"The top five people in the Norse world 793-1103 AD." Topic

Magnus Barefoot,the last Viking
Skarp-Hedin
Olaf Tryggvason
Eric Bloodaxe,sometime king of York
Thorfinn the Mighty 11th-century Earl of Orkney.

Njáll's son Skarp-Heðinn kills Þráinn on the ice. Family feuds feature prominently in Njáls saga.

Magnus Barefoot's army in Ireland, as imagined in Gustav Storm's 1899 edition of Heimskringla

what about Rollo Göngu-Hrólfr (Gaange Rolf) ?

It is Norman Awareness month after all!

cheers
Matt

Ragnar, considering he lived for several centuries , and Rollo, considering the history of his progeny, seem to be required on the list.

Gaange Rolf , 'cause he was too big for a horse and had to walk. He was a proto Norman and therefore Norse.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rollo

Skarphéðinn Njálsson
born: 960(?) at Bergþórshvol in Landeyjar in Iceland
died: 1011 at Bergþórshvol in Landeyjar in Iceland
married: Þórhildur Hrafnsdóttir
A broad slab of ice, smooth as glass, had formed on the other side of the river, and Thrain and his men were standing in the middle of it. Skarphedin took off into the air and leaped across the river from one ice ledge to the other and made a steady landing and shot into a glide. The ice slab was very smooth, and Skarphedin went along as fast as a bird in flight. Thrain was about to put on his helmet, but Skarphedin came at him first and swung his axe at him and hit him on the head and split it down to the jaw, so that the molars fell out on the ice. This happened in such rapid sequence that no one could land a blow on Skarphedin; he went gliding away at a furious speed. Tjorvi threw a shield in his way, but he hopped over it and kept his balance and glided to the end of the ice slab.

Brennu-Njáls saga, ch. 92
translation: Robert Cook, The Complete Sagas of Icelanders, Leifur Eiriksson Publishing (1997).

Cnut the Great?

Cnut the Great[2] (Old Norse: Knútr inn ríki;[3] c. 995[4] – 12 November 1035), also known as Canute—whose father was Sweyn Forkbeard (which gave him the patronym Sweynsson, Old Norse: Sveinsmoson)—was King of Denmark, England and Norway; together often referred to as the North Sea Empire.

Impressive career!

Harald Hardrada

keep em rolling in boys.
Sigurd the Stout Earl of Orkney, killed at Clontarf is a goodie .
Sigurd Hlodvirsson (circa 960 – 23 April 1014), popularly known as Sigurd the Stout from the Old Norse Sigurðr digri,[2] was an Earl of Orkney. The main sources for his life are the Norse Sagas, which were first written down some two centuries or more after his death. These engaging stories must therefore be treated with caution rather than as reliable historical documents.[3][Note 1]
Sigurd was the son of Hlodvir Thorfinnson and (according to the Norse sagas) a direct descendent of Torf-Einarr Rognvaldson. Sigurd's tenure as earl was apparently free of the kin-strife that beset some other incumbents of this title and he was able to pursue his military ambitions over a wide area. He also held lands in the north of mainland Scotland and in the Sudrøyar, and he may have been instrumental in the defeat of Gofraid mac Arailt, King of the Isles. The Annals of Ulster record his death at the Battle of Clontarf in 1014, the earliest known reference to the earldom of Orkney.
The saga tales draw attention to Sigurd's conversion to Christianity and his use of a totemic raven banner, a symbol of the Norse God Odin. This ambiguous theme and the lack of detailed contemporary records of his life have led to a variety of interpretations of the saga material by modern scholars.

Cnut seems very much required on the list.

You could also add William, Duke of Normandy, since he is a descendant of "Northmen" who settled in that part of France and fits the time span.

Jim

Swein Forkbeard, the one who conquered England, Cnut and Harald Hardrada have a decent claim.
Even Harold II of England had a Danish mother.
St Olaf.
Harald Bluetooth, without whom we'd have a dreadful acronym for wireless thingies.
Skarp-Hedin is cool, but hardly one of the greatest.

Don't forget the Kievan Rus
Oleg of Novgorod
Sviatoslav who carved out for himself the largest state in Europe before his death in ambush.
Vladimir the Great
Mstislav the Great (grandson of Harold Godwinson)

Thor … or course !

Do not underestimate the epic norseness of the name Þórhildur Hrafnsdóttir – "Thor-battle Raven's daughter"

BTW, the History Channel's "Vikings" series starts IIRC tomorrow ?!?!?

I hate that show

It's as close to history that the History Channel gets to these days …

My great great etc etc grandfather spearfreakur.

Gun freak, didn't our ancestors fight each other in a lightning storm on the Isle of Man. Ånsølclåe-ironsphictor and spearfreakur. A titanic båttle it wås.

Hagar the Horrible