Yngvar
When Yngvar was very young his family were very poor. So poor in fact that they were on the edge of starvation. They worried what they should do to get money for food and went to their village Skald for advice. She told them that they should not have worried about food as they had an extremely valuable treasure in the family and they should sell it and they would have eating money for years. It took Yngvar's mother a while to realise that the Skald was talking about her youngest son. Yngvar was a boy with red hair. Red haired boys were valued above all others by the dyers for the quality of their urine and all dyers would pay a fortune for a red-headed boy. Their urine was used in the preparation of the most expensive of the Viking dyes, the brilliant blue that was obtained from the woad plant by allowing the woad and urine to ferment together for six weeks.When puberty arrived for Yngvar and his urine was no longer of any use to the dyer she sold him to the village leather-crafter where he learned to make shoes and other leather goods. When the leather-crafter died Yngvar was put up for sale by the leather worker's brother with all the other property of the dead man, as he had no sons to inherit it.
At this time Hrolf Dugnallson was in the town looking for a gift for his wife, Vara. As she was always telling him that their household was getting too big to be run without more slaves he thought a new slave would make an ideal gift. He bought Yngvar and thought his wife would be more than happy with him. Yngvar was a bit older than most of the slaves sold on that day and so he was considerably cheaper, but Hrolf saw that he had the right number of arms and legs and did not seem about to fall over just yet.
The Lady Vara was pleased when her husband sent word that he was returning with just the gift she wanted and she planned what additional work would be possible with the addition of new pair of hands. She rearranged her whole household and planned to use Yngvar in the kitchen. No one had told her that he was a skilled leather worker and Yngvar did not volunteer the information at the time.
Yngvar soon found out that kitchen work did not suit him. He had thought that this would be an easy way of getting extra food but when he discovered how hard the work was he decided it was time to have a talk with his mistress. Lady Vara was pleased to discover that she had a secret treasure in her kitchen. Her husband had only paid the price of an elderly kitchen slave and now she found she had a skilled craftsman in her household. She supplied him with leather and tools and Yngvar soon proved he was every bit as skilled as he claimed to be.
Very recently Yngvar was granted his freedom.