Book 7, Chapter 21.0, Princess Nado of the Alans (Circa 1033 AD), Excerpts:
(1033 AD) Everything was fine in Chernigov when Prince Hraerik arrived there to pick up Witch Nadege; the ice on the Dnieper was all but gone and the cool spring air fled from the rays of a warm spring sun. But Nadege wanted to stay in the city a little bit longer. “Witch Nado’s brother is coming to the White Castle to visit her and he’s a warlock!” she told the Prince. “They’re a brother and sister warlock-witch team. I can learn so much about Aran witchcraft from them.” The White Castle was Prince Mstislav’s white limestone palace in the center of Chernigov and Prince Alamat of the Burgalty Alans was expected to arrive in a week and would be staying with them there.
“Fine,” Hraerik told her. “When I leave in the morning, you come down to the Dnieper with me and I’ll introduce you to the captain of a longship I’ll leave here for you. He and his crew will be responsible for your safety until I see you in Baghdad. Let him know when you wish to go.” Then they made love for hours. They had been apart all winter and now would only have one brief night together before another month or so of separation. The Prince wished he could stay and meet this Prince Alamat, but he was leading the great merchant fleet to Cherson where he would collect tithes and then release the merchants to service their trade routes to Constantinople and Baghdad and India and Cathay. He had met a few warlocks before, but half the time it was in battle and the warlock was usually trying to kill him.
A week later, Prince Alamat rode into Chernigov on a skittish white war pony while his standard bearer circled the city of Chernigov seven times on his roan stallion. The prince was at the head of his Centuriata, his personal retinue of one hundred and twenty warriors, and they rode to the central square in front of the White Castle, where Prince Mstislav and Princess Nado awaited them. A young boy stood between them and Alamat knew instantly that this was their son, Prince Eustathius, for he wore a white shirt with the tamga of the Burgalty Alans, a two pronged spear, emblazoned upon it in red gold. “Peace to your castle!” Alamat greeted them in Alan.
“And peace to yours,” Prince Mstislav replied in welcome. He had learned the Alan language of his wife because that is what traders did best…learn languages. Alamat dismounted and hugged his sister, then his nephew and then Prince Mstislav he hugged hardest of all. He was tall, like Mstislav, but with long raven locks like his sister, not red gold, like the Hraes’ prince’s. He stopped to study the young boy before him. He too had red gold hair, but the fine looks of his sister and he nodded in approval and beamed radiantly. When their standard bearer rode in and rejoined them after his seven circles of the city, the Centuriata sang their war song, starting in treble. Never before had the Hraes’ of Kiev or of Chernigov heard the Sarmatian song, the war chant of the Alans, and the chorus’ refrain rose up high into the afternoon air.
I have just posted a first draft of Chapter 21.0, Princess Nado of the Alans (Circa 1033 AD), of Book Seven of ‘The Lying Sagas of Denmark’ Series, “The Saga of King Canute ‘the Great’ Sweynson” to the website SeiberTeck.com under the Book Seven Heading.
Mstislav took his wife by the arms and said, “Your brother, Alamat, is in his suite in the castle and lies in bed as if dead, he is drunk, dead drunk. I can’t invite him back, even if I wanted to, and I should help you to our room as well.”
In anger, the princess of the Alans rushed off to her room on her own.
“Where is Eusty?” Misty asked Nadege as she approached.
“Princess Nado put him to bed in your room two hours or so ago,” she said. “This is all so terrible!” she cried. “I must go to my room, too.”
“Could you check on her brother for me? He’s in the master suite so drunk he could be choking on vomit. I have to check on his men, his retinue in the square.” Horses could be heard from without. Suddenly, all in the hall heard the song of the Alans out in the square, but this song was different. “Wake Prince Alamat,” Misty shouted to Nadege as she ran up the stairs. “This song is not for family, but for an enemy. Wake him and I will try to calm them!” Nadege continued up the stairs and Mstislav rushed out to the square. The warriors and their war ponies were prancing in a huge circle around the square and some had their bows out and others brandished sabres.
Prince Mstislav stood on the front porch of the palace and shouted peace offerings to the Centuriata in Alan, but they couldn’t hear him over the clattering of hooves. “Bring me a tablecloth!” Misty shouted to one of the servants and he began gesturing peace signs to the Alan warriors. When the servant returned, Misty began waving the white tablecloth back and forth in the air and it spooked the horses back a bit and the warriors lowered their bows a bit. Witch Nadege was in Prince Alamat’s suite but she couldn’t wake him. He was still dead drunk. She went to her own suite and was getting some smelling salts out of her potions bag when she heard a scream come from the royal couple’s room.
Witch Nadege passed the corked bottle of blood to the standard bearer.
“I’m supposed to take this back to my prince and tell him that Prince Iry Dada came to you in a dream and said that is all the blood he will be getting? He’ll have my head.”
“Prince Alamat is also a warlock and he knows through Nado that I have been possessed by Iry Dada since I killed him in combat and took his wife, Princess Nado. He’ll believe me when I say that Iry Dada came to me.”
“But I don’t believe you,” the standard bearer said.
Misty put his head down and concentrated. “Hector,” he said in Iry Dada’s voice. “Your name is Hector, but it hasn’t always been that. Remember when we were young and we used to call you ‘little shit’? Remember why? When we went into battle you would shit yourself just a little bit. You grew out of it and we started calling you Hector again.”
Hector had begun turning red as the story progressed and, at the end, said, “Any number of Alan warriors could have told you that story while I was passed out last night. Everyone called me ‘little shit’.
“Even your wife?” Iry Dada said. “One day she let it slip to me that during that period when you had sex with her and came in her that you would shit yourself just a little bit. She called you ‘little shit’ once and you slapped her and warned her you’d kill her if she ever told anybody. Don’t kill her for that one little slip, ‘little shit’, because I’m sure she never let it slip again.”
Hector turned beet red and put his head down. “One bottle of blood,” he said, “is all Prince Iry Dada requires.”
Prince Hraerik started laughing when Witch Nadege got to that part of her tale. She had finally made it to Baghdad and was again living in the forecastle cabin of his shieldship. Sex first, story second he had told her when her longship captain gave her over the ship’s rail. “I stopped in at Tmutorokan,” Nadege said, “and visited with Gretta while we sent messengers to the Alans to learn what Prince Alamat’s response to the vile of blood had been. I didn’t want you worrying about war breaking out in Hraes’ while we were here.”
“So, what was Prince Alamat’s answer?” Hraerik asked.
“He took the bottle of blood and accepted Prince Mstislav as his blood brother.”
“And what did Gretta say about it all?”
“Pretty much what Mstislav said: I’m too young and you’re too old. We shouldn’t be together.”
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.
‘The VARANGIANS’ Series (AKA ‘The Lying Sagas of Denmark’ Series):
‘The Varangians’ series (‘AKA ‘The Lying Sagas of Denmark’ series) of five (seven) books is about the Danish Varangian Princes of early Rus’ (Ukraine), based on The Nine Books of Danish History of Saxo Grammaticus and the Rus’ Primary Chronicle of Nestor. The Rus’ monk Nestor asserts that Rus’ was founded by three brothers, Rurik, Sineus and Truvor, but the Danish names in Book 5 of Saxo’s work are Erik, Sigfrodi (King Frodi) and Roller, three brothers from Denmark and Norway.
Book One of the five book Varangians Series places the Saga of King Frodi the Peaceful from Book Five of The First Nine Books of the Danish History of Saxo Grammaticus (c. 1200) into its proper chronological location in history. In 1984, when I first started the book, I had placed the main character, Erik’s (Hraerik’s) birth at circa 800 CE, but have since revised it to 810 to better fit with the timelines of the following books in the series. Saxo had originally placed the saga at the time of Christ’s birth and later experts have placed the story at about 400 CE to correspond with the arrival of the Huns on the European scene but when Attila was driven back to Asia, the Huns didn’t just disappear, they joined the Khazar Empire north of the Caspian Sea and helped the Khazars control the western end of the famous Silk Road trade route.
When King Frodi’s Danes started their ninth century ‘Southern Way’ incursions into the rivers of present day Russia, they ran into the Khazar Khaganate that was controlling Silk Road trade there and cooperation looked promising when he married King Hun’s daughter, Princess Hanund. But she cheated on him and he sent her back to Khazaria in disgrace and things got ugly, fast. Two Norwegian princes, Hraerik and Hraelauger Hraegunarson, sons of the famous Hraegunar Lothbrok, visited Frodi’s court in Liere with a dangerous plan to protect their own Nor’Way trade route to Khazaria, but that plan changed when Prince Hraerik fell in love with and married Princess Gunwar, King Frodi’s sister.
When news arrived in Liere that the Huns planned to attack Denmark, Prince Hraerik convinced King Frodi to assemble a Varangian Army of the North and lead a pre-emptive strike against the Khazar Empire. Following the capture of Kiev, the three brothers, Frodi, Hraerik and Hraelauger established the Hraes’ (Rus’) Trading Company and built an empire that exists in many forms to this very day, including Russia, Normandy, Great Britain and L’Anse Aux Meadows in America. The wealth of the Hraes’ Trading Empire they created powered the prolific Viking expansion in Medieval Europe that still fascinates us today.
Book One, “The Saga of Hraerik ‘Bragi’ Hraegunarson,” recreates Book Five of Saxo’s work to illuminate the origins of the name Rus’ and how it evolved from Hraes’ in ninth century Russia and how the name Varangians originally meant Va Rangers or Way Wanderers of the Nor’Way. The book examines the death of Princess Gunwar (Hervor) at the hands of the Hunnish Prince Hlod and how it drives Prince Hraerik ‘Bragi the Old’ Hraegunarson (Hraegunar Lothbrok’s son) to write a famous poem of praise that both saves his head and rallies the northern kingdoms to fight the infamous Battle of the Goths and the Huns on the Don Plain of Gardariki (Gnita Heath of Tmutorokan).
Book Two, “The Saga of Helgi ‘Arrow Odd’ Hraerikson,” recreates Arrow Odd’s Saga of c. 1200 to illustrate how Arrow Odd was Prince Helgi (Oleg in Slavic) Hraerikson of Kiev, by showing that their identical deaths from the bite of a snake was more than just coincidence. The book investigates the true death of Hraegunar Lothbrok by poisoned blood-snakes (kenning for swords) and how his curse of ‘calling his young porkers to avenge the old boar’ sets up a death spiral between swine (Sveinald) and snakes (Gorm ‘the Old’) that lasts for generations. It then goes on to depict the famous Battle of the Berserks on Samso, where Arrow Odd and Hjalmar the Brave slay the twelve berserk grandsons of King Frodi on the Danish Island of Samso, setting up a death struggle that takes the Great Pagan Army of the Danes from the ravaged coast of Norway to England and on to Helluland in Saint Brendan’s Newfoundland.
Book Three, “The Saga of Ivar ‘the Boneless’ Hraerikson,” reveals how Ivar ‘the Boneless’ Ragnarson was actually Prince Eyfur (Ivar in Danish, Igor in Slavic) Hraerikson of Kiev and then King Harde Knute of Denmark. By comparing a twenty year lacuna in the reign of Prince Igor in the Russian Chronicles with a coinciding twenty year appearance of a King Harde Knute I (Hard Knot or Knytling) of Denmark in European Chronicles, Prince Igor’s death by sprung trees, which reportedly tore his legs off, may have rather just left him a boneless and very angry young king. Loyal Danes claimed, “It was a ‘hard knot’ indeed that sprung those trees,” but his conquered English subjects, not being quite as polite, called him, Ivar ‘the Boneless’. And the Danish ‘Knytling’ line of kings carried on for ‘the Old’ Fridleif/Frodi line of kings.
Books Four, Five and Six, “The Saga of Svein ‘the Old’ Ivarson“, “The Saga of Valdamar ‘the Great’ Sveinson” and “The Saga of Sweyn ‘Forkbeard’ Ivarson” demonstrate how Prince Sviatoslav ‘the Brave’ of Kiev was really Prince Svein Ivarson of Kiev, who later moved to Norway and fought to become King Sweyn ‘Forkbeard’ of Denmark and England. But before being forced out of Russia, the Swine Prince 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 that seemed to herald the coming of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse with the 666 Salute of the Army of the Impalers. The campaign was so mortifying that the fifteen thousand pounds of gold that the Emperor of Constantinople paid him to attack the Army of the Impalers 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 would set out to destroy them, claiming that, “true Christians will never read this saga”.
Book Seven, “The Saga of Canute ‘the Great’ Sweynson”, establishes how Grand Prince Vladimir ‘the Great’ of Kiev was also known as Prince Valdamar Sveinson of Gardar, who supported his father, Sweyn ‘Forkbeard’, in attacks upon England and later became King Canute ‘the Great’ of England and also King Knute ‘the Great’ of Denmark and Norway. Unlike his father, he came to the aid of a Roman Emperor, leading six thousand picked Varangian cataphracts against Anatolian rebels, and was rewarded with the hand of Princess Anna Porphyrogennetos, a true Roman Princess born of the purple who could trace her bloodline back to Julius and Augustus Caesar. She was called Czarina, and after her, all Rus’ Grand Princes were called Czars and their offspring were sought matrimonially by European royalty.
Conclusion:
By recreating the lives of four generations of Russian Princes and exhibiting how each generation, in succession, later ascended to their inherited thrones in Denmark, the author proves the parallels of the dual rules of Russian Princes and Danish Kings to be cumulatively more than just coincidence. And the author proves that the Danish Kings Harde Knute I, Gorm ‘the Old’ and Harald ‘Bluetooth’ Gormson/Sweyn ‘Forkbeard’ were not Stranger Kings, but were Danes of the Old Jelling Skioldung Fridlief/Frodi line of kings who only began their princely careers in Rus’ and returned to their kingly duties in Denmark with a lot of Byzantine Roman ideas and heavy cavalry and cataphracts.
SeiberTeck: 'The Varangians Series' 