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 20,  ‘PRINCESS ANNA PORPHYROGENNETOS’ of “The Saga of Svein ‘the Old’ Ivarson” Book Four to the website SeiberTeck.com under the Book Heading of that name.

Book 4, Chapter 20, ‘PRINCESS ANNA PORPHYROGENNETOS  (Circa 986-988 AD):

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.

Prince Valdamar had the Roman city of Cherson, in southern Hraes’, under siege for a few months when King Sweyn came down from Denmark and had a meeting with the Roman Magistrate Kalokyras outside the front gates of the city.  Sweyn demanded his co-Emperorship from the Romans to lift the siege.  Kalokyras told him that the Emperors were not about to give him that, so, he made a suggestion of a demand they might possibly meet.

The Emperors Basil and Constantine had a sister named Anna Porphyrogennetos, meaning born of the purple, with the blood of Augustus Caesar flowing through her veins, and she was available for marriage and, even though the marriage of princesses born of the purple to foreigners was strictly forbidden, she might be available for marriage to a Hraes’ prince because she wasn’t really the Emperors sister, but, rather, their aunt.  She was their father’s sister, Emperor Romanos, and they were both sired by Emperor Constantine the Seventh, only her mother was Queen Helga’s Swedish handmaiden, whom Helga had left behind in Constantinople when she and young Prince Svein has fled the capital after she had married the Emperor.  Queen Helga had left her handmaiden strict instructions to help Emperor Constantine through their trying times ahead and her handmaiden had taken those instructions quite literally and had become pregnant by him.  He died before the baby was born and the handmaiden was shipped back to Hraes’ and the baby girl was raised as Emperor Romanos’ daughter.  Few knew about this and Kalokyras was one of those few.

King Sweyn turned down the suggestion, saying he’d convert to Christianity for the Roman throne, but certainly not for a woman, so, the siege carried on.  Sweyn had a spy within the city walls and the spy sent him a message telling him where the city’s water supply was coming from and that the city would fall in three days if the supply was cut.  Sweyn cut the supply and the city fell and half its citizens were enslaved as per old Vanir Roman law.

Prince Valdamar heard about Kalokyras’ offer of a princess and, always on the lookout for prospective new wives, he told his father that he wanted her.  They offered to return Cherson to the Romans but were given some rather outrageous demands.  Not only would Valdy have to convert to Christianity, but his whole country would as well, plus he would have to supply six thousand knights to help put down an insurrection in Anatolia for the Emperors.  Some bartering took place whereby all conversions were to be voluntary only and King Sweyn and Prince Valdamar took two legions south into Anatolia looking for the rebel, General Bardas Skleros.  But, as usual, anything Sweyn had to do for the Roman Emperors grew quite complicated rather quickly…

While complications do arise, Prince Valdamar and Princess Anna eventually are wed and have many children, each of whom carries the blood of the Caesars in their veins and they rule Hraes’ (Rus’) and they call themselves the Caesars (Czars) of Rus’ (Russia), and the offspring of Hraerik, this Rurikid line of princes, carry the blood of Augustus Caesar in their veins to this day.

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.