Terrible to us, but glorious to Denmark, was the name of Ragnar. Once we had it peacefully in East Anglia, as Raginhere, the warrior of judgment, but in that same East Anglia it was to have a deadly fame. The historical Ragnar seems to have been decorated with a few mythical exploits of some more ancient hero, for he is one of the dragon killers. His first wife, Thyra, had her bower encircled by a deadly poisonous serpent, the ravager of the whole country, until he won her hand by the slaughter of the serpent, having guarded himself from its venom by a suit of hairy garments covered with pitch, whence he obtained the soubriquet of Lodbrog. Afterwards he married a poor but beautiful maiden called Krake, who, after she had borne him four sons, disclosed that she was the last of the Wolsungen, the daughter of Sigurd and Brynhild. Nay, Icelandic families connect themselves through her with the heroes of Wurms! And after this it is strange to find Jarl Ragnar sailing up the Seine, and ravaging Paris, in the days of Charles the Bald, being in fact the Agramante of the poets. Again he was the cause of bitter woe to England, falling into the hands of King Ælle of Northumbria, and being put to death by being thrown into a pit filled with vipers, where, till his last breath, he chanted the grand death song that is worthy to stand beside the dirge of King Eric Blödaxe. It was revenge for his death that brought his fierce sons with that dire armament which ravaged England—the invasion that was fatal to Edmund of East Anglia, ruined the great abbeys of the fens, and though finally mastered by Alfred, made the North of England Danish. This name of dread was brought to Normandy by his kindred, and figures in Domesday as Raynar, a frequent surname in England. In France it was cut down to René, a name that crept into the House of Anjou, and was bestowed on the prince—too much of a troubadour and knight-errant for a king—who vainly tried on so many crowns, and was hated in England because ‘Suffolk gave two dukedoms for his daughter.’ Why the feminine of this name, Renée, was chosen for the younger daughter of Louis XII., does not appear, but when she married into the House of Este, it was translated into Renata, and the Italians, in their revived classicalism, seem to have fancied it had some connection with regeneration. Renira is the Dutch feminine form.
| English. | French. | Provençal. | German. |
| Rayner | Reignier | Raynier | Reiner |
| Rainer | Renier | Italian. | Nor. |
| René | Renato | Ragnar | |
| Ranieri |
Raginmar, great judgment, still exists in Germany, as Reinmar, or Reimar, and is the most probable origin of the Ramiro, so frequent among the early kings of the small struggling Pyrenean realms.
Ragnhild, a favourite with old Norwegian dames, has become in Lapp, Ranna.
The German contraction rein has been often translated into pure, but this is an error, as these names can almost uniformly be traced back to ragn.
The remaining forms are—
| German. | English. | ||
| Ragnfrid, M. Ragnfrida, F. | Renfred, M. Ragnfrida, F. |  | Judgment of peace |
| Nor. | |||
| Ragnfrid, F. Ragnrid, F. Randid, F. Randi, F. |  | Fair judgment | |
| Ger. | Prov. | ||
| Raginbald Reinbold Renbold Rembald | Rambauld | | Prince of judgment |
| Ger. Reginbrecht, Reinbert—Splendour of judgment | |||
| Nor. Ragenheid—Wise impulse | |||
| Ger. Reinger—Spear of judgment | |||
| Nor. Reginleif—Relic of judgment | |||
| German. | Frisian. | ||
| Raginward Reinward | Remward Renward Remma | | Guardian of judgment |
And lastly Regina, called in Bavaria Reigl and Regl, was originally less the Latin queen than the feminine of ragn. Nor in effect is the meaning far apart.[[140]]
[140]. Roscoe, Bojardo and Ariosto; Sismondi, Histoire de France; Mallet; Northern Antiquities; Spanish Ballads.