She is called Gunnhild konungamóðir — Gunnhild, mother of kings. It is the title she earned not through marriage but through survival. Her husband Erik Bloodaxe died at Stainmore in 954, cut down in a battle that ended Norway's pagan royal line. Gunnhild was left with a clutch of sons, no kingdom, and the kind of political mind that does not accept those facts as permanent.
Over the next thirty years she engineered the careers of her sons across two kingdoms, twice came within reach of reclaiming the Norwegian throne, outlasted nearly every opponent she faced, and died in exile still manoeuvring. The title “mother of kings” was not sentimental. It was a job description.
The Sons She Built
Gunnhild and Erik had many children together — the sagas name approximately nine sons and one daughter, a number that itself speaks to the scale of her dynastic project. Their names read like a roll call of 10th-century Scandinavian ambition: Harald Gráfeldr (Greycloak), Gamli, Guðróðr, Erling, Sigurðr Sléfa (Slippery), Rögnvaldr, Rágnfróðr, Gudrod, and Ragnhild their daughter.
The eldest, Harald Greycloak, was the one she invested most heavily in. He was ambitious, loyal to her, and willing to act on her counsel. After Erik's death, when the family fled first to Orkney and then to the court of Harald Bluetooth in Denmark, it was Harald Greycloak who became her instrument for reclaiming what had been lost.
The Years in Exile
The immediate aftermath of Stainmore was not easy. Gunnhild gathered her sons and crossed to Orkney, where Erik had maintained connections with the Norse jarls. Orkney was a staging ground, not a home. She was already thinking further ahead.
From Orkney, the family moved to Denmark and the court of Harald Bluetooth, the Danish king who had recently converted to Christianity and was consolidating power across Scandinavia. Harald Bluetooth had his own reasons for supporting the Bloodaxe sons — a friendly claimant on Norway's throne would be useful. He sheltered them. He gave them ships. He gave them a platform.
Gunnhild spent these years doing what she always did: building alliances, maintaining loyalty among the sons, and watching Norway for an opening.
The War for Norway
The opening came when Hakon the Good — Erik's half-brother, who had taken the Norwegian throne — was finally killed in battle in 961. His killer was Harald Greycloak, Gunnhild's son, fighting with a fleet supplied in part by Danish support.
Harald Greycloak became king. And Gunnhild, for a brief period, was back.
The sagas describe her influence over Harald Greycloak as profound and not entirely healthy for the kingdom. She was accused of encouraging him to act aggressively, to seize resources from powerful jarls, to burn, to confiscate. Whether this reflects her actual counsel or the bias of saga writers who disliked her intensely — and they disliked her intensely — is impossible to say with certainty. What is clear is that Harald Greycloak's reign was turbulent and that he made enemies quickly.
Those enemies, including the powerful Hakon Sigurdsson of Lade, eventually arranged his death in 970, luring him to a meeting in Denmark where he was ambushed and killed. Harald Bluetooth, who had once sheltered the Bloodaxe family, orchestrated the betrayal. Politics in 10th-century Scandinavia was rarely sentimental.
What Happened After
With Harald Greycloak gone, Norway passed to Hakon Sigurdsson. Gunnhild's surviving sons were scattered. She herself remained in Denmark, and the sagas place her final years there — still connected to court, still involved in the networks she had maintained across decades, but no longer with the leverage to direct events.
The manner of her death is disputed. Some sagas suggest she was drowned in a bog on the orders of Hakon Sigurdsson, the man who had undone her last chance at Norway. This may be true. It may be the kind of ending that hostile saga writers wished on a woman who had made their heroes' lives extremely difficult. The sources are not reliable narrators where Gunnhild is concerned.
What is not disputed: she was alive, active, and politically relevant for at least thirty years after her husband's death. She raised a dynasty in exile, placed a son on the Norwegian throne, and negotiated the courts of Orkney, Denmark, and whatever remained of her connections across the North Sea world. The title they gave her was earned.
The Sagas in Mother of Kings
The sagas that survive are almost universally hostile to Gunnhild. Egil's Saga — the most detailed source — makes her a villain: scheming, cruel, sexually predatory, and a practitioner of dark magic. She and the saga's hero Egil Skallagrímsson are enemies throughout, and he is unambiguously the story's hero.
But even through the hostility, certain qualities are consistent. She is intelligent. She is loyal to her family in a way her enemies are not loyal to theirs. She remembers. She plans. The saga writers who wanted to make her monstrous could not quite erase the fact that she was also effective.
A queen whose husband was killed, whose family was exiled, who spent thirty years without a kingdom and still managed to place a son on a throne: this is not a monster. This is someone who understood the world she lived in better than most of the people who opposed her.
The Gunnhild Collection
👉 Gunnhild T-Shirt – Norse Queen, Mother of Kings
👉 Gunnhild Crown Tee – Norse Queen Energy
👉 Gunnhild Hoodie – Norse Queen Energy
👉 Gunnhild Sweatshirt – Norse Queen Energy Embroidered
👉 Eric Bloodaxe T-Shirt – Viking King of Norway & Northumbria
👉 Eric Bloodaxe & Gunnhild Shirt – Viking King and Queen — the two of them together, king and queen side by side
👉 Eric Bloodaxe Gift Tee – Viking King in a Gift Box
👉 Eric Bloodaxe Tote Bag – Viking Royalty Axe Canvas Tote
Further reading: Gunnhild: The Most Dangerous Woman in the Viking Age — Erik Bloodaxe: The Real History — Norse Gifts for Bloodaxe Fans: What to Get Someone Obsessed with the Show