The Rise and Fall of Sigurd the Mighty, 872-892 ADAround 872 AD Norway became a unified kingdom, bri

The Rise and Fall of Sigurd the Mighty, 872-892 ADAround 872 AD Norway became a unified kingdom, bringing with it a measure of law and order that it had never had before.  The new Kingdom of Norway quashed the pirate Vikings who had raided the Norwegian coast for generations.  Norway was no longer ripe for plundering.Many Vikings who still had a lust for blood and treasure settled on the Orkney Islands (located North of Scotland) to continue their raids on the British Isles and mainland Europe.  One such Viking, Sigurd Eysteinsson a.k.a Sigurd the Mighty, had the luck of inheriting the title “Earl of Orkney” from his brother.  A mighty warrior and all around badass, Sigurd the Mighty was not content to be a pirate or a minor noble of some small islands.  Sigurd lusted for conquest, power, and a kingdom of his own.  After building an army Sigurd managed to conqueror territory in the north of Scotland.  In 892 Sigurd cast his eye on the Kingdom of Moray, a territory which includes Inverness, the Great Glen, Buchan, Mar, and Ross.  He challenged the King of Moray, Mael Brigte “the Bucktoothed”, to a 40 man per side battle.  While Sigurd the Mighty may have been a mighty warrior and badass Viking, he was also a scoundrel.  Sigurd cheated and brought 80 men, who easily overwhelmed and defeated Brigte’s force.Sigurd the Mighty had Brigte beheaded, then had Brigte’s head strapped to his saddle as a trophy.  As Sigurd rode triumphantly Brigte’s large buck teeth scratched his leg.  The scratch quickly developed a nasty infection and became gangrenous.  Without modern antibiotics there was nothing Sigurd could do to stop the infection; when it came to battling micro-organisms Sigurd wasn’t so mighty.  Eventually the infection turned into blood-poisoning and poor Sigurd fell into septic shock and died. -- source link

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