King IVAR the BONELESS was Prince IVAR (Igor) of KIEV and his son

King SWEYN ‘FORKBEARD’ IVARSON was Prince SVEINALD (Sviatoslav) of KIEV

I have just posted a first draft of Chapter 16,  ‘THE RAPE OF HRAEGUNEDA OF POLOTSK’ of “The Saga of Svein ‘the Old’ Ivarson” Book Four to the website SeiberTeck.com under the Book Heading of that name.

Sweyn Forkbeard by L. Frolich 1883

Book 4, Chapter 16, ‘THE RAPE OF HRAEGUNEDA OF POLOTSK’  (Circa 978-980 AD): 

Taken right out of The Russian Primary Chronicle, THE RAPE OF HRAEGUNEDA OF POLOTSK was so violent, I had to reduce the level a bit, but just a bit, however, Please Note: This website is about Vikings and Varangians and the way they lived over a thousand years ago.  The content is as explicit as Vikings of that time were and scenes of violence and sexuality are depicted without reservation or apology.  Reader discretion is advised.

When Prince Sweyn Forkbeard returned to Hraes’ in the spring of 978 with the great merchant fleet, it was with the intent to learn the truth about the death of his son, Prince Helgi, at the hands of his older son, Prince Ivar.  He left a spy in Kiev, Bjork, a veteran of the Hraes’ legions, to embed himself in the Kievan First Legion to learn firsthand just how the young Prince Helgi had fallen off a moat bridge and had drowned in the waters below.

While in Baghdad, Sweyn tells his grandfather Hraerik about the work they are doing with the famous skald, Eyvindr Skaldspiller, in recording his poems and sagas for posterity.  Then Hraerik tells Sweyn about the work his underwater breathers are doing in recovering sunken gold bullion off the coast of Gujarat in India.  At the end of the trading season, Sweyn meets Bjork in Tmutorokan and is told that Prince Ivar murdered his brother, Prince Helgi, in a fit of fratricide.  Hraerik tells Sweyn that he knows what must be done.

(979)  Over the winter, Sweyn and Aud record the works of Eyvindr the skald on vellum in the miniscule font of Alcuin and Sweyn takes Aud and their work east with the trading fleet and leaves both of them in Tmutorokan.  He trades all summer with his Varangians in Baghdad and, when he returns to Kiev, he receives confirmation that Prince Ivar and some legion officers murdered Prince Helgi.  Sweyn has the legion officers secretly killed, but he decides to spare his son.

Meanwhile, in Novgorod, Prince Valdamar turned twelve, marriageable age, so he bought himself two Anglish slave girls as concubine wives and wasted no time getting them pregnant.  Then he turned his sights to Polotsk and proposed marriage to Princess Hraeguneda, the twelve year old daughter of Prince Hraegvolod, a named Hraes’ merchant of the town.  When he was refused in a demeaning fashion he responded by raping Hraeguneda in front of her family and taking her back to Novgorod by force.  This raised the ire of his older brother, Prince Ivar.  Things get complicated…

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.