in The History Channel's saga, it was ROLLO, not Ragnar, that made the biggest impact on England.

Rollo (c. 846 - c. 931), who was baptized Robert and so is sometimes numbered Robert I to distinguish him from descendants, was a Norse nobleman of Norwegian or Danish descent. He was founder and first ruler of the Viking principality which soon became known as Normandy. His descendants were the Dukes of Normandy, and following the Norman conquest of England in 1066, kings of England.

Rollo was a powerful Viking leader of contested origin. Dudo of Saint-Quentin tells of a powerful Danish nobleman at loggerheads with the king of Denmark, who had two sons, Gurim and Rollo. Upon his death, Rollo was expelled and Gurim killed. William of Jumièges also mentions Rollo's prehistory, but states that he was from the Danish town of Fakse. Wace, writing some 300 years after the event in his Roman de Rou, also mentions the two brothers (as Garin and Rou), as does the Orkneyinga Saga.

Norwegian and Icelandic historians identified Rollo instead with Ganger Hrolf (Hrolf, the Walker), a son of Rognvald Eysteinsson, Earl of Møre, in Western Norway, based on medieval Norwegian and Icelandic sagas. The oldest source of this version is the Latin Historia Norvegiae, written in Norway at the end of the 12th century. This Hrolf fell foul of the Norwegian king Harald Fairhair and became a Jarl in Normandy. The nickname "the Walker," or "Ganger" in Norse, came from being so big that no horse could carry him.

Rollo is the great-great-great-grandfather of William the Conqueror. Through William, he is an ancestor of the present-day British royal family, as well as an ancestor of all current European monarchs and a great many pretenders to abolished European thrones. A genetic investigation into the remains of Rollo's grandson Richard I and great-grandson Richard II has been announced, with the intention of discerning the origins of the famous Viking warrior.

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