Lother
Tyrannical Danish ruler who inaugurated his reign with arrogance and was killed in an insurrection.
Lother is attested in the Gesta Danorum as a ruler who came to power through usurpation and governed tyrannically. Saxo records that Lother "played the king as insupportably as he had played the soldier, inaugurating his reign straightway with arrogance and crime" (Gesta Danorum, Book One). He stripped eminent men of either life or goods, and was eventually killed in an insurrection against his rule (Gesta Danorum, Book One).
The Gesta Danorum provides the sole attestation for Lother, framing him as a cautionary figure whose military prowess did not translate into legitimate kingship. Saxo's parallel construction — "played the king as insupportably as he had played the soldier" — suggests Lother's violence was not new to his reign but merely redirected from external enemies to his own subjects (Gesta Danorum, Book One). The account emphasizes the inevitability of his fall: tyranny provokes insurrection, and Lother dies not in battle against a foreign foe but at the hands of his own people.
Appears in: Beings, Entities in Gesta Danorum (Books I-IX), Norse Tradition
On trail: Genealogies