I have just posted a first draft of Chapter 5,  ‘THE BATTLE OF SARKEL’  (Circa 962-963 AD) of “The Saga of Svein ‘the Old’ Ivarson” Book to the website SeiberTeck.com under the Book Heading of that name.

Book 4, Chapter 5, THE BATTLE OF SARKEL: 

First off, I’ve had some questions on the quotations at the start of each chapter.  They are stanzas from an ancient Viking poem called Grottasongr out of the Prose Edda book.  It is the song of the grinders, two female giants who use a magical millstone to grind gold for King Frodi.  I have interpreted the magical millstone as representing the Southern Way through Frodi’s conquered city of Kiev and the ground gold is the gold gained through the sale of furs and slaves, the Fenja and the Menja, of the Dan’Way and Nor’Way.  The two giant sisters are actually Prince Hraerik (Rurik) and King Hraelauger (Rollo) of Norway who helped Frodi establish the Hraes’ (Rus’) Trading Empire, so some stanzas have an A added behind the number with the verses describing the two brothers in lieu of the giants.  Prince Hraerik (Rurik) is the original founder of Russia in the east and King Hraelauger (Rollo) is the original founder of Normandy in the west, with King Frodi being the king of Denmark in the center.

In Chapter 5, Prince Svein takes his new Seventh Kievan Legion up the Don River, past the fortress of Sarkel to the land of the Vyats and he learns that they pay a silver piece per ploughshare to the Khazars, and Svein tells them that soon they will be paying that tithe to the Hraes’ instead.  Then Prince Svein took his three new legions east and conquered the Kasogians to gain their tithes of silver and he planned to attack the Ossetians the next year to gain their tithes.

When Prince Hraerik arrives in India with his trading fleet, he finds that the Chaulukyan Empire still controls the provinces of Gujarat and Maharashtra and only the Jat cities of Ashaval and Mumba have maintained their independence.  In Ashaval, Hraerik begins giving Chauluk princesses his Aesir blessing as well as the usual Jat princesses.  And he adds the wants of Chauluk women to his Norse translation of the Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana.  Hraerik then went to Mumba and spent some time with his wives there while trading.

In the spring of 963, Prince Svein was preparing to attack the Ossetians when he learns that Emperor Romanos had just died and Empress Theophano had put her young sons Basil and Constantine on the throne.  By rights of Roman succession, he, Svein, as foster son of Constantine, was next in line for the laurel wreath and Empress Helga agreed.  Empress Helga and Prince Svein led a merchant fleet of twelve hundred ships to Constantinople and Prince Hraerik followed with a war fleet of six hundred warships and three new legions, the Fifth, Sixth and Seventh Legions to make Svein’s claim to the throne.  Empress Theophano countered with a future consideration of co-Emperorship and a present payment of ten thousand pounds of gold for the destruction of the Khazar Fortress of Sarkel because the Khazars had been attacking Roman cities around Cherson.  Shortly after, the Roman general Nikephoros Phokas enters Constantinople and rapes Empress Theophano and makes himself co-Emperor along with her young sons.  Svein takes his gold and sets his sights on both the Ossetians and the Khazar fortress of Sarkel.

And Happy April Fools Day!  April First was an old pagan holiday in the Aesir Hethin religion, so the newly converted Christians would call the heathens who celebrated it ‘April Fools’.

Book Four, “The Saga of Svein ‘the Old’ Ivarson,” demonstrates how Prince Svein ‘the Old’ (Slavic: Sviatoslav ‘the Brave’) of Kiev later moved to Norway and fought to become King Sweyn Forkbeard of Denmark.  But before being forced out of Russia, he sated his battle lust by crushing the Khazars and attacking the great great grandfather of Vlad the Impaler in a bloody campaign into the Heart of Darkness of Wallachia against the Army of the Impalers and their 666 salute.  The campaign was so mortifying that the fifteen thousand pounds of gold that the Emperor of Constantinople paid him to attack them seemed not nearly enough, so Prince Svein attacked the Eastern Roman Empire itself.  He came so close to defeating the greatest empire in the world, that later Danish Christian Kings would call his saga, and the sagas of his kin, “The Lying Sagas of Denmark” and set out to destroy them.