THE SAGA OF PRINCE ERIK ‘BRAGI’ RAGNARSON Has Been Added to The Site Under the New Heading The VARANGIANS / UKRAINIANS Book Series – The True History of ‘The Great Viking Manifestation of Medieval Europe’© and the below Post Covers CHAPTER FIVE:
Princess Alfhild Gotarsdottir of The Vik, Nor’Way
BOOK TWO: THE SAGA OF PRINCE ERIK ‘BRAGI’ RAGNARSON
A Novel By Brian Howard Seibert
© Copyright by Brian Howard Seibert
CHAPTER FIVE
5.0 RETURN TO GOTAR’S HIGHSEAT HALL (Circa 829 AD)
“In all her life no ill knew she,
and in her fate no flaw, either;
of blemish none in her body knew she;
yet cruel norns came between them.”
The Short Lay of Sigurth (Hollander)
(829 AD) ‘How does one, through prescience, foresee and feel the death of an enemy half a continent away, yet fail to fathom a woman’s heart nigh half a pace back?’ Such thoughts troubled Erik of late, so, just as King Gorm of Denmark had done a generation before, Erik quit the east early. Sensing Hrafn Ketil’s sorry fate and having fulfilled his pledge to Dvalin, Erik and his men handed their furs and goods in trust to Brak, who had planned to carry on and meet up with Ragnar in Baghdad and continue with his training in Damascus. The Varangians then sailed down the Northern Dvina, through the White Sea and across the Barents Sea in much the same rough manner as their first crossing. At Hrafnista they caught wind of Hrafn Ketil’s death; at home in Rogaland Province they heard confirming news of the completeness of Oddi’s victory and by late summer they were back in the Vik learning first-hand the extent of the carnage. The sons of Ragnar were well received by King Gotar. He made Erik his foremost man.
Survivors of the disastrous raid against Sea-King Oddi and the Danes–only six of sixty ships returned–related once more their accounts of the battle for Erik’s benefit. Their dirges described a panoply of powers that the Danish sea-king had used against them. They claimed Oddi was skilled in magics, possessing knowledge of his enemies’ whereabouts while resting at home and the ability to raise storms against them even from afar. He could blind his enemies and blunt their weapons and was noted for being as merciless toward merchants as he was kind to farmers and cattlemen. Several Danes who had been captured in the fighting confirmed that his powers were such, but, even further, they verified Gotar’s information that King Frodi’s was an unpopular rule. From the captives, Erik gleaned details that further fleshed out the tale of Hrafn Ketil’s disastrous attack.
The Norwegian fleet had set out in fine weather heading south along the Gotland coast, but Oddi quickly raised up a tempest that drove the ships out to sea and stranded them upon a string of uncharted sandbar islets. All night the storm had raged, preventing the Norwegians from freeing their vessels. In the morning, hard on the heels of the storm, the Danes attacked. Out of the east they came, with the rising sun glistening off a thousand bared swords. They were a storm in themselves, rolling like a thundercloud over Hrafn Ketil’s strung out fleet. The vanguard swept by the first few ships, pelting them with arrows that fell like rain, the first smacking droplets presaging the fury of the tempest to follow. Then came a hail of heavy stones that smashed bones and timbers with equal ease. It was followed by ships full of howling berserks who dropped like dancing ball lightning onto the decks of the shattered ships, the sound of their weapons biting armour was like a staccato of thunderclaps wafting out over the water. Lightning bolts that struck down many fine young Norwegian oaks. And the twelve sons of Westmar were the champions of the slaughter, clearing decks as though a raging fire sweeping through deadfall. The storm rolled west down the long line of Norwegian ships and behind it followed an eerie calm, the whispered moans of the dying. Here and there a ship burned, while others broke up among the rocks they were lodged upon, disgorging their gore into the surf and the sea of the Kattegat. Only the last dozen ships had time to free themselves and, in a running battle with the Danish vanguard, only half of these escaped. The survivors told of how Hrafn Ketil had fallen early in the fray, killed in one mighty blow by Oddi, and was spared witnessing the tragedy. Erik mused inwardly at the fate of the man who had coveted the Nor’Way for himself.
When the hearings had concluded, Erik invited Princess Alfhild to go out for a ride. They had horses saddled up and they set off, heading west, in the late afternoon, following the setting sun as though wishing to draw out the day. Erik followed the princess for a time and studied the sunlight as it played in her golden hair. She was fresh and lovely to watch. Reigning up her horse on the crest of a very green sloping hill, she slipped out of her saddle and to the ground with a graceful strength that Erik would have not expected from a princess. She began to walk her horse and Erik rode up, dismounted and walked beside her.
“How is that troublesome dwarf of yours,” she asked. “Is he still up to his terrible antics?” She stopped and beamed Erik her widest smile.
Erik soaked up her radiance then looked to the ground. “I’m afraid he died in the east.”
“I’m sorry, Hraerik. I liked him very much. He should never have travelled so far.”
“You’re right, my princess. He should never have left home.”
“And you were right about Hrafn Ketil and our attacking the Danes. It was too dangerous and now it has all turned out so tragically. What do you suppose the Danes will do about the attack? Will they follow up their victory?”
“They very well could. Your father wants to send envoys to Frodi declaring that Hrafn Ketil was raiding on his own and that he would be seeking no compensation for the slaughter. I intend to volunteer for this duty.”
“But it’s dangerous, Hraerik. I’ve heard the tales coming out of Liere. Can’t you leave it for someone else to do? We’ve heard nothing but terrible things about King Frodi’s treatment of diplomats.”
“You fret for me? Your eloquent prince, whose dexterous tongue has won him a ship and gained him a place on the high seat of his king. But,” Erik confessed, “I would be pleased if you continue to do so.” Erik stepped toward Alfhild and stroked her cheek as though to check if her blush was real or painted. He kissed her gently. “I’ll be leaving soon,” and he kissed her again, but harder.
Alfhild stepped away from him and leaped up onto her horse. “I hope your glib tongue hasn’t gotten you into more trouble than you can handle,” she chided playfully, then rode off back for the royal stead. Erik gave chase, but always kept a little behind her. He told himself it was, so he could watch her, but he knew there was more to it. He was falling in love with an elusive creature, a fairy princess, who would always be just beyond his grasp. And a sinking feeling overcame him as he rode.
King Gotar’s hall was similar in construction to Ragnar’s longhall, but an ell longer in every direction. On either side of the two triple high seats, benches ran to the distant corners of the hall. There were no bed chambers or kitchens, the hall having been built for audiences and accommodation of warriors only. Rich tapestries were hung the full girth of the walls. The finest of these framed the high seat dais’ which rested upon a planked floor. Beams, posts and pillars were painted and the high seats themselves were profusely carved and enamelled in a gripping-beast motif.
All Gotar’s hired men assembled in the hall the next day and it was proposed that one envoy should lead a ship bearing a white painted shield, a sign of truce, upon its mast into Denmark and proclaim to King Frodi that Hrafn Ketil’s attack was of his own volition. Roller stepped forward at this proposal and said, “I wish to volunteer for this duty.” To this Gotar acquiesced, claiming that a more promising representative of the people of Norway could not be found. Erik had objections though.
“I am against your setting off on so dangerous a peace mission. It is common knowledge that King Frodi slaughters foreign emissaries with alarming regularity. Surely there are others who would go in your stead. Are there no others who would like to go visit the fair King Frodi of Denmark?” No one volunteered. Erik was off his high seat now haranguing the men. “I’m sure King Frodi bears us no malice for our recent attack.” Yet no one volunteered. “Are there none who would go in my brother’s stead?” Erik asked and again there was no reply.
“Good. It’s settled then,” Gotar said. “Hraelauger shall be our peace envoy if he still so wishes.”
“Yes, my liege,” Roller answered.
Erik walked to face his brother, glowering at him angrily. He turned to face King Gotar. “I, too, must volunteer then. I cannot let my brother face this danger alone.”
“That is out of the question,” Gotar replied. “I need you to help make preparations should King Frodi decide to attack us.”
“If Frodi attacks us it will mean he has slain our envoy, my brother. I would be of little use in such circumstance. I insist you give me leave to aid him, to prevent this occurring. Give me leave that my eloquent tongue may smooth over any distrust between King Frodi and yourself.”
The other hired men cheered loudly in support of Erik. Princess Alfhild put in a word for him and soon King Gotar was swayed to give him the leave he so desired.
“That was quite a performance you put on,” Alfhild told Erik later. “Father would never have let you go, had you played it any other way.” They had packed a lunch and gone for an afternoon’s ride once again, stopping to eat on a blanket in the midst of a wooded glen. “Why is this peace mission so important to you, Hraerik? You were the one who warned father not to attack King Frodi. You should be the least concerned about how father placates the Danes, and now you risk your life as the Norwegian emissary?”
“Let us say I’m trying to impress your father,” Erik said, lightly.
Alfhild would have none of this levity. “I’ve been leading you on, Hraerik,” she confessed. “I enjoy your company, your stories, your poetry. I have affection for you, Hraerik. Affection, but no passion. And now you’ve put yourself and your brother in grave danger because of me.”
“Your concern for my welfare may not be passion yet, but it is the stirrings of greater emotion.”
“You must call off this mission, Hraerik. I won’t be responsible for your death. For both your deaths.”
“I have no intention of dying,” Erik replied. “That would hardly impress your father.”
Alfhild studied Erik’s deep coarse face. “You’re not on a peace mission, are you Hraerik?” she asked. Erik did not reply. She had succeeded in fathoming his intent and her concern turned to fear as she second guessed the madness, the wildness of Erik’s plan. She rose and staggered blindly to a small oak sapling and leaned on it for support. “What dark and dangerous course have you set for yourself, my eloquent prince? What extreme have I driven you to?”
Erik got up and embraced her from behind. “This isn’t your fault. It has nothing to do with you. You must not tell a soul.” He held her close and could feel her heavy breathing, the pounding of her heart. He felt the flush of her cheek, then the moisture of her sweet breath.
“I’ve been raised in a royal court,” she started. “Father has encouraged me to observe the functions of a king since my early youth and he has never kept any of it from me: the granting of marriages, the planning of alliances, the making of war. All this I have seen–participated in. My father has done all this in order that I may be a powerful queen when my times comes. He has no sons, so I must be strong for him. Strong and emotionless. When the time comes that he chooses me a king, I shall be that powerful queen he wants me to be. I love my father, Hraerik. He has given me everything he has to offer. And when he gives me my king, well…I shall try to love him too.”
Erik turned Alfhild to face him. “And if your father should choose me for you…would you try to love me?”
Tears crested upon Alfhild’s lower eyelids, but they would not flow. “I was born into royalty. I was raised on the high seat, constantly looking down. I must look up. Do you understand, Hraerik? I must look up!”
Erik looked into her eyes, not sure of their meaning. The tears brimmed but would not flow. Soon they dissipated.
“Mother said this prescience of yours is very rare.” Alfhild’s eyes grew stone cold. “She says it comes from your mother’s side, from the east.”
Erik knew her meaning and his body became lead. In his mind his arm rose and swung down and cuffed Alfhild hard across the mouth, but his body would not respond to this thought. Alfhild still stood in front of him, her face flushed and questioning. She could not have read this thought, he told himself, or she would be reeling away in pain. Blood would be flowing from her mouth and the cut upon her cheek. She must never guess. Erik turned himself away from her and braced himself against a huge oak. She must never guess. Erik had never struck a woman, not even a slave, and this terrible thought of his shamed him. “Leave me be,” he stammered. “Go away!” He looked out into the shadows, into the darkness.
“Kraka, teach me the runes,” he had cried as a child. “Teach me to read the runes.”
“The runes are not for the base-born,” she had answered. He had run off into the deepest woods then, and finally Brak had taken him in.
“Go back to your father,” Erik told Alfhild. “I need time to myself.”
Alfhild went to her horse and mounted. It pranced as it stood behind him. “I can’t let you go!” she said as she sat on her steed.
“I already promised your father I would go to Denmark,” Erik replied.
“No! I mean I can’t let you go,” she repeated. “Something just came over me and I realized I can’t let your love for me go.” She dismounted and walked over to Erik. She took his hand and she led him back to the picnic blanket and she moved the basket off of it and they sat upon the blanket beside each other and Alfhild kissed him deeply. “I don’t want to lose your love, Hraerik. I may never get it back.”
“But you said you must look up,” Erik said.
“I’m looking up now,” Alfhild answered, looking up and stroking his hair. “Do you love me, Hraerik? Do you really love me?”
“I believe I do,” he answered. “I love you more than anything else on Earth!”
“I believe you do, too,” she said, “and I just had this thought, this feeling that just overcame me, that if I let you go, I shall die without knowing true love. Is that love, Hraerik?”
“It is love I shall nurture,” Erik replied, and he kissed her deeply in return. They kissed and caressed and Erik laid her down on the blanket and he lifted her dress and he removed her riding shorts. He laid beside her and slipped out of his pants.
“I’ve never been with a man,” she told him. Erik nodded and kissed her, then he pulled her partially off of the blanket and clear off her dress and he opened her legs and laid above her and he entered her and she took in a gasp as her blood flowed into the green grass. He stroked his way into her gently and he began a rhythm that wasn’t discomforting and she began responding to his thrusts with thrusts of her own and Erik felt as though he was about to explode and he wanted her to come with him and he began to count backwards in Roman numerals to help hold it off, starting from cent. When he got down to XXXVI, she began to moan and close her eyes in pleasure and she came at XXI and Erik quit counting and exploded within her. They were caught up in passion and they hugged each other in ecstasy and held each other for a while. Erik was still inside her when he realised something. “I should have worn a glove,” he blurted.
“I’m training to be a healer,” Alfhild replied. “I just got off my month’s flow a day or two ago. I’ll be fine,” and she kissed him for his concern.
They laid upon the blanket for a while with Alfhild’s head resting on Erik’s shoulder, then Erik had a Déjà vu thought that this isn’t how things had gone, that his heart had been broken and some god had stepped in and stopped it from happening. “What made you change your mind and get off your high horse and come back to me here?” he asked her.
“I don’t know,” she answered. “I wasn’t going to, but, like I said, something came over me, like the gods opened my eyes to what was right here in front of me.”
“I just had that thought,” Erik admitted, “like the gods had intervened.”
“Yes,” she said. “It felt a lot like the gods had intervened.”
“I just want you to know that I didn’t get Kraka to put a love spell or anything on you,” Erik said.
“Oh, gods no!” she exclaimed. “I wasn’t thinking that. My mother’s head witch of The Vik and I’m training under her. You can’t use witchcraft on a witch without her knowing it.” Alfhild gave Erik a big hug. “You’re so honest, so sensitive.”
“You’re so beautiful,” Erik told her, getting up on and elbow and stroking her fine golden hair. He looked into her sparkling green eyes and said, “You’re the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. I saw you on a clifftop the first time I sailed into The Vik and the sunlight was dancing in your tresses and I think I fell in love with you there, at first sight.”
Alfhild blushed at this and put her head into Erik’s chest. They rested in each other’s arms for a long time. “If you hadn’t intervened in Hrafn Ketil’s plans, my father might have married me off to him,” Alfhild confessed. “Thank you for that.”
“Hrafn Ketil wasn’t of royal blood,” Erik stated.
“If he would have beaten Sea-King Odd, my father had promised him my hand. That is why Hrafn Ketil volunteered to go in your stead. I wouldn’t have married him, of course. I just wanted to tell you in case you heard of it through others.”
“My father met up with Hrafn Ketil on his way back from Denmark, so I thought perhaps he’d already had words with the Danes.”
“My father sent him to Liere with a proposal match for me to marry King Frodi.”
“But King Frodi’s married to Queen Hanund.”
“She’s a Hun. My father, of course, stipulated primus wife status for my hand. I was to be Queen of Denmark…she would be his concubine. It’s not fitting for an eastern princess to rule over me. I mean no offense, Hraerik, but she is a Hun.”
“Would you have married King Frodi?”
“I would have had to if he’d agreed with all the terms. But he laughed at the offer and called my father just another petty Vik-King of Thule, like Hraegunar ‘Lothbrok’. Those Anglish Danes are so continental, so European!”
“I’m going to kill King Frodi,” Erik confessed.
“Don’t cross lances with King Frodi, Hraerik,” she warned him. “He has too much luck! Just be our emissary and come back to me alive.”
Erik wanted to tell her he had always planned on killing King Frodi for what the Angles had done to his father, but Alfhild thought he was going to do it for her honour, so he left it at that. “Okay…I’ll spare him then,” he assured her, “and I’ll come back alive,” he hoped, but it would be nice if Princess Alfhild grieved for him if he didn’t. A little part of him even wished he had planted a fair seed while ploughing a fine furrow, but she was just off her period.
They kissed and fondled for a bit and then things got all hot and bothered again and Erik was soon counting Roman numerals backwards. They went longer this time and Erik made it to VIII before he abandoned his count. It was the most perfect moment in Erik’s life, if an afternoon could be called a moment, but Erik wished that afternoon could have gone on forever, so it was but a moment in that sense. Still, Erik couldn’t shake the feeling that he had been through it before and things had not gone off near as well. His prescience told him there was something off about that perfect moment, but it was still a perfect moment and the young couple had a perfect return ride back to King Gotar’s highseat hall.
The next morning, the ship, Fair Faxi, sailed out of The Vik, a white shield hanging from her mast. The morning was an autumn one, cool and bright. Erik stood upon the foredeck, Roller manned the rudder and Alfhild watched them slip out onto the sea and she waved at them from the heights of that headland that tumbled down to meet it.
Chapter 6: VISIT AT HRAEGUNARSTEAD (Circa 829 AD) of BOOK 2: THE SAGA OF PRINCE ERIK ‘BRAGI’ RAGNARSON shall follow on next Post or may be found under Heading of The VARANGIANS / UKRAINIANS Book Series – The True History of ‘The Great Viking Manifestation of The Middle Ages’© in Book Two: The Saga of Prince Erik ‘Bragi’ Ragnarson.
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 Saxo’s Danish History Per Brian Howard Seibert
BOOK ONE: 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: The Saga of Prince Erik ‘Bragi’ Ragnarson
Book Two of the Nine Book The Varangians / Ukrainians Series places The Saga of Prince Erik ‘Bragi’ 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: The Saga of King William ‘the Conqueror’ Robertson
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' 