RAGNAR’SAGA ‘LOTHBROK’ or THE SAGA OF KING RAGNAR ‘LOTHBROK’ SIGURDSON Has Been Added to The Site Under the New Heading The VARANGIANS / UKRAINIANS and the below Post Covers Chapter Two:
Shieldmaiden Princess Ladgerda of Gaulardale
BOOK ONE: THE SAGA OF KING RAGNAR ‘LOTHBROK’ SIGURDSON
A Novel By Brian Howard Seibert
© Copyright by Brian Howard Seibert
CHAPTER TWO
2.0 PRINCE RAGNAR SIGURDSON (Circa 810 AD)
“In ancient times, Norway was called Thule and was thought to be an island instead of a peninsula and we call it Thule in this Chapter and shall explore how it may have first become the Nor’Way and later Norway. We also explore how Ragnar may have originally been named Gunar and a pro-name Hrae was added to form Hraegunar which was Anglicized to Ragnar.”
Brian Howard Seibert
(Circa 810 AD) Prince Ragnar was the son of King Sigurd ‘Hring’ by his first wife, Alfhild. After she died, although his father was old, he fell deeply in love with young Princess Alfsol, the daughter of King Alf of Jutland, and, when she became of marriageable age the two old kings arranged a bride-price for her. But her brothers refused to give over one so young to one so old in matrimony, and, when King Sigurd ‘Hring’ defeated the brothers in battle on a plain near Jelling in Jutland, they poisoned her rather than give her up to become his wife. The king then carried her sweet young body on board his ship and sailed it out into open sea and plunged his sword into his own broken heart, dying beside the body of his beloved Princess Alfsol.
Prince Ragnar became King Ragnar while still a youth in minority so, a guardianship was set up for his rule in Liere over Skane and Zealand. At this time, King Frey of Sweden, after slaying Siward, the Vik King of Stavanger Fjord in Rogaland, South Thule, enslaved all the wives and daughters of King Siward’s kinsfolk and put them in a brothel temple he dedicated to Freya, goddess of fertility and delivered them to public outrage. Princes and great warriors from all over Scandinavia came to the temple to make their dedications and have their way with Thulian royalty. When King Ragnar heard of this, he wanted to go to Thule to avenge his grandfather, King Siward, but his guardians would not give him leave to go, saying it was too dangerous for one so young. Once young Ragnar turned twelve, he gained the age of majority and led an army into Thule to drive out the Swedes. As he came, many of the older matrons and young maidens who had either suffered insult to their persons or feared imminent peril to their chastity, hastened eagerly to his camp, all dressed in male attire, declaring that they would prefer death to outrage. Nor was young King Ragnar, loath to use the brave shield-maidens against King Frey of Sweden and he welcomed the help of those women whose shame he had come to avenge. Among them was Princess Ladgerda, a skilled shield-maiden, who, though a young woman, had the courage of a man, and she fought in the front ranks among the bravest of the warriors, with her hair falling freely from under her helm and flowing loosely over her shoulders. All marvelled at her matchless deeds, for her locks flying down her back betrayed her gender.
Once King Ragnar had justly cut down King Frey, the murderer of his grandfather, he asked many questions of his fellow soldiers concerning the maiden whom he had seen so forward in the fray, and he declared that he had gained the victory by the might of that one woman. Ragnar had to return to Liere, but learning that she was of noble birth, he steadfastly wooed her by means of messengers. She spurned his mission in her heart, but feigned compliance, hoping to offset a betrothal her parents had made for her with a young Jarl of Lade in Trondheim Fjord in the north. Giving false answers, she made her panting wooer confident that he would gain his desires; but ordered that a ferocious bear and a fierce dog be set at the porch of her longhall, thinking to guard her own chastity against the ardour of a lover by means of beasts to block the way. Ragnar, comforted by the good news of her false responses, sailed once more across the Skagerrak Sea, and, telling his men to stop in Gaulardale, as her valley was called, he went to the hall of the maiden alone. There the beasts met him, and he was attacked first by the fierce dog and he wrung its neck, then he was charged by the ferocious bear and he thrust it through with his spear and the bear died face down at his feet. When Princess Ladgerda saw how easily King Ragnar had destroyed the vicious beasts and she saw the bear lying facedown at his feet, she foresaw that he would give her a son that would be named after the bear. Thus he wedded the shield-maiden in reward of the peril he had overcome. By this marriage he had two daughters and a son Ladgerda named Fridleif ‘Bjorn’, Fridleif after her Anglish Danish father and the byname Bjorn, meaning bear, after the bear Ragnar had slain to win her heart, and they lived three years at peace, but Princess Ladgerda would not leave her Gaulardale Valley in Sogn Fjord and King Ragnar continued his rule in Stavanger Fjord and would visit her when not in Skane or Zealand. Still, young Jarl Haakon of Lade in Trondheim Fjord would not give up his betrothal claim to Princess Ladgerda and it was a source of friction between them.
The Jutlanders, a presumptuous race, thinking that because of his recent marriage in Thule he would never return, took the Skanians into alliance, and tried to attack the Zealanders, who preserved the most zealous and affectionate loyalty towards their King Ragnar. When the king heard of the attack while visiting with his wife in Gaulardale, he returned to Stavanger and equipped thirty ships, and, with the winds favouring his voyage, he set off against the Skanians. Princess Ladgerda continued raising forces at home, and she went north to Lade and asked Jarl Haakon for his aid, but he reminded her of her betrothal to him and agreed to aid her with ships if she would leave Ragnar and marry him. She refused, of course, and took a small fleet to Skane to help Ragnar. When she got there, Ragnar had already defeated the Skanians who’d ventured to fight, near the stead of Whiteby, and when the winter was over, he and Ladgerda fought successfully against the Jutlanders of the Lim Fjord region. A third and a fourth time he conquered the Skanians and the Hallanders triumphantly as he escorted Ladgerda back to her Gaulardale Valley.
Meanwhile, the Jutes and Skanians were kindled with an unquenchable fire of sedition and they disallowed the title of Ragnar, and gave a certain Harald the sovereign power. Ragnar sent envoys to Thule, and besought friendly assistance against these men, and Ladgerda, whose love still flowed deep and steadfast, hastily sailed off to her husband with her son, Bjorn. She brought a hundred and twenty ships to her former husband and, when Ragnar asked her how she had gotten so many ships, she told him she’d divorced him and had married Jarl Haakon of Lade and that one hundred of the ships had come from Trondheim Fjord. “You have been ignoring me!” she claimed. “And Jarl Haakon would only give me the ships we need if I married him.”
“I’ll kill him!” King Ragnar growled and he put up his hands like claws and made bear noises and tickled his son, Bjorn. The boy was growing like a bear and would soon be able to fight in battle, but not yet. “I shall maul Jarl Haakon of Lade to death!” and he made more growling noises until young Bjorn laughed uncontrollably.
“You will not kill him!” Ladgerda told her king. “I shall handle Jarl Haakon. But, for now, we need his ships.” And she was right. King Ragnar felt destitute of all resources, and took to borrowing aid from folk of every age, crowding the strong and the feeble all together, and he was not too ashamed to insert some old men and older boys among the wedges of the strong. First he tried to crush the power of the Skanians on a battlefield which, in Latin was called Laneus, meaning Woolly, and there he had a hard fight with the rebels. Many Danes fell to the Skanians and their spirit would have failed them had not King Ragnar, by his manly deeds and exhortations, spurred them on to hold their lines. And Queen Ladgerda, through matchless spirit and bravery, led her shield-maidens and Trondelagers onward in a sally about, and charged around to the rear of the enemy, taking them unawares, and thus carried the panic of the Danes into the camp of the enemy Skanians. At last the lines of the usurping King Harald faltered and Harald, himself, was routed with a great slaughter of his men. When Ladgerda returned home after the battle, she returned her hundred ships to her Jarl Haakon and he welcomed her home and into his longhall. The Norwegians she had lost in battle, she’d replaced with staunch Danish warriors and all her soldiers and shield-maidens had then sworn pledges to follow her. She had been long apart from her new husband and he rushed her inside and made passionate love to her until the wee hours of the morning. When he had sated his lust, he fell asleep in her arms and she reached up into her gown she had taken off and placed on the headboard and took out a broken spearhead she had recovered from the battlefield and she murdered her husband. “You should have come to the battle with me as I’d asked,” she told him as he bled out. “Perhaps then you’d have gone to Valhall on a better stroke.” Then she usurped the whole of his name and sovereignty; for this most presumptuous maiden thought it pleasanter to rule without her husband than to share his highseat with him.
When King Ragnar heard the good news that his queen had made herself Jarl of Lade, he sailed north to Trondheim Fjord and told Ladgerda that he still loved her and wanted her to re-marry him. She welcomed him into her longhall and she spent the night showing him that she, too, still loved him, but she never re-married him. They were lovers and she raised their son, Bjorn, in Lade and trained him to be a fine warrior, but she ruled central Thule, from Trondheim down to Hordaland alone, and when King Ragnar visited Stavanger Fjord, she would visit her beloved Gaulardale and they would meet there and make love there and Ragnar would check up on Bjorn’s progress as a warrior. One visit, Ragnar gave Bjorn a great fierce Roman war dog as a gift and he told Ladgerda, “Now you once more have a bear and a dog to guard you in your hall.” To which she responded, “And the bear and the dog shall keep all, save you, away, my love,” and they made passionate love once more. Yet, they never remarried.
The Danes clamored for King Ragnar to find himself another queen, one that would add a softer side to his rule, so, desiring Princess Thora, the daughter of Herodd, the King of the Swedes, he set out and brought her back to Liere. They loved each other and by her he begot two nobly gifted sons, Radbard and Dunwat. These also had brothers; Siward, Bjorn, Agnar, and Ivar. And Queen Thora did bring peace to Denmark for a time, but she died long before her time.
King Ragnar sorely missed his love when he was ruling in Zealand or Skane so, he distracted himself by patrolling the coasts of his kingdoms with a fleet of warships to safeguard the seas from pirates and slavers who might seek to profit from the Danes and Skanes and Thulealanders. While patrolling the coast of southern Skane, the king and his men put into shore to bake some bread, as they’d run out and had only barrels of flour to comfort them.
When Kraka had lived with the wicked old couple for almost a dozen years, several Viking ships sailed up the creek near their stead and a number of men came ashore carrying barrels and kettles. When the men saw the house they went to it and introduced themselves to old Ake and Grima and told them they were with King Ragnar’s fleet and they paid the couple silver to bake their bread in the oven of the house as well as over fires in their kettles. When the cooks returned to the ships with the bread, some of it was overcooked and hard, while others of it were undercooked and still soft and Ragnar was about to have his cooks punished for their sloth, but they claimed it not to be their faults, as in the house there dwelled a servant girl so beautiful that they’d found it hard to concentrate on their baking. They all claimed that her exquisite beauty was that of a princess and not of a bondmaiden and that her fine looks had bewitched them all.
King Ragnar had been lonely a long time and took interest in their tale and asked his chef who the girl might be. “The old couple said she was their daughter, Kraka,” the cook replied, “but I found it hard to believe, as the young girl’s eyes seemed to throw daggers at her parents when they weren’t watching her. I think she has been enslaved by them. She is of much finer bearing than that lot!” Ragnar guessed that his men were exaggerating her beauty to stave off their deserved punishment, however he was intrigued by their tale so, Ragnar ordered that this Kraka should immediately be brought in front of her king, but they were bidden to bring her to him neither dressed nor undressed, neither full nor fasting, neither alone nor in company. The messengers found the maiden as fair as the cooks had said and repeated the king’s demand.
“Your king must be out of his mind, to send such a message,” said old Grima, Ake’s wife; but Kraka told them that she would come as their king wished, but not until the next morning.
The next day she came to the shore where the ship lay. She was completely covered with her splendid hair, worn like a net around her, and carried only a small purse. She had eaten a leek before coming, and had with her the old couple’s sheep dog, so that she had fulfilled Ragnar’s three demands.
Kraka’s wit impressed Ragnar almost as much as her divine beauty, her golden locks and her bright blue eyes which shone like the heavens in morning’s light. He asked her to come on board, but she would not do so until she had been promised peace and safety. When she was promised sanctity and came aboard, Ragnar looked at her in delight. He thought that she surpassed all women in beauty, and offered a prayer to Odin, asking for the love of the young maiden. He welcomed her under the awning of his ship and then he offered her a gold-embroidered dress which Ladgerda had once worn and he offered it to Kraka in verse:
“Will you have this golden dress?
It suits you well, a princess blessed.
Your hair of gold, it matches well.
How in coarse abode do you now dwell?
Kraka answered, also in verse:
“I dare not take the golden dress.
It suits not me, I must confess,
for Kraka am I and will always be,
a herder of goats down by the sea.”
Ragnar knew then, by her verse, that she’d had some training by a skald or bard and he promised her any help she needed or desired. “Anything?” she asked as she set her purse upon a small table. She put the golden dress on in front of her king and then withdrew her long hair from within the dress and she smoothed it out on her body most properly.
“Who are you?” Ragnar asked this amazing young woman who had been neither clothed nor unclothed, but now stood fully dressed before him without baring a glimmer of her smooth white skin. “And don’t tell me Kraka, Princess…?”
“Princess Aslaug,” she answered, “and I shall tell you my tale if you’re serious in your offer to help me.”
Ragnar told her he was most serious in his offer and even offered to marry her right away, now that he’d learned she was of royalty.
“I am the daughter of King Sigurd ‘the Dragon-Slayer’ Fafnirsbane of the Volsungs of the Greutungs, the Oster-Goths that migrated south to Roman lands centuries ago.” Ragnar nodded that he knew who her people were, for the Vaster-Goths bordered on Skane and the Oster-Goths bordered on them, straight east of where they were sitting. “My father was murdered and my mother, Princess Brynhild, is dead and our skald, Jarl Heimer, brought me north as a child, carrying me secretly in his harp casement. The two inhabitants of this stead, thinking dear Heimer carried gold in his harp, murdered him for it, but found me inside instead. We were going to Oster-Gotland to get help for the Land of the Volsungs, but I was enslaved here and my guardian Heimer has watched the waves roll from a grave by the sea here for nigh on twelve years while I have toiled in slavery.”
“Beautifully said,” Ragnar whispered. “Jarl Heimer taught you well.” Then Ragnar called out to his chef and the cook came in with savoury food and wine for the two. There had been a reason for Ragnar’s strange requests. “Thank you, Henri,” Ragnar told his chef, for he had been captured in a raid in Brittany and was quite good at his job. “You were right to suspect that Princess Aslaug here was a princess who was kidnapped by the couple in that house.” Then he turned to Aslaug and said, “Eat up. There was a reason for each and every request I made of you today.”
“Ahh,” Aslaug agreed. “Dressed or undressed so I could wear this dress,” and she pressed the dress smoothly to her body once more, “and fed yet not fed so I can eat this fine cuisine. But what of the couple’s sheep dog?”
“Two out of three isn’t bad,” Ragnar replied and they made small talk as they ate. “Now, how may I help you, for I suspect the task will be a large one, judging from your tale thus far?”
Princess Aslaug opened her purse and took out the silver plate exposure of her mother and father together. “Have you ever seen one of these before?” she asked.
“Yes I have,” Ragnar said, and the princess was visibly surprised. “It’s by the Guild, is it not? The Alchemists’ Guild if I’m not mistaken. I have met several times with the King of Oster-Gotland here and he has several of these from the Guild in Baghdad.”
“Jarl Heimer was taking me to the King of Oster-Gotland for help! Can you take me to him?” Princess Aslaug asked him excitedly.
“No!” King Ragnar told her flatly. Her mouth fell open in shock. “I’m going to help you,” Ragnar added. “I am more powerful than the King of Oster-Gotland. I am the King of Denmark and I shall help you with your task and for that you shall marry me…should you find me worthy,” he added, ‘of the task,’ he thought.
“They allowed me to also keep my mother’s wedding ring and this letter which she wrote for me before her tragic death. I guess I have that to thank them for.” She passed the ring to Ragnar and she began reading him the letter:
“Dear Aslaug,
I know I have been acting strange lately, but I have learned that Queen Gudrun’s mother used a magic love spell to steal your father, King Sigurd ‘the Dragon-Slayer’ from me and I have just learned that there is now another fire-breathing dragon that threatens our land and Sigurd is under her spell and must be freed from it so we can go fight the dragon. I am afraid I must have Gudrun killed to free your father from the spell, but if something goes wrong with my plan, Jarl Heimer has instructions on what must be done and how he must save you. Please follow his instructions to the letter and know that your father and I shall love you always, even in death.
Love,
Your mother, Brynhild”
Ragnar took the letter from Aslaug and re-read it. It was written in Old Gothic runic script that Ragnar could just make out, but it said exactly what Aslaug had read. “Your evil couple up there,” he said, nodding towards the house, “let you keep the silver plate exposure because they thought it sorcery, which they feared to take from you, and the ring because they thought it was copper, for it is of the Red Gold of Byzantium, which has copper in it, and the letter? They could not read. You owe them nothing.”
“Jarl Heimer brought me north so we could fetch a great warrior to slay that dragon my mother was warning us of. It is a fire-breather. His brother, Jarl Brak, stayed behind in Volsung to help the hero fight the dragon when Heimer was to send the warrior south. Will you still help me?”
“Your father killed one of these?” Ragnar asked.
“Yes. But my mother was a shield-maiden. She helped him.”
“Well, it so happens that my former wife just happens to be a shield-maiden, a great shield-maiden, and if your father killed one of these fire-breathers, then so shall I.”
“You’ll go to our Land of the Volsungs and kill this fire breathing dragonship, this sea snake?”
“If you will give me the chance of marrying you.”
“Then I will now go home and await you,” she added. “If my king’s mind does not change and you slay the dragon you can send for me and I shall come to marry you.” She was about to go back to the evil couple’s cottage, but Ragnar said, “I really can’t leave you behind with these evil people!”
“Oh, I can handle them,” she replied, getting up, “besides, I have their dog.”
“No. I mean I really really really can’t let you stay with these people!”
“And I said, I really really really can handle them.”
“My third request,” Ragnar said, “the dog. I didn’t want the dog getting hurt protecting them.”
“The dog!” she said, sitting back down. “Three out of three?”
“Yes, three out of three. When I told chef Henri that he was correct, he sent men up to the house. I didn’t want the dog to get hurt protecting them. I thought it was your dog.”
“I guess it is now. You were right. He has always protected me, and he would have protected them too.”
“I’m sorry. It’s what we do. We patrol the coast looking for pirates and slavers, and that includes enslavers as well. Come north with me to Thule and meet my shield-maiden ex-wife, Ladgerda. You can stay in her palace in Lade and look after our young son Bjorn while we are off slaying your dragon and we’ll be back in the fall.”
Chapter 3: King Ragnar Sigurdson shall follow on separate Post or may be found under Heading of The VARANGIANS / UKRAINIANS in Book One: The Saga of King Ragnar ‘Lothbrok’ Sigurdson
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 / UKRAINIANS or The Nine Books of the Danish History of Brian Howard Seibert
BOOK ONE: RAGNAR’SAGA LOTHBROK or The Saga of King Ragnar ‘Lothbrok’ Sigurdson
King Ragnar ‘Lothbrok’ Sigurdson’s third wife, Princess Aslaug, was a young survivor of the Saga of the Volsungs and was a daughter of King Sigurd ‘the Dragon-Slayer’ Fafnirsbane, so this is where Ragnar’s story begins in almost all the ancient tales (except Saxo’s). In our series, we explore this tail end of the Volsungs Saga because King Sigurd appears to be the first ‘Dragon-Slayer’ and King Ragnar ‘Lothbrok’ would seem to be the second so, it is a good opportunity to postulate the origins of Fire Breathing Dragons and how they were slain. King Ragnar would lose his Zealand Denmark to the Anglish Danes of Jutland, who spoke Anglish, as did the majority of Vikings who attacked England, which spoke both Anglish and Saxon languages, sometimes mistakenly called a common Anglo-Saxon language. The Angles and Saxons of England never really did get along, as shall be demonstrated in the following books. King Ragnar assuaged the loss of Zealand by taking York or Jorvik, the City of the Boar, in Angleland and Stavanger Fjord in Thule from which he established his Nor’Way trade route into Scythia.
BOOK TWO: ERIK’SAGA BRAGI or The Saga of Prince Erik ‘Bragi the Old’ Ragnarson
Book Two of the Nine Book The Varangians and Ukrainians Series places The Saga of Prince Erik ‘Bragi the Old’ Ragnarson from Book Five of The First Nine Books of the Danish History of Saxo Grammaticus (c. 1200 AD) about King Frodi ‘the Peaceful’ into its proper chronological location in history. In 1984, when I first started work on the book, I placed Prince Erik’s birth at circa 800 CE, but it has since been revised to 810 CE to better reflect 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, just north of the Caspian Sea, and helped the Khazars control the western end of the famous Silk Road Trade Route. Princes Erik and Roller, both sons of Ragnar ‘Lothbrok’, sail off to Zealand to avenge their father’s loss, but Erik falls in love with Princess Gunwar, the sister of the Anglish King Frodi of Jutland and, after his successful Battle Upon the Ice, wherein he destroys the House of Westmar, Erik marries Gunwar and both brothers become King Frodi’s foremost men instead, and the story moves on to the founding of Hraes’ and Gardar Ukraine.
BOOK THREE: HELGI’SAGA ARROW ODD or The Saga of Prince Helgi ‘Arrow Odd’ Erikson
Book Three, The Saga of Prince Helgi ‘Arrow Odd’ Erikson, recreates Arrow Odd’s Saga of circa 1200 AD to illustrate how Arrow Odd was Prince Helgi (Oleg in Slavic) Erikson 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 Ragnar ‘Lothbrok’ by poisoned blood-snakes in York or Jorvik, the ‘City of the Boar’, and how his curse of ‘calling his young porkers to avenge the old boar’ sets up a death spiral between swine and snake that lasts for generations. The book then illustrates the famous Battle of the Berserks on Samso, where Helgi ‘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 Denmark to ravage Norway and then England and on to Helluland in Saint Brendan’s Newfoundland. A surprise cycle of vengeance manifests itself in the ‘death by snakebite’ of Helgi ‘Arrow Odd’.
BOOK FOUR: IVAR’SAGA BEINLAUSI or The Saga of Prince Ivar ‘the Boneless’ Erikson
Book Four, The Saga of Prince Ivar ‘the Boneless’ Erikson, reveals how Ivar ‘the Boneless’ Ragnarson was actually Prince Eyfur or Ivar (Igor in Slavic) Erikson of Kiev and then King Harde Knute ‘the First’ of Denmark. By comparing a twenty year lacuna in the reign of Prince Igor in The Hraes’ Primary Chronicle with a coinciding twenty year appearance of a King Harde Knute (Hard Knot) of Denmark in European Chronicles, Prince Igor’s punishment by sprung trees, which reportedly tore him apart, 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’. The book expands on the death curse of Ragnar ‘Lothbrok’ and the calling of ‘his young porkers to avenge the old boar’ when Ivar leaves his first son, King Gorm (Snake) ‘the Old’, to rule in Denmark and his last son, Prince Svein (Swine) ‘the Old’ to rule in Hraes’, further setting up the death spiral between the swine and snake of the ‘Lothbrok’ curse.
BOOK FIVE: SVEIN’SAGA the OLD or The Saga of Prince Svein ‘the Old’ Ivarson
Book Five, The Saga of Prince Svein ‘the Old’ Ivarson, demonstrates how Prince Sveinald (Sviatoslav in Slavic) ‘the Brave’ of Kiev was really Prince Svein ‘the Old’ 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 then 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 and included the famed 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 close to defeating the greatest empire in the world, but lost and was forced to leave Hraes’ to his three sons. He returned to the Nor’Way and spent twelve years rebuilding Ragnar’s old trade route there.
BOOK SIX: VALDAMAR’SAGA’ the GREAT or The Saga of Grand Prince Valdamar ‘the Great’ Sveinson
Book Six, The Saga of Grand Prince Valdamar ‘the Great’ Sveinson, establishes how Grand Prince Valdamar (Vladimir in Slavic) ‘the Great’ of Kiev, expanded the Hraes’ Empire and his own family Hamingja by marrying 700 wives that he pampered in estates in and around Kiev. Unlike his father, Svein, 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 of Constantinople, 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 Hraes’ Grand Princes were called ‘Czars’ and their offspring were earnestly sought after, matrimonially, by European royalty.
BOOK SEVEN: SWEYN’SAGA FORKBEARD or The Saga of King Sweyn ‘Forkbeard’ Ivarson
In The Saga of King Sweyn ‘Forkbeard’ Ivarson, Prince Svein anonymously takes the name of Sweyn ‘Forkbeard’ in Norway and befriends the Jarls of Lade in Trondheim Fjord in Norway as he expands the Nor’Way trade route of his grandfather, Ragnar ‘Lothbrok’. He had come close to defeating the Eastern Roman Empire, and still felt that he was due at least a shared throne in Constantinople. He used the gold from the Nor’Way trade to rebuild his legions and his Hraes’ cataphracts and though his brother, King Gorm ‘the Old’, was dead, his son, Sweyn’s nephew, King Harald ‘Bluetooth’ Gormson had usurped the throne of Denmark and had hired the famed Jomsvikings to attack Prince Sweyn in Norway, setting up the famous Battle of Hjorungavagr in a fjord south of Lade. King Sweyn ‘Forkbeard’ would emerge from that confrontation and then he would defeat King Olaf Tryggvason of Norway in the Battle of Svolder in 1000 AD, in an engagement precipitated over the hand of Queen Sigrid ‘the Haughty’ of Sweden. Later he attacked England in revenge for the following St. Brice’s Day Massacre of Danes in 1002 AD and he fought a protracted war with the Saxon King Aethelred ‘the Unready’ that could only be described as the harvesting of the English for sale as slaves in Baghdad and Constantinople. With the help of his son, Prince Valdamar of Kiev, and the legions and cataphracts of Hraes’, he conquered England on Christmas Day of 1013, but victory was not kind to him.
BOOK EIGHT: CANUTE’SAGA the GREAT or The Saga of King Canute ‘the Great’ Sweynson
Prince Valdamar ‘the Great’ Sveinson of Kiev, who had supported his father, King Sweyn ‘Forkbeard’ of Denmark in attacks upon England left his ‘Czar’ sons in charge of Hraes’ and took over as King Valdamar of England, but the Latin Christian English revolted against his eastern name and Orthodox Christian religion and brought King Aethelred back from exile in Normandy and Valdamar had to return to Hraes’ and gather up the legions he had already sent back after his father’s victory. His half brother was ruling in Denmark and his sons were ruling in Hraes’ so, in 1015 AD Grand Prince Valdamar ‘the Great’ of Kiev was written out of Hraes’ history and in 1016 the Latin Christian Prince Canute ‘the Great’ returned to England to reclaim his throne. He defeated Aethelred’s son, King Edmund ‘Ironside’ of England, at the Battle of Assandun to become King Canute ‘the Great’ of England and later King Knute ‘the Great’ of Denmark and Norway as well. But that is just the start of his story and later Danish Christian Kings would call his saga, and the sagas of his forefathers, The Lying Sagas of Denmark, and would set out to destroy them, claiming that, “true Christians will never read these Sagas”.
BOOK NINE: WILLIAM’SAGA the CONQUEROR or The Saga of King William ‘the Conqueror’ Robertson of England and Normandy
The Third Danish Conquest of Angleland was seen to herald the end of the Great Viking Manifestation of the Middle Ages, but this, of course, was contested by the Vikings who were still in control of it all. Danish Varangians still ruled in Kiev and Danes still ruled the Northern Empire of Canute ‘the Great’, for the Normans were but Danish Vikings that had taken up the French language, and even Greenland and the Newfoundland were under Danish control in a Hraes’ Empire that ran from the Silk Road of Cathay in the east to the Mayan Road of Yucatan in the west. “We are all the children of Ragnar ‘Lothbrok’,” Queen Emma of Normandy often said. Out of sheer spite the Saxons of England took over the Varangian Guard of Constantinople and would continue their fight against the Normans in Southern Italy as mercenaries of the Byzantine Roman Empire. They would lose there as well, when in the Fourth Crusade of 1204, the Norman Danes would sack the City of Constantinople and hold it long enough to stop the Mongol hoards that would crush the City of Kiev. It would be Emperor Baldwin ‘the First’ of Flanders and Constantinople who would defeat the Mongol Mongke Khan in Thrace. But the Mongols would hold Hraes’ for three hundred years and this heralded the end of the Great Viking Manifestation. The Silk Road was dead awaiting Marco Polo for its revival. But the western Mayan Road would continue to operate for another hundred years until another unforeseen disaster struck. Its repercussions would be witnessed by the Spanish conquerors who followed Christopher Columbus a hundred and fifty years later in the Valley of the Mound Builders.
Conclusion:
By recreating the lives of four generations of Hraes’ Ukrainian 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 Hraes’ Ukrainian 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 Hraes’ and returned to their kingly duties in Denmark with a lot of Byzantine Roman ideas and heavy cavalry and cataphracts.
SeiberTeck: 'The Varangians Series' 