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 TEN:
BOOK TWO: THE SAGA OF PRINCE ERIK ‘BRAGI’ RAGNARSON
A Novel By Brian Howard Seibert
© Copyright by Brian Howard Seibert
CHAPTER TEN
10.0 THE HAND OF GUNWAR (Circa 829 AD)
“Brightly beamed the lights of both her cheeks upon me.
E’re will I recall it o’re the heaped up wood-pile.”
Kormak Ogmundarson (10th Century Skald)
(829 AD) “In King Gotar’s high seat hall,” Erik started, “when an embassy visits, each member is appointed a separate seat and bench where he is to lie.”
“That is, no doubt, a custom you Norwegians learned from the Danes,” King Frodi replied, and he gave Erik’s men the choice benches his champions had occupied, for he had sent them away lest they attack Erik before his three days’ grace expired.
“And in Gotar’s high seat hall,” Erik started once again, “when an embassy visits, a feast is prepared, and a steer is roasted, and meats are served in plenty.” Twilight was approaching and Erik and his men had not eaten since morn.
“Again, that is a custom started by the Danes,” King Frodi answered. “There is a steer a roasting in the scullery as your senses may observe,” and Frodi took a big whiff out of the air and smiled patronizingly. But when the feast was served up, Erik’s party ate great quantities of beef and wasted even more, dropping roasts upon the floor and throwing cuts into the hearths. Frodi was galled by all this and shouted from his high seat, “Does King Gotar allow such wanton squandering of meats?”
Erik took a small bite from a joint of beef, then tossed it upon the floor. “In King Gotar’s high seat hall the men are left to eat as they please, unless there is a famine about.”
The king shrugged and left the men to eat as they pleased. After watching them eat for some time, Frodi said, “Tell me, my Bragning prince, does this eloquent tongue of yours have a lesson for me?”
Erik finished scouring a bone bare and set it aside carefully, for there were certain joints that the Norwegians seemed to be picking clean, while others they but tasted and threw away. He looked up at the king and peered deep into his future and said, “One must look about oneself and select the loyal few from the pretentious many. A staunch group is stronger than a wavering host.”
“You shall soon learn just how staunch a group my champions are.”
No sooner had King Frodi mentioned his champions then Westmar entered the hall demanding to know Erik’s choice in the location of combat. “There is an island nearby called Samso,” he recommended, “where holmgangers are commonly fought.”
“As we are yet inexperienced in land battles,” Erik replied, “I think we shall prefer to fight upon the sea. My ship was won on advice against fighting the Danes and I intend to break it of this habit.”
Westmar protested. “Let out upon the sea, the Norwegians shall flee, just as they’ve done before.”
“I’m afraid I must agree,” King Frodi added.
“Since we do not want to fight on land,” Erik began, “and you do not want to fight us on the sea, I suggest we compromise. There is a frozen dugout within the fortress grounds. On its ice we shall do combat, your sons gaining the firmness of the land while we Norwegians yet fight upon the waters.”
“What manner of battle can be fought upon ice?” Westmar protested once again.
“That is my choice,” Erik insisted. “Should your king have no objections, the matter is closed.”
“You gave the Norwegians choice,” King Frodi said to Westmar. “My soldiers shall surround the pond so that none may leave the ice alive unless victorious.”
“The ice it is,” Westmar growled angrily and stormed out of the hall.
King Frodi turned upon Erik. “You shall yet find my champions staunch and steady.”
“In the high seat hall of King Gotar,” Erik started, changing the subject, “drinking always follows feasting, with strong liquors to soak up the meats.”
“A more shameless beggar I have never met,” King Frodi shouted, more put off by Erik’s apparent disregard of his champions capabilities than by his requests. They were the finest berserks of their time. That fact, none had ever been successful in disputing.
Princess Gunwar rose at her brother’s anger. She was tall and strong and well-proportioned with flowing gold-brown hair, and her eyes–marked by Odin–one hazel blue, one blue, were by now misted over with the veil of alcohol. She was alone in her own land and had turned to drink to dull her sensations. “I shall fetch our guests their ale,” she said, much to Frodi’s chagrin, and she went back to the scullery and brought out slaves carrying cups and horns of brew. She had a huge silver goblet which she carried over to Erik. She felt aligned with Erik. They both bore the burden of common foes. And she was impressed with how he handled himself and how he had handled her brother. No ambassador had ever entered Frodi’s court and gotten such generous treatment.
When she offered Erik the goblet of ale, he took up both her hand and the cup it held and toasted his host. “Most generous of kings, do you award me, as a gift, this that I hold in my hand for the advice I’ve given you, words you shall hold dear for the remainder of your long and illustrious life?”
“Steeply do you scale your words,” Frodi complained, but he nodded that Erik might keep the cup.
Erik, however, grabbed King Frodi’s sister and sat her upon his lap and began to share his ale with her. “I thank you for your gift, my lord,” he said, and then he kissed her as though she was the dearest gift he had ever received.
“Fool!” Frodi shouted. “My sister is no slave that I can give away without her own free consent!”
Erik gave the princess a sly wink, took her hand in his, and pulled his knife from his belt. “Well, if I can’t have all of her, I’ll have to settle for the part you gave me,” and he made as if to cut off her hand.
By this time, Princess Gunwar had begun to laugh and Frodi realized all was in jest. He was made even angrier by this and taunted, “Should you survive your combat with my champions, you’ll have proved yourself worthy of my sister.”
Erik released her hand, but she stayed upon his lap and they continued to drink from Erik’s cup late into the evening. When the revelry was such that the women were wont to leave, Gunwar stayed and supped with Erik. Never had Erik met a woman who could hold her ale as Gunwar did. Quite drunk, they decided to take a walk and Gunwar offered to show Erik the fortress. There was a waxing moon shedding a keen frugal light and the frigid night air made clouds of one’s breath and brought clarity to one’s head. Gunwar led Erik east along the corduroy road and turned left before the harbour town gate. As she started down the inner road that followed the embankment, Erik watched her strong sure movements, and he followed her up a wooden stairway to the top of the rampart. They walked around the inside of the palisade until they came to a second staircase and they climbed it to the walkway of the parapet. Gunwar stopped at an embrasure and stared up at the moon. She sighed, and the air rolled away from her lips in a dissipating cloud. She turned to Erik and she said, “Why did Grep say what he did about me? Hate is all he’s ever gotten from me.”
“That is why he said what he said, and to protect the one who did return his advances. Now, in the cuckold’s eyes, you and Hanund will always share some guilt. It is Grep’s revenge on you and may very well have saved Hanund’s life.”
“Maybe it’s just as well then,” Gunwar started. “Hanund came here an innocent young girl. It was life in my brother’s court that corrupted her. There is so much that is wrong here.” And she sighed, and another little cloud rolled off her lips. Erik watched her as she shuddered in her thoughts. She began walking then she realized he had been watching; whipping her head proudly, she turned. “Why have you come to my brother’s high seat hall? You are as bold as your Norwegian mountains and yet you remain here, still alive. My brother has treated ambassadors with nothing but contempt, yet you have gained his respect through your courage and your words. What makes you so different from all the rest?”
Erik walked up ahead of her and stopped, leaning easily against the parapet. “Other ambassadors came here hoping they’d survive the effort. I’ve come here to destroy the sons of Westmar or die trying.”
“You wanted the combat with them?” Gunwar asked, incredulously. “No wonder you fit in so easily here. You’re as mad as the rest of us! Westmar’s sons cannot be beaten in combat. Grep is dead through his own foolishness, not through anything you, Erik, or your brother, Roller, did. Do you mind me calling you by your Anglish name? We seem as one, you and I. If you hadn’t saved my brother the difficulties in dealing with Grep, he would have set his champions upon you then and there and the boars would be sating themselves on your flesh right now,” she said haughtily, defending her brother’s strength at the expense of his virtue. Erik’s smile grew solemn, and he watched her eyes, sadly. Relenting, she stroked his cheek gently. Princess Gunwar looked out to the long-suffering stars. “You must leave tonight,” she sighed, and the night air tumbled, catching up the moonlight in the silver mist that was her breath. “I shall help you escape.”
“Will you come with me?” Erik asked. “I’ve been promised your hand, and I wouldn’t mind at all if the rest of you came with it.”
“I must stay with my brother,” Gunwar replied, sadly. “He is sending Hanund away on the morrow and he shall need me. He has always been vulnerable, more so now than ever. You have cost him much: his wife and his best friend. Hanund’s father will not take this slight easily. You may very well have destroyed the Southern Way, his Danepar, before it really got started. My brother shall be hard on you when his champions have you at their mercy. You must leave tonight.”
“If I stay and defeat the sons of Westmar, then will you give me your hand?”
“So little time and so much to learn about you,” Gunwar said and she kissed him gently. “I’ll help you in any way I can against the berserks, for they are destroying our land, but I don’t think you’ll be winning my hand.”
“I’ll take your help then, since you’ve offered it, but I must warn you that I have a plan. I may yet survive to claim your hand.”
“You may have a plan, and I hope it’s a good one, but I’d rather lose you through flight, than not have you alive at all. I feel that our fates are intertwined somehow. Henceforth, my hand is yours and the rest of me comes with it.” Princess Gunwar put her hand in Erik’s and they walked along the parapet, doing the full circumference of her brother’s fortress. They descended the rampart and entered Gunwar’s longhall and there they spent the night.
In the early morning, Gunwar awoke from a nightmare that she’d had very many times before. She was trembling so, that Erik woke up too. “What is it?” he asked, and he comforted her in his arms.
“I dream every morn, in the half light of dawn, and I see the heads of the thirty princes that came to court me. The beast–that’s what I called Grep–comes into my room as I sleep, and he lines the wainscoting with the heads of the young men who came to ask for my hand. Still dripping with gore, they cry out for revenge, but, this time, they cried no more. And they bid me thank you and your brother. Thank you, Erik!” she cried, and she buried her head in Erik’s shoulder and she sobbed for a long time. Erik held her close and he remembered what Princess Alfhild had told him about Hrafn Ketil’s visit here in Liere. He had offered King Frodi Alfhild’s hand in marriage and he was laughed at and made to fell petty, but he had learned of the thirty heads that had lined Princess Gunwar’s bed chamber and Alfhild had cried at Gunwar’s plight. Once Gunwar stopped crying, Erik kissed her tears away and they began kissing each other deeply. They made love in the early morning and then they rested in each other’s arms.
“Do you remember when Gotar’s man, Hrafn Ketil, led an embassy here?” Erik asked her.
“I remember him,” Gunwar replied, “but he didn’t stay long. He offered Gotar’s daughter, Princess Alfhild, in marriage, then he left as quickly as he’d come, fearing for his life.”
“He said that your brother scoffed at him and said that Alfhild was the daughter of a petty king and not good enough for him.”
“Is that what Hrafn Ketil told you?” she asked. “My brother’d heard about Alfhild’s beauty and he was very interested in marrying her, but Sea King Odd advised against it. He said it could fock up our relations with the Huns and destroy the Dan’Way. My brother has a lot of faults, but insulting other kings is not one of them. He’s very insecure in his own reign, so he makes it a point not to criticize others’.”
“So,” Erik said slowly, “would he be interested in marrying Princess Alfhild now that he’s lost Hanund?”
“Look at you! Always the ambassador,” and she could see that Erik was serious.
“Your brother has given me your hand. I thought it only fair to return the favour. Alfhild would never stray on him the way Hanund has,” Erik said. “I know her personally and I know she cried when she’d heard Hrafn Ketil’s lie.”
“Why’d he lie?”
“I think Hrafn Ketil wanted her for himself. I think he was going to ask Gotar for her hand if he was successful in his attack on King Oddi. I can’t blame him. I think I might have done the same thing…wait a second, I think I did just that, but I asked for your hand instead!”
“Your confidence is infectious!” Gunwar declared. “Now you’ve even got me believing you just might survive! Returning my brother’s favour indeed! I’ll have a little sip of your infectious ambrosia and I’ll tell you this…my brother Frodi needs a Princess Alfhild in his life, more now, than ever.”
When Erik returned to King Frodi’s high seat hall, he went to Roller and said, “I’ve paid a guard to go into Liere to bring back a dressed steer. We shall be feasting in Princess Gunwar’s hall tonight, for she has offered us her aid.”
Roller flashed his brother a broad grin. “What torments you must have suffered, last night, swaying her to our side.” But, when Erik could only flush at the statement, Roller knew his brother had found more than a warm bed for the night.
“She wants to thank you for killing Grep,” Erik whispered, “and she figures the best way to do that is by saving your brother.” Erik gathered up the bones that he had set aside the evening before. “Now it’s time to prepare for our combat.”
One might have expected Erik and his men to prepare themselves for their upcoming fight by practicing at the weapons which Erik had claimed to be so inexperienced with, but instead they shut themselves up in Gunwar’s longhall and they made themselves four pairs of strange boots from a hide and the bones Erik had put aside, while Gunwar’s shield-maidens and slaves prepared for a second night of revelry.
In the afternoon, Erik and Roller took a walk about the compound and Erik stopped before the huge frozen dugout that covered the south-west quadrant of the fortress. The sun was shining, and the ice glistened in its brilliance. “What if it snows?” Roller asked his brother.
“Then we shall likely die,” Erik answered, and he studied the sky and he tasted the air. “It doesn’t feel like snow,” he lied. The dugout was a large one, pie shaped and about a hundred and a half feet on its straight sides. ‘There’ll be plenty of room to get about,’ Erik thought, ‘if only it doesn’t snow.’ They returned to Gunwar’s hall and they got themselves ready for the feast.
When the feast was underway, once again Erik’s men began devouring their food most wastefully. Slabs of meat they tossed upon the floor, and joints they threw out hardly touched. King Frodi was glad to see that the Norwegians were as wasteful with their own beef as they had been with his, but he noticed, once more, that they were particularly careful with some joints of meat, finishing them completely, then setting the bones off to one side. Again, Princess Gunwar drank with Erik late into the evening, but her maidens played good hostesses and drank with his men even longer.
Erik sat upon the edge of Gunwar’s huge feather bed, taking off his boots. Gunwar closed the door to her bedchamber and it blocked out the noise of the party somewhat. “What is this plan of yours?” she asked. “These strange boots you are making out of ox-hide and bone?”
“Last night I was doomed and tonight you are full of questions? What has brought about this, dare I say, hope?” Erik had his boots unlaced and kicked them off, first one, then the other. He began pulling off his tunic.
Gunwar tucked her dress about her calves and kneeled upon the wooden floor in front of him, resting her hands upon his thighs. “It’s your men. They are full of confidence. Their faith in you is infectious,” and she laid her head upon his lap as if that tenuous faith was all she had. “They would follow you into the underworld if you but asked them to.”
“In a sense they all have, crossing the great northern ocean into the White Sea and following me into the Eastern Realm. The Nor’Way crossing is a strange phenomenon that affects every man very differently, yet the same. My plan is based upon things we Norwegians have learned in the east. Things that the Lapps and the Finns and the Dwarves and Giants have taught us. But of all the things we’ve experienced, the great crossing is the most enduring.”
“Tell me about the Eastern Realm” Gunwar pleaded. “Tell me about the great crossing.” And Erik began his tale of travel by describing a certain dwarf he had known, called Dvalin.
Chapter 11: THE BATTLE UPON THE ICE (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' 