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 TWELVE:
BOOK TWO: THE SAGA OF PRINCE ERIK ‘BRAGI’ RAGNARSON
A Novel By Brian Howard Seibert
© Copyright by Brian Howard Seibert
12.0 THE REBIRTH OF FRODI (Circa 829 AD)
“Starting in the twelfth century, the Christian kings of Liere started to discredit and dismember what they called the Lying Sagas of Denmark. These Lying Sagas were the tales of the sons and grandsons of Ragnar Lothbrok, the greatest of Vikings…the Varangians…the Hraes’. Saxo Grammaticus was complicit in this censorship of Danish history, but in his work, in his Nine Books of Danish History, he left us tales and he left us clues. My modest attempt to reconstruct them is the rebirth of those sagas, a search for truth and tales of kings so grand, they humbled the kings who followed.”
Brian Howard Seibert
(829 AD) Dawn was creeping in from the orient, when Gunwar awoke with a fright. She saw, by the faint light of a window high up in the wall, that it was snowing, and she prayed her thanks to Freya for the day’s delay. Erik would not now be at her side, had it snowed the day before. The rest of the Norwegian party were sleeping at their benches, and more than a few of them were sleeping with her Valkyries and maidens. The feasting had finished early at the high seat hall, but it had carried on in her own hall until only a few hours earlier. She was tired, but a dream had awakened her. For once it was not her old nightmare, but rather a new fear that disturbed her.
“My brother will not let you leave this place alive,” she whispered to Erik, rousing him from his slumbers. “We must escape,” she urged.
Erik could feel the desperation in Gunwar’s voice, so he peeled away the down coverings and the cool air caught him up and helped him to his feet. They dressed and went out into the hall, and they quietly roused his men. They stole out to the stable in Gunwar’s quadrant, saddled up horses, and, when everyone was ready, they mounted them and rode out of the stable and down the log dressed road. The muffled clatter of hooves on new fallen snow brought shouts of alarm from the royal guards on the porch of King Frodi’s high seat hall. They swept by the guards and out the harbour town gate, and they rode hard toward the blush of dawn, and they were pelted by the moist falling snowflakes that would melt on contact, and soon their faces were streaming with little rivulets of water.
The horses were spent and steaming in the frosty morning air, when the Norwegian party reached the harbour town. They trotted up, quietly, to their pavilion and set themselves to work, feverishly packing up their gear and readying Erik’s ship. Some of his men, Erik sent off to scuttle King Frodi’s fleet. They tramped through the new fallen snow, down the line of ships that sat high up on the beach, and they stove in several forward strakes of each with their war-axes. Alfgeir and several of his men arose at the racket but made no attempt to stop them. Erik gave Einar Cuff all their horses and all the gear left behind and Gunwar gave him a farewell kiss. The Norwegians hauled Fair Faxi out into the water and they were soon rowing for their lives.
They were barely off when King Frodi and his cavalry stormed into the harbour town and out onto the beach. The soldiers quickly dragged their ships into the water, ignoring the protests of Alfgeir, and they set to rowing out after the Norwegians. Pale was the light of dawn and a gentle wind ruffled the waters; King Frodi could be heard shouting over the waves, exhorting his men to greater efforts; and the smell of salty spray was all about, as Erik and his crew rowed hard in determined silence. One by one, the Danes turned back, as the sea swamped their damaged boats, until King Frodi’s larger lead ship was the only one in pursuit, but it, too, was foundering. Still, King Frodi urged his men on and Erik had his men stop rowing. The ship was sinking, the Danes swimming for shore, when the young king launched himself off the forecastle and attempted, in full armour, to catch the Norwegians on his own. Erik had his men back-rowing toward King Frodi and Princess Gunwar was stern-most, encouraging her brother on, when his strength failed. Erik and Roller, both, dove into the waves and swam for him; twice he sank and struggled to the surface, and then went down a third time before Erik reached him and hauled him up by his hair, up above the billows. The two brothers towed the young king back to their ship and the Norwegians yarded him aboard. Brine poured in floods from his heaving chest, as Gunwar stripped him of his armour and clothes and swaddled him in woollens. She massaged warmth into his cold white limbs, as he got his breath back, and she made him comfortable, as they waited for his strength to return. Once his colour came back, a great fit of shivering overcame him. Erik and Roller had stripped themselves of their garments, and were also attired in blankets, when King Frodi covered his face with his hands and began a woeful dirge:
“By this orient light I bare my soul
to the gods who’ve so abandoned me:
Spare me not from my enemy, but rather
let him deliver me my doom.
Pray dear Odin that he has captured me
from the waves to die more fitting
by sword or spear or, as Koll did,
by rope to hang and ever fall.
Never has a king of note so far fallen
as the king who bares his breast before you now,
and low-born the man who crushed me
with seeming little effort.
All my short life I have deemed myself
to be a king of wisdom and philosophy,
only to learn, too late, my want of wit.
Repute shattered, let there be no respite.
Gone is the day I could pride myself
in all that I’ve accomplished.
Never more shall I take pride
in all that I have garnered.
Gone is my sister, stolen away,
and gone, again, my honour.
Razed is the house of Westmar
and with it, all my strength.
Ruins remain of my own royal house.
My queen, stoking a cuckold’s hearth
no more, reigns no longer in some
far off land. Returned to her father,
she takes with her the Southern Way,
my child, my creation, the culmination
of my life’s work. My Danepar…gone.
Ill fate has become my lot in life.
My fylgja has abandoned me.
Luck has ‘come ‘lusive.
Life becomes burdensome.
So, why keep me yet alive?
End me now, Erik, for the hanging god broods
and shall cast ill fortune upon you,
should you tarry with this stroke.
Feel no remorse at my death,
for all but life has left me now,
and nothing can repair
the sundered soul within this heaving breast.
No feat could resurrect my ill repute,
no act reclaim my honour.
Kill me now in a manner behooving the gods,
or cast me back into the sea,
before strength returns and I kill myself
abominably.”
All were moved by King Frodi’s elocution; Gunwar was in tears when Erik replied thus:
“Stay the hand that assaults the soul,
for surely the gods have passed
empyreal laws `gainst such harsh
thought and deed.
Trials are to be met with might,
and tests with mettle, and with such
have you risen to this pernicious event,
enduring torments but losing naught.
Fate has tempered thee, my liege,
and the gods perhaps send warning;
but of loss: you’ve suffered none
that better times and circumstance
cannot replace. Woe to the man
enduring not adversity,
shirking responsibility, giving not
chance, time to repair its ills.
Suffer then this thought: that
many would gladly trade their happiness
for an opportunity to share in your agony.
You are young and strong. Virile with life.
Who could help but admire
the determination of a man who’d
throw himself into the sea to pursue
one he perceived as an enemy.
So much for ill repute! Your rule remains
as it ever was. So much for ill fortune!
Your Southern Way is yet to be gained,
’tis much too soon to fear its loss.
And your wife perhaps is better gone,
her father’s wrath a trial yet to be endured,
but the time for tests is over now,
for the Huns are far removed.
Your sister is another matter:
stolen not, she is even now at your side,
dispensing comfort, as she shall ever be,
in heart, if not physically.
I pray you feel not rash in giving her me,
for if you reclaim her I’ll not dispute.
All of her that I need, my heart holds dear.
A boon should you allow me more!
As to accomplishments…my how
far we’ve fallen! If in the future
you’ll look not back, and laugh at this
slight stumble, I shall surely be surprised.
Such confidence have I in your future career,
that you shall look down from the height of it,
in your comfortable old age, and you shall feel
this but a trip in the frolicking of youth.
And you shall long to taste
the bitter-sweetness of youthful folly once more,
for you have lost no power here.
You rule as though yet in your palace.
We may have fled you out of fear,
but we yet obey you out of obligation.
Had you not dived into the surf, so bravely,
we’d have made good our escape beyond your command,
but we could not flee your dire need and so
now you command us once again.
We shall return you to your land,
and you may end us if you so desire,
but I shall be a brother and have your back,
should you but ask the favour.
And you shall rule many lands,
in a manner so just, you shall bury your past,
and the future shall remember your rule,
and the future shall remind all of your justice,
and the future shall record your reign as
the Peace of Frodi.”
Erik was clutching at the topstrake of Fair Faxi, steadying himself—his blanket draping him loosely—and staring blankly out over the coast of Denmark. He let forth a great shiver and all knew it was not from the cold. He had just had a vision, and, for a moment, all were caught up in it. Young King Frodi’s eyes were glowing in rapture. Erik had rekindled his soul-fire. Gunwar felt the strength returning to her brother, but the aura his eyes now cast frightened her. Once Erik had dressed, he grabbed the rudder, ordered his men to resume rowing and turned Fair Faxi about. King Frodi donned his armour and he joined the young Norwegian at the stern. There was not a word exchanged between them and when they got to shore, King Frodi’s soldiers anxiously dragged the ship out of the water. The king had his men fetch Princess Gunwar’s horses, and Erik’s original party of twelve rode back to Liere with King Frodi, surrounded by his soldiery.
King Frodi said not a word to anybody all the way back, and when they got to his hall he dismounted and signalled for Erik and his party to follow him in. He shouted for his steward, as he walked toward the dais, and his steward appeared by the time he had reached his high seat. “Yes Sire,” he stammered, for he noticed at once the change in his king’s demeanour. It was the same courtier that had yanked the hide out from under Erik only days before.
“Prepare the court of King Frodi ‘the Third’ for a royal wedding. My sister, Princess Gunwar, is to be properly wedded!”
Chapter 13: THE WINNING OF ALFHILD (Circa 830 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' 