Sometime in 954 AD, on a stretch of bleak moorland in northern England called Stainmore, a small group of Norse warriors was ambushed and killed. Among the dead was a man who had, at various points in his life, been King of Norway and twice King of Northumbria — one of the most powerful political entities in the early medieval British Isles. He died in circumstances still debated by historians, possibly betrayed, possibly simply outmanoeuvred, on ground a long way from the fjords where his story began.
His name was Eiríkr Haraldsson. History remembers him as Erik Bloodaxe.
Amazon Prime Video's upcoming series Bloodaxe — created by Michael Hirst, the man behind the original Vikings series, and already renewed for a second season before its first episode has aired — will bring his story to a global audience in 2027. But the real Erik Bloodaxe is stranger, more contradictory, and considerably more interesting than anything a writers' room could comfortably invent. Here is what actually happened.
The Father: Harald Fairhair and the Unification of Norway
To understand Erik, you have to start with his father.
Harald Harfagri — Harald Fairhair — is one of the most significant figures in Norwegian history, and one of the most difficult to pin down historically. The sagas credit him with unifying Norway under a single king for the first time, after a series of battles that culminated in the naval Battle of Hafrsfjord around 872 AD. Modern historians debate the details, the date, and the extent of that unification, but the broad shape is accepted: Harald spent decades consolidating power over the petty kings and jarls of the Norwegian territories, and by the early 10th century his supremacy was real enough that his sons were fighting each other over who would inherit it.
Harald had many sons — the sagas vary on exactly how many, with figures ranging from a modest several to an improbable twenty. Most of them were by different mothers, as was common for a king accumulating political alliances through marriage. Erik was among the most prominent, and Harald, by most accounts, eventually designated him his primary heir.
The designation came with an obvious problem: Erik's brothers.
How He Got the Name
The sagas are not subtle about what happened. Erik killed his brothers. Several of them. Possibly as many as four or five, depending on which saga you read and how much you trust its arithmetic. Snorri Sturluson's Heimskringla — the great 13th-century compilation of Norse royal history — presents this as a combination of Erik's temperament and political calculation: he was violent by nature, politically ruthless, and understood that a throne with multiple claimants was not a throne for long.
The name Bloodaxe appears in the sources — blóðøx in Old Norse — and is generally taken to refer either to the axe itself (Erik was a known axe-fighter) or to the blood he shed in securing and defending his position. One source describes him simply as brave, strong, and possessed of a formidable axe. The Fagrskinna saga calls him "brawny, bewhiskered, brave," which has the ring of genuine description rather than literary invention.
He ruled Norway from around 930 to 934. His reign was not popular. The sagas describe him as harsh and autocratic, and his wife Gunnhild — of whom more later — was regarded with deep suspicion by the Norwegian nobility. When his younger brother Haakon — raised at the court of King Athelstan of Wessex and later called Haakon the Good — returned to Norway and pressed his own claim to the throne, Erik found support collapsing around him. He fled rather than fight a war he was likely to lose.
He was around thirty-four years old. His story was barely halfway through.
Jorvik: King of the North of England
What happened next is the part of Erik's story that most people do not know, and it is the most extraordinary part.
After his expulsion from Norway, Erik made his way to England — specifically to Northumbria, the northernmost Anglo-Saxon kingdom, whose principal city was Jorvik. We know Jorvik today as York. In the 10th century it was one of the largest and most cosmopolitan cities in northern Europe: a trading hub connected by river and sea to Scandinavia, the Baltic, Ireland, and the Mediterranean. Its streets were crowded with Norse settlers who had arrived in multiple waves of immigration since the late 9th century. The Coppergate excavations in the 1970s and 80s — which uncovered a remarkable slice of 10th-century Jorvik, now reconstructed in the Jorvik Viking Centre — revealed a city of extraordinary vitality, with craft workshops, imported goods from across the known world, and a population that spoke Old Norse as comfortably as Old English.
For a deposed Norwegian king with military experience and a Norse power base, Jorvik was a natural destination.
Erik became King of Northumbria twice. The first reign, from 947 to 948, ended when he was expelled by the Northumbrian nobility. The second, from 952 to 954, ended at Stainmore. In between those reigns — a period of roughly four years — he operated somewhere in the Viking world, possibly raiding, possibly at the Scottish court, possibly in Ireland. The sources are thin. What they agree on is that he returned to Northumbria a second time and held it until his death.
The sagas picture him in Jorvik with Gunnhild at his side, holding a rain-soaked northern court, surrounded by Norse warriors in a city that spoke his language but owed him uncertain loyalty. It is a compelling image — the exiled king of Norway, reinvented as the Norse king of a rain-grey English city, presiding over a court that knew him primarily as a man who had run out of other options.
The Battle of Stainmore
In 954, the political situation in Northumbria shifted against Erik for the final time. The sources disagree on the details — some suggest treachery from within his own circle, others a coalition of forces under Maccus, son of Anlaf — but the outcome is agreed: Erik, his son Haeric, and his brother Ragnald were killed on the moorland at Stainmore, at a pass in the Pennines that was then, as it is now, a bleak and exposed stretch of upland between the Yorkshire Dales and Cumbria.
His death at Stainmore ended the Scandinavian royal tradition in Jorvik for good. Northumbria was subsequently absorbed into the growing kingdom of England under Eadred of Wessex. The Viking Age in England was not over — it would continue in various forms until 1066 — but the era of Norse kings ruling English cities from Viking courts was finished.
Erik was probably fifty-nine years old. He had been King of Norway, King of Northumbria twice, husband of one of the most formidable women in the Viking Age, and father to a dynasty of sons who would continue fighting for the Norwegian throne for another generation. He died on a moorland pass in the north of England, far from the fjord country where he grew up.
What the Bloodaxe Series Will Cover — and What It Won't Be Able to Fit
Michael Hirst's series focuses on Erik and Gunnhild — the partnership, the ambition, the exile. That is the right choice. The relationship between Erik and Gunnhild is the dramatic heart of his story: two politically minded people operating in a world where power was perpetually contested, navigating courts in Norway, England, Scotland and Denmark, and producing a family that would outlast them both.
What no series will easily fit is the texture of the world they moved through. Jorvik at its height was a city of 10,000–15,000 people — significant for the 10th century — with amber coming in from the Baltic, silk from Byzantium, and craftsmen producing goods of extraordinary sophistication in workshops that archaeology has now partially recovered. The Norse world Erik inhabited was not a world of endless wilderness punctuated by raids. It was a world of trade networks, political marriages, legal assemblies, and literate culture — the sagas that preserve his memory were written in a tradition that valued language and story above almost everything else.
The runes Erik and his contemporaries used were the Elder Futhark — a 24-character alphabet that had been in use across the Germanic world for centuries, carved into weapons, memorial stones, and personal objects. To understand the symbolic world Erik moved through, the rune alphabet is the starting point: Complete Elder Futhark Rune Meanings. And for the story of the woman who may have been the most powerful person in his life: Gunnhild: The Most Dangerous Woman in the Viking Age.
FAQ
Was Erik Bloodaxe a real person?
Yes. Erik Bloodaxe (Old Norse: Eiríkr Haraldsson, c. 895–954) is a historical figure, documented in multiple saga sources including Snorri Sturluson's Heimskringla, the Fagrskinna, and the Egils saga, as well as in Anglo-Saxon chronicle sources relating to the Kingdom of Northumbria. The details of his life — particularly the earlier Norwegian years — are filtered through saga tradition written down two or three centuries later, so they carry the usual caveats about Norse historical sources. The Northumbrian phase of his career is better attested in contemporary or near-contemporary English sources.
Why was he called Bloodaxe?
The name appears in the Old Norse sources as blóðøx and is generally understood to refer either to his skill and violence in battle — specifically with an axe — or to the blood he shed in killing his brothers to consolidate power in Norway. The sagas do not give a single definitive explanation. Some scholars have suggested the name was a posthumous honorific; others treat it as a contemporary description of his fighting style and temperament.
Where is the Amazon Bloodaxe series set?
The series covers Erik's story across multiple settings — Norway and Northumbria being the primary locations. Filming has taken place in Ireland and Iceland. The show was created by Michael Hirst, creator of the original Vikings series, and was renewed for a second season in June 2026, before the first season had aired.
What happened to Gunnhild after Erik's death?
After Erik was killed at Stainmore in 954, Gunnhild took their sons to Denmark, where she sought the support of Harald Bluetooth (her likely kinsman, if she was indeed the daughter of Gorm the Old). From there she operated as a powerful political force behind her sons' various attempts to claim the Norwegian throne. Her son Harald Greycloak ruled Norway from around 961 to 970. Gunnhild eventually spent time in Orkney and is believed to have died around 980. Her story after Stainmore is, in some ways, the more remarkable half of her life.
What is Jorvik and where is it now?
Jorvik was the Norse name for York, in northern England. In the 10th century it was one of the largest and most cosmopolitan cities in Britain, with a large Norse population and trade connections across Europe. The Coppergate excavations in York in the 1970s and 80s uncovered a remarkable preserved section of 10th-century Jorvik, which is now partially reconstructed and displayed in the Jorvik Viking Centre in York — one of the best places in the world to understand what daily life in a Viking Age city actually looked like.