Raum (king)

King Raum (Old Norse: Raumr konungr) is the name of at least two legendary kings in Norway. Two related kings named Raum are mentioned in Hversu Noregr byggdist, and one king named Raum is mentioned in Thorsteins saga Víkingssonar. One of the kings in Hversu Noregr byggðist is called Raum the Old (Old Norse: Raumr inn gamli), but it is not explicit whether this refers to the first or second king by that name.

In Thorsteins saga Víkingssonar, Raum is the eponymous ruler of Raumaríki ("Raum's realm", modern day Romerike). In Hversu Noregr byggðist, the elder King Raum is the namesake of Raumsdal ("Raum's dale", modern day Romsdal), an area of land he gave to his son Jötunbjörn. (These two regions are not near each other, Romerike being in the east of Norway north-east of Oslo and Romsdal being in the west of the country.) In both versions, King Raum (specifically the first of the two Raums in Hversu) is also the namesake of Raumelfr ("Raum's river"); while this name is similar to the modern day Rauma, which runs through Romsdal, the name Raumelfr was also used in Old Norse to refer to the river now called the Glomma.

In Old Norse, the word raum or raumr was a partly disparaging term for men who were both large and ugly. According to Thorsteins saga Víkingssonar, this term came to be used because King Raum had been ugly-looking (ljótr). Although no such connection is made between the word raum and the name King Raum in Hversu Noregr byggðist, the word is used to refer to another individual: Ketil Raum, i.e. Ketil the Ugly, the great-great-grandson of the younger King Raum. (Ketil Raum appears in Vatnsdæla saga, where his ancestry is similar to his ancestry in Hversu Noregr byggðist.)