Eric Bloodaxe

Eric Bloodaxe
Coin of Eirik Bloodaxe. The legend reads "ERIC REX" (King Eric) (at British Museum)
King of Norway
Reign	931–933
Predecessor	Harald I
Successor	Haakon I
King of Northumbria
Reign	947–948 952–954
Predecessor	Edmund I Amlaíb Cuarán
Successor	Amlaíb Cuarán Eadred
Died	954 Britain or Spain
Spouse	Gunnhild, Mother of Kings
Issue	Gamle Guttorm Harald II of Norway Ragnfrød Erling Gudrød Sigurd Sleva Ragnhild
Dynasty	Fairhair dynasty
Father	Harold Fairhair
Mother	Ragnhild, daughter of Eric of Jutland
Religion	Norse paganism

Eric Haraldsson (Old Norse: Eiríkr Haraldsson, Norwegian: Eirik Haraldsson; c. 885 – 954), nicknamed Eric Bloodaxe (Old Norse: Eiríkr blóðøx, Norwegian: Eirik Blodøks), was a 10th-century Norwegian ruler. He is thought to have had short-lived terms as King of Norway and twice as King of Northumbria (c. 947–948 and 952–954).

Historians have reconstructed a narrative of Eric's life and career from the scant available historical data. There is a distinction between contemporary or near contemporary sources for Eric's period as ruler of Northumbria, and the entirely saga-based sources that detail the life of Eric of Norway, a chieftain who ruled the Norwegian Westland in the 930s. Norse sources have identified the two as the same since the late 12th century, and while the subject was controversial among early modern historians, most historians have identified the two figures as the same since W. G. Collingwood's article in 1901. This identification has been rejected recently by the historian Claire Downham, who argued that later Norse writers synthesized the two Erics, possibly using English sources. This argument, though respected by other historians in the area, has not produced consensus.

Contemporary or near-contemporary sources include different recensions of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Eric's coinage, the Life of St Cathróe, and possibly skaldic poetry. Such sources reproduce only a hazy image of Eric's activities in Anglo-Saxon England.

Strikingly, Eric's historical obscurity stands in sharp contrast to the wealth of legendary depictions in the kings' sagas, where he takes part in the sagas of his father Harald Fairhair and his younger half-brother Haakon the Good. These include the late 12th-century Norwegian synoptics – Historia Norwegiæ (perhaps c. 1170), Theodoricus monachus' Historia de antiquitate regum Norwagiensium (c. 1180), and Ágrip af Nóregskonungasögum (c. 1190) – and the later Icelandic kings' sagas Orkneyinga saga (c. 1200), Fagrskinna (c. 1225), the Heimskringla ascribed to Snorri Sturluson (c. 1230), Egils saga (1220 - 1240), and Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar en mesta (c. 1300). Exactly in what sense the Eric of the sagas may have been based on the historical Eric of Northumbria, and conversely, to what extent later evidence might be called upon to shed light on the historical figure, are matters which have inspired a variety of approaches and suggestions among generations of historians. Current opinion veers towards a more critical attitude towards the use of sagas as historical sources for the period before the 11th century, but conclusive answers cannot be offered.