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 ELEVEN:
BOOK TWO: THE SAGA OF PRINCE ERIK ‘BRAGI’ RAGNARSON
A Novel By Brian Howard Seibert
© Copyright by Brian Howard Seibert
CHAPTER ELEVEN
11.0 THE BATTLE UPON THE ICE (Circa 829 AD)
“He traversed the (frozen?) waters on a bone.”
The First Nine Books of the Danish History of Saxo Grammaticus
(829 AD) Dawn broke and brought wispy clouds that smelled of snow and blustery winds that whipped them about till they spun, and they rolled into a heavy mist, threatening ominously. The day was a dull hoary grey that reminded Erik of Ragnar’s beard. The news had come to Erik in a dream: his father was dead. The premonition he’d had on the Island of Laeso had seemed to come to fruition. But the news was yet more feeling than fact, so he spared his brother the tidings. He wondered, too, if he and Roller were soon to follow: if so, the news wouldn’t matter much; if not, Roller would learn soon enough. Erik looked up from the porch of Gunwar’s hall and watched the scud blowing in from the east, and he wondered what this third day, this day of battle would bring. He was working on the last pair of boots that his men would be wearing into combat out upon the ice. Once more they had banqueted in his hostess’s hall and once more they had collected the bones that Erik needed to build his boots. It was from the Finns that the Norwegians had first learned about the boots, but it was the dwarf Dvalin that had taught Erik how to make them properly, how to select the right materials: the shin bone of a steer, the hide of an ox and the steel pins that only a smith could make to tie the two together. He thought of Dvalin and he stroked the hilt of Tyrfingr at his waist, as though to refresh his memory. Life always seemed to work out like the poems and stories with which he was so familiar. The hero falling just short of his goal; circumstance thwarting honest effort; had he been writing the story, Dvalin would have made it home, and Ragnar would be alive today, but he wasn’t writing it. ‘I’m living it as I go,’ he thought.
“How will it end?” Gunwar asked, walking out onto the porch. “How will end this bleak day? The clouds are heavy. I prayed to Freya for good weather and we got this,” she said, disappointed.
“If the snow holds off, it’s as fine a day as we’ll need to get our day’s work done.”
Gunwar sat down on the bench beside Erik. She placed both her hands and her head upon Erik’s shoulder and she looked up to the sky. “If you die today,” she whispered, “I’m going to shut myself up in my bedchamber and have the Valkyries set fire to my hall.” Erik smiled and turned to her, but then realized she was deathly serious, and the blood drained from his face. “I’ve waited a long time for you,” she continued, “and I’ll not take losing you now,” and she buried her face in his shoulder and Erik could feel her silent weeping. He cradled her head in his hand and he hushed her like a baby.
It had never occurred to Erik that he should forgo his due retribution to spare a woman the grief of his actions, but he looked down on Gunwar and for an instant he wanted to flee away with her, he wanted to spare the men that had cost Ragnar his life. He hushed her a few moments until she stopped sobbing. “I must do this for my father,” he said.
“I didn’t mean to do that,” she said, stepping back. She dried her tears and she stood away from him. Erik gathered up the boots he had been working on and he went inside. She prayed to her gods that what she had said to Erik would not weaken his resolve and possibly cost him his life. She would follow him to the nine worlds of hell if he died.
At noon, the Norwegians gathered up their gear and they headed out to the ice. They strode down the steps of the porch in single file, Erik in the lead and Roller at his back, and they walked across the log dressed road to the quadrant with the dugout. The berserks were already there, on the road down the right side of the quadrant, working themselves into their berserker furies. And King Frodi’s army surrounded the ice and watched over all the preparations. They were very respectful of Erik and his men, those about to die. Townsfolk from Liere and from the harbour village, and Alfgeir and Einar Cuff and the rest of Erik’s men were there, gathering on the left road to watch the modified holmganger, or island combat, where water was the isle and the land the waiting deep. The berserks were invincible in their fury: no steel could bite them, and each had the strength of six men, and their swords were massive, and some carried great pole axes that were impossible to handle until they were in that manic state. If Erik had had any qualms about the berserkers dying, they were gone now. Gunwar was beside her brother, who was presiding over the combat from the apex of the quadrant. Erik and his men put on their special boots and fastened their bucklers and gathered up their spears and axes. “Only the victors shall leave the ice alive!” King Frodi commanded, and he took a scarf from Gunwar and he dropped it out on the frozen waters. It rippled in the wind as it fell, and it blew out onto the ice and it stuck, and it fluttered like a wounded bird, as Erik stepped out onto the frozen waters. He was unsteady at first, but his skill soon came back to him, and he poled himself out onto the ice with his spear, gliding with one foot, then striding with the other. Then he planted his pole and he made a turn and his men followed in a line behind him and did just as he had done. The townsfolk of Liere were awed, for they had never seen anyone skate before. Erik and his men stood in a row at the far end of the ice, as the sons of Westmar stepped out onto the sheet in boots they had covered in tar and sand in a vain attempt at traction. A murmur ran through the townsfolk. While most had only hoped that the Norwegians would win, many now sensed that they just might.
The sons of Westmar worked their way out into the middle of the ice, a crazed howling knot of men. The Norwegians skated along the arc of the quadrant, closing in on the berserks at an angle. As they approached, several of the berserks broke away from the group to attack, and the last few men in the Norwegian line skirmished with them. The Norwegians thrusted with their spears and struck with their swords, but their blows had no effect on the berserks, who didn’t even bother with armour. The bare shoulder of one of the berserks deflected away a particularly devastating blow, and he shrugged it off without showing signs of pain. The ice, where an arm should lay severed, was merely sprinkled with sweat. The Norwegians broke off the encounter and continued to circle the Danes. Erik could sense that his men were shaken, so he had Roller take the lead and he dropped to the tail of the column and he drew Tyrfingr solemnly. The berserks were cheering as Roller led the skaters in toward them and, when several came out again to do battle, Erik met with one of them and they traded blows as he passed. Erik’s sword stroke appeared to have little effect, as Tyrfingr passed right through the neck of one berserk as if it wasn’t even there. “Magic !” Erik’s thoughts flashed, but, as the white ice was sprinkled with sweat it was also reddened, a few droplets at first, misting up the blank sheet, then huge drops that splashed across the pane, followed, finally, by a head that came tumbling after Erik as he skated along. The berserk’s great body came crashing to the ice in a crumpled heap and it was the Norwegians’ turn to cheer. Tyrfingr was glowing now, not visibly in the light of day, but Erik could feel her.
The berserkers began moving across the ice in an attempt to corner Erik and his men. They gauged an intercept course and charged wildly in their tarred boots, slipping and sliding and falling as they went, leaving a trail of berserks as they progressed. And, although they had correctly judged their direction to engage the middle of the Norwegian formation, Erik called for the rear half of his men to halt and the berserks that were still in pursuit, slid harmlessly in between them, leaving Roller’s group free to attack the stragglers where they had fallen. This they did, and, though their blunted weapons would not bite, they managed to wrest a great poleaxe free from one of the berserks and they bludgeoned him to death under its sheer mass. The axe seemed more like an anvil mounted on the end of a small tree, and it took Roller and several others to wield it. When they attacked a second berserk with it, they caught him with a glancing blow that sent him flying across the sheet, but the axe crashed through the ice and disappeared into the waters, leaving a great jagged hole in their island of ice.
Erik’s group had stopped and drawn the main body of the enemy after them. The berserks gave them chase and, in fact, could run as fast as the others could skate, but the Norwegians just planted their spears and turned sharply away from them, and the berserkers could do naught but skitter and fall in their attempts to stop, while Erik and his men skated to aid Roller’s group in dispatching the fallen. The berserk that Roller had clubbed senseless came sliding across the ice and one of Erik’s men dispatched him with a sword, for he was no longer in a berserk state and therefore susceptible to steel. Erik squared off against a huge berserk and warded off a savage blow with his shield, before driving Tyrfingr deep into his ribs. Tyrfingr’s bloodletting grooves ran red with gore and the lifeblood left the warrior and spilled out across the bright white ice. The sun was out now, its rays dancing in the blood and the ice, deep crimson rubies settling into a bed of crushed diamonds. Erik had never seen colours so alive. He was breathing heavily as he strained to pull Tyrfingr out of the dying berserk’s chest. He could taste the blood in the air, he thought and, as Tyrfingr came free, he realized he was biting his lip.
One of the better skaters in Roller’s group had kept a berserk down by tripping him and knocking him off balance and causing him to slip, until Erik got over there and dispatched him as he lay upon the ice. Six berserks remained alive, and they were charging up the ice after the Norwegians. Erik led his men away from them and toward the hole where Roller had broken up the ice, and, as the berserks closed in, the Norwegians split up once more, skating off on either side of it. The sons of Westmar could not turn and could not stop, and they could only clench their teeth as they all slid into the ice-cold water of the pond. Their berserker furies dissipated in the frigid abyss, and Erik’s men planted their spears in the ice and turned and pierced the sons of Westmar into oblivion.
“There seem to be many dolphins about,” Erik said to Roller as they approached King Frodi at the apex of the quadrant.
“For this cold weather,” Roller agreed.
Now, after the destruction of the berserks out upon the ice, King Frodi fully understood the meaning of Erik’s riddle, whereby he had claimed to have shaken free the lance-head of the king, meaning Oddi. There, too, it must have been the waters that had overcome his cousin, more so than the Norwegians. Erik was a dangerous man, King Frodi decided.
“I come seeking the hand of your sister, Princess Gunwar,” Erik said, and Gunwar stepped out onto the ice unsteadily and Erik took her arm and gave her support. She left no question as to her stand in the matter. They stood out there on the ice, and Westmar came over to young King Frodi and talked to him, and then King Frodi said, “There shall be a banquet tonight in my high seat hall and there you shall receive the hand of my sister, Princess Gunwar, should she choose to accept your request.”
“Westmar has something planned,” Gunwar said later, in her hall, while they were preparing for her brother’s banquet. “It’s a trap,” she said, when Erik made no reply. “We should saddle up our horses,” she continued, “and escape while they are preparing for the banquet.”
Erik could see that Gunwar was faltering and he took her in his arms. She had the strength to survive in King Frodi’s crazed court, but the effort had worn on her and she was now fragile as a flower. “I’m not going to steal you away from your brother,” Erik told her. “Wherever we’d go he would follow us with an army. Such is the way of kings. He has promised me your hand and his blessing and, Westmar or not, I shall remain to collect them.” There was no doubt in Erik’s mind. His heart had met its match and he knew that Gunwar felt the same way. Gone were the self-doubts he’d had while pursuing Princess Alfhild. He had accomplished much since then. He had done Ragnar proud.
That night, in King Frodi’s high seat hall, after the feasting was over and they were well into the bouts of drinking, Westmar leaned over from his third high seat and challenged Erik, who was sharing Gunwar’s second high seat, to row the withy with him on pain of death. Although Westmar was a huge man, he was getting on in years and Erik’s time at blacksmithing had given him a back and shoulders that were a match for anyone, so he took up the challenge. There was no spontaneity on Westmar’s part; he happened to have a withy ring tucked in his belt.
Erik and Westmar sat down on the plank floor of the audience area between the high seats, and they put their feet together sole to sole, and they each grabbed hold of the withy ring and they pulled against each other. First one would rise up off his buttocks and look as though he were about to nose-dive over the other’s shoulder, then the other would rise up off the floor and look as if he were going to go over. After several minutes of this back and forth rowing, beads of sweat pearled on the forehead of Westmar and his face grew crimson with his efforts, so that the tiny pearls became rubies and it appeared as though he was sweating blood. Several more minutes of this effort brought sweat to the countenance of Erik, but it was apparent that Westmar was overmatched. His strength was ebbing. A quarter of an hour into the bout, Westmar gathered up all his remaining strength and pulled Erik up off the floor one last time, and, when it looked as if Erik might go over, the young Norwegian straightened up his powerful back, lowered his centre of gravity and settled back down. Erik then summoned all the strength he had and gave an enormous pull that sent Westmar flying over his shoulders and sprawling into a post. Everyone could hear Westmar’s neck snap, as he was driven headfirst into the heavy fir support column, and the hall shook with the impact and all knew that Westmar was dead.
The old woman, Gotwar, did not even rise up off her high seat to aid her dead husband. As the guards hauled Westmar, feet first, out of the hall, Gotwar sat and brooded. They would take the old man to the icehouse, where he would rest with his sons for nine days before burial. Erik knew that it would be Gotwar’s intention to avenge her kin, so he was not too surprised when the old hag, too, rose up with a challenge.
“Oh, great leader of our northern guests,” Gotwar began her harangue, “Erik ‘Bragi’ Hraegunarson, well known for words and wisdom, well-travelled, and well accounted for here this day, I challenge you to a duel of words, to a contest of flygting, on pain of death.”
Erik rose up and responded, “One sided this wager seems, for your journey through life is all but spent while mine has just begun.”
They stood across the dais from each other, and they eyed each other as they played a most dangerous game. Gotwar tore a heavy gold necklace from her throat, and she said, “Well travelled you are, having visited the Eastern Realm, but I received this necklace, from young King Frodi, as a reward for travelling east to the land of the Khazars and bringing him back a young wife worthy of his station.” She threw it down on the floor between them. “This shall make up the wager’s difference, but also at stake here is your name, ‘Bragi’. Your King Gotar must have wished you much trouble, to hand you so handsome a title.”
Erik’s relationship with his king was tenuous at best, but he had won the byname, ‘Bragi’, and Gotwar was the first to challenge its validity. Gunwar’s whispered pleas could not stop the contest now. “Begin, old woman!”
Gotwar turned and faced the audience and said:
“When you’re grinding your war-axe on the whetstone,
does your wagging penis flail the quivering rump?”
All the Danes and the Norwegians at the feast looked amongst each other, searching for someone who could understand her meaning, but there was no one. Flygting was a contest of insults, but she had insulted Erik more just getting him to compete than she now did when her very life was at stake. The folk shook their heads in wonderment. Any one of them could best those words.
Erik was not about to insult the old woman with words, after a nonsensical verse such as that, deciding to best her with this humorous retort:
“When boy becomes man, he grows whiskers to be sheared,
but his private parts he keeps in a beard.”
The Norwegians immediately began to cheer his words and the Danes were chuckling at first, but soon began laughing uproariously. The verse had been terse and humorous, its simplicity, itself, an insult to Gotwar.
The old woman went over to the necklace, got down on her knees and picked it up. She held it up to Erik like a fawning dog, and Princess Gunwar began crying and pleading for the old woman’s life. Roller came up to Erik and warned him not to spare her, because she was a witch and duty bound to avenge herself against him. But Gunwar was begging for the old hag’s life, and Gotwar, herself, was swearing that she would only be her foster-daughter’s handmaiden for her remaining days. Erik took the necklace from the old hag and placed it about Gunwar’s smooth neck, and he said, “Her life is yours to do with as you please.” And the old woman was at Gunwar’s feet, smoothing her silk dress and adjusting her shoes. Gunwar rose and led the old woman off to the chambers before Roller could convince Erik to change his mind. And Roller would have killed the old hag himself, then and there, had he gotten half the chance. He felt the evil of the old woman, and he wondered at how his brother, with all his prescience, could not sense this.
Princess Gunwar was on her way back from the chambers, when she saw her brother reaching for the knife at his belt. Erik was standing by Roller’s bench and they were still arguing about his decision to spare Gotwar. King Frodi pulled the knife from his sheath and flipped it handle for blade. Gunwar shouted out a warning to Erik, and he turned to face Frodi, just as the young king threw the knife. Erik side-stepped the blade and it lodged, quivering, in a column beside him. The young Varangian pulled the knife free of the post and walked toward the young king. “It would make a much finer gift if you would present me with the sheath that goes with it,” he said, and Frodi slipped the sheath off his belt and gave it to Erik.
Gunwar joined Erik on the steps of the dais and said, “You may give Erik my hand now, since you’re in such a generous mood.” King Frodi gave Erik his sister in marriage and the Norwegian’s victory feast became a wedding banquet as well.
Chapter 12: THE REBIRTH OF FRODI (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' 