The man whose ravages were to eclipse all former pirates was Hastings, who headed the expedition into Touraine. Of him we have no mention in the annals of the north; our only information respecting him is from the French writers,—Dudo of St. Quentin, William of Jumvieges, William of Poictiers, Orderic Vital, Robert Wace, and Benedict of St. Maur. In this absence of Scandinavian authority, the critics of the north have endeavoured to identify him with such of the Swedish, Danish, or Norwegian chiefs, as bore a name kindred with his own. But the account of Wace, however inaccurate in its details, is the only one that can be followed. There was a king of Denmark, says this ecclesiastic, Lotroc, an old man, who had a son called Biorn, surnamed Ironside, from his defensive armour. Finding that his kingdom was too populous, he revived an ancient law, which forced all the sons of a family except one, to seek their fortunes on the deep. A considerable number of vessels being prepared, Biorn was placed over the fleet; but, as his years were yet tender, he was subjected to the councils of Hadding, or Hasting, a veteran chief of the pirates. Who was this king? Modern writers unanimously affirm that he was the celebrated Ragnar Lodbrog. In this case, Biorn could be no other than Biorn Ironside, who, on the death of his father in 794, ascended the throne of the Swedes. Yet how will this chronology agree with the facts? The expedition of Hastings must be referred to the middle of the ninth century; when, if any dependence is to be placed on the critical historians of the north, Biorn had been dead forty years. But wherever the name of this Lodbrog occurs, there is the same chronological confusion; nor can we be surprised that Suhm makes two heroes of that name,—one of the eighth, the other of the ninth century.[282] [Sidenote: 842 to 844.]