Samo

Samo arrived from Sens as a trader around 623, but the Slavic tribes he dealt with were bleeding under Avar raids. He unified them, led the revolt, and somehow ended up ruling the lot — a Frankish outsider turned rex Sclavorum. In 631 he beat back a three-day Frankish siege at Wogastisburg, flipping the Sorbian ruler Dervan to his side in the process. He ruled until his death around 658, though his sons never took the royal title. Fredegar, writing closest to the events, called him Frankish; later chronicles, and centuries of nationalist mythmaking, have preferred to make him Slavic.