Ragnhild Sigurdsdottir

Ragnhild in her dream

Ragnhild Sigurdsdottir (Ragnhild Sigurðardóttir) was the wife of Halvdans the Black ( Halvdan Svarte ; Hálfdan svarti) and mother of Harald I. Hårfagri.

Heimskringla only reports one famous dream about her:

It felt like she was standing in her garden. Then she thought she was pulling a buckle pin from her shirt. While she was still holding it in her hand, it grew in such a way that it soon became a mighty tree sapling. One end extended into the earth and took root there. At the same time, the other end was already in the air. The tree was soon so big that she could hardly see the top. Then he was exceptionally strong. The lowest part was blood red, further up it was beautiful green, further up in the branches it was snow white. The tree had many large branches above and below. The branches were so large that they seemed to stretch across Norway and beyond.

Later, after the description of Harald's funeral, Heimskringla has this dream interpreted. “Smart men assure that Harald Hårfagre was the most beautiful, strongest and most powerful of all men; also generous and amicable to his men. In his youth he was a great warrior, and everyone believes that the big tree his mother dreamed of pointed to him, because the bottom part was red as blood. The fact that the middle part was beautifully green meant the bloom of the empire. The fact that the top of the tree was white indicates that it was of great age. The many branches would have indicated its gender, which was to spread over the whole country. Because since then the kings of Norway have always descended from Halrald Hårfagre. "