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 FIFTEEN:
BOOK TWO: THE SAGA OF PRINCE ERIK ‘BRAGI’ RAGNARSON
A Novel By Brian Howard Seibert
© Copyright by Brian Howard Seibert
15.0 FATE OF GOTAR (Circa 831 AD)
“Hearken my song, sinker- of-sailhorses, for greatly
skilled at the skein am I a skald you must have–of verses;
and even if thou, king of all Norway, hast ever
scorned and scoffed at other skalds, yet shall I praise thee.”
Sigvat Thordarson; Skaldskaparmal
(831 AD) Erik was amazed. How incredibly one could change in a matter of months. Alfhild’s bright green eyes still sparkled, her hair still danced in the morning’s light, her lips yet quivered pinkly, but her face was paler than the white marble it had been, and her belly was swollen with the fruit of her king’s love, for she was now well into her pregnancy. Erik watched as his wife led his queen across the long beach of the little harbour town toward the ships’ landing. They’d just returned from the Sclavish war, and he watched King Frodi run out across the sand, and when his king fell to his knees and placed his war-hardened hands ever so gently upon that belly, big with child, Erik looked away and began shouting orders to his men.
“Angantyr Frodi,” Alfhild started. “They are calling you Angantyr Frodi,” she said proudly to her husband.
“Yes!” King Frodi said, looking down into the sand. “The hanging god king,” and he looked up to his wife. “It is not something in which I take pride,” he lied. “I only hope that it has appeased Odin.”
Erik joined his king and they helped their women up the beach and into the longhall of the king’s harbourmaster. It was a sombre homecoming. Alfgeir explained that, once again, there were reports of a planned assault against Denmark by King Gotar and the Norwegians, and that preparations were in progress. “The attack is imminent,” he continued. “We have news that King Gotar has raised a fleet and that his army is ready to sail on a moment’s notice.”
Erik sat glumly upon the second high seat and pondered the news. Frodi, too, was deep in thought, but offered this: “It is good that our war against the Sclavs went well, or, at least, that my father-in-law has waited until our return to attack us.”
“We have been working hard on preparations of our own in your absence, my liege,” Alfgeir continued. “Princess Gunwar has even begun training the women of Denmark in our defense.”
“It’s good,” King Frodi said. “My sister is a capable warrior.” He then turned to Erik and said, “I guess we have humbled King Gotar overmuch. He feels his treachery has been returned too manyfold. It may well have been better for him had he battled it out with his men upon the sea. He would have gained fame; now he shall gain only notoriety.”
“I am sorry it has come to this, but we must carry the contest to King Gotar,” Erik started. “Our fleet lies fresh beached in the harbour, and our soldiers have not yet packed away their gear. We must sally forth while the advantage is yet ours to gain.”
Roller echoed Erik’s sentiments, yet King Frodi seemed hesitant to lead a host against his own father-in-law. “Our warriors are weary from campaigning. We should let them rest and relax with their families before we subject them to further peril.”
Erik could see the weight in the words of his king. Their own wives had gotten news and were at the little harbour town to meet them, but the wives of their champions and the wives of the common soldiery had no such advantage.
“I understand your concern, my king, but I think I have a plan whereby the wounded and the weary need only come along for the ride.” Erik whispered momentarily with Alfgeir regarding the capabilities of the home guard he had mustered, then continued, “And I have our harbourmaster’s assurances that the home guard shall see to the needs of their fellow soldiers.”
King Frodi’s army had set up camp all along the beach of the harbour town, and his soldiers spent the rest of the day relaxing in the warm fall sunshine while the home guard, men too young and too old for military service, fetched wives and families forth from Liere to visit with their husbands and their sons. It soon seemed that the resources of the little harbour town would be stretched to bursting, but the portly Alfgeir was everywhere, arranging for provisions from one quarter, while obtaining needed transportation from another. In the evening, King Frodi sponsored a huge feast for his men and their families, and, though this went on late into the night, the army had all its gear packed up and was ready to ship out early the next morning.
Gunwar and Alfhild insisted on accompanying the Danish forces in their sally, Gunwar by reason of leading her own warriors, for Erik’s plan involved a show of Danish force, and Alfhild, though pregnant, for the fact that the attack was upon her father. No amount of reasoning could dissuade the women from their purpose, so rather than delay the departure of the force, King Frodi agreed to their accompanying it. Once out at sea, the young king felt more at ease with their mission; with a good salty wind at their backs and a bright blue sky all about them, he began to question Erik about his plan.
Erik stared back at the long formation of ships trailing behind Fair Faxi and began: “King Gotar may forgive you his injuries, but he shall never forgive me mine. Therefore, it is I who should handle this problem.”
Frodi stepped back as if Erik had cut him with a knife, and his hand swept out behind them as if to say, ‘What is mine is yours…can I do more?’
But Erik shushed him and went on: “I shall use all that you have so generously offered to bait Gotar into a fight that shall settle our differences. Remember that, when we faced King Strunick with a superior force, he soon sued for peace? It is my hope that King Gotar shall react in a like vein. We shall endeavour to keep your participation in this sortie to a minimum; after all, we do attack your father-in-law.” This said, Erik turned his back on the Danish flotilla and looked off towards Norway.
It was off the coast of Halland, just past a small island that had but one lone pine, that the Danish flotilla met the ships of King Gotar’s army, and the Norwegian king, on spotting the Danes, immediately halted his fleet and began lining the ships across in battle formation. King Frodi had his own fleet begin falling in width-wise, and when they had matched Gotar’s force ship for ship they began lining up two deep and still the flotilla trailed off to the south as far as the eye could see. Soon King Gotar sent a ship forth suing for peace.
“Must father strike son and brother strike brother?” was their message. “Our king seeks reparations for the wrongs inflicted upon him, no more.”
And Erik had this message ready for the Norwegian emissaries: “Pick one hundred of your finest men and meet your Bragning prince in combat mortal. Keep father from son, escape the bad odds you now face and meet me in one final sea battle. Odin knows your time is overdue.”
King Gotar decided to improve his odds with Erik’s offer and was soon in the forefront of his fleet with one hundred men in his dragonship. Erik followed suit, choosing a dragonship of King Frodi’s fleet, leaving his brother, Roller in charge of Fair Faxi, which was much too small to hold Erik’s full Centuriata.
As the two ships closed to within shouting distance, King Gotar cried, “A man shows his valour first by requiting kindness. I have given you your byname with a ship as a toothing gift, and you repay me thus?”
Yet the two ships closed.
“I gave you portentous advice,” Erik replied, “words by which you have kept your life and realm, and you repaid me with a tainted gift. When the keel of Fair Faxi was laid, you peeked at the first fallen chip and it had landed keel-side up.” Gotar showed no little surprise at Erik’s knowledge of this, and his own men wondered at such a thing, for it was against custom to watch the first hewings of a keel. “A witch called Thorbjorg told me of this and warned me that the ship was thereby cursed. I have repaid her sorely for her advice, for by your face you confirm the truth of her words.”
“You’ve done well by that ship!” Gotar replied. “And you’ve repaid me for it by stealing my daughter!”
The ships were almost across from each other and the crews had their boarding planks at the ready.
“I offered your daughter the Kingdom of Denmark and the opportunity to wed its King Frodi. You repaid my efforts by plotting against my king and my life and, had I let you, by stealing my wife. I repaid you measure for measure in the stealing away of Princess Alfhild!” and again grumbles ran through the Norwegian ranks.
King Gotar looked about himself savagely and his men quieted. He was surrounded by his own picked berserks and, as yet, he could make out no warriors of renown among Erik’s band. Feeling a surge of confidence, he shouted, “Let us have at it then, my Bragning prince!” and the boarding planks fell, and the battle commenced.
Erik threw a huge iron grappling hook over the top strake of Gotar’s ship and felt a tug on the line as a tine caught up in the rowing benches. He threw the line to one of his men for fastening to their own benches and, when a boarding plank went down beside him, he drew forth Tyrfingr and was the first to leap up onto the plank. He rushed down it, sword in hand, as fast as he could go, but he felt so exposed up there between the two ships that his own feet seemed motionless. They pounded upon the plank, beating a slow rhythm, drowning out the shouts that began erupting all about him. A spear was hurled at him, but he deflected it with his shield, and, when a berserk clambered up onto the plank to face him, Erik lashed out with Tyrfingr and the crazed Norseman was the first to die. Before the massive corpse could fall, Erik gave it a great kick and it tumbled back onto the warriors who were waiting at the end of the plank. Erik felt, more than heard, a Dane coming behind him in support as he leapt down onto the deck of King Gotar’s ship. All warriors fell before the fury of Erik and Tyrfingr, so fierce was their attack. Berserkers, proof against steel weapons, felt the poisoned bite of Erik’s star stone blade and died in their own blood on the deck of Gotar’s dragonship. The Norwegian king saw Erik hacking a path through his picked men towards him, and he began to fight his way in the opposite direction, but the cramped quarters of the ship’s deck, or perhaps a sense of fate’s preconception at the hands of the norns, made him turn back and face his young acolyte.
When Prince Erik and King Gotar stood but a sword apart, all fighting around them ceased. Both the Norwegians and the Danes around them sensed that time was about to shift, forward, backward, only steel would decide that now, but this time would never be the same. “Ever since I first met you, my liege,” Erik started, “you have kept your axe poised above my neck, whether I be a thousand miles away or standing before you as I am now. Let us have done with this!”
King Gotar lifted his heavy battle axe, patted its haft and began to say, “And a fine axe it has–” then he swung the axe full force at Erik’s face, and the Bragning prince had barely time to raise the fine painted shield his father had given him to deflect the blow, but raise it he did and, with it, up came Tyrfingr, like a bolt of lightning arcing and striking a huge old oak, splitting its great trunk open, and King Gotar collapsed in his own gore, stone dead.
As King Frodi had predicted, Gotar died with some notoriety.
Leaderless, the Norwegians surrendered to Erik. He accepted their surrenders as equals and forbade shield bending.
Once back aboard Fair Faxi, King Frodi awarded Erik all of Norway. Being the sole remaining descendant of King Gotar, Queen Alfhild objected. “Hold, Angantyr Frodi,” she checked her husband. “King Gotar was my father. I do not think it fitting to award Norway to his bane. Give my kingdom to,” and she looked about herself imperiously, “to Roller.”
King Frodi looked at Erik, and his foremost man nodded approval. Roller became ruler of seven provinces of Norway that day, and Erik gave him also the District of Lither, which King Gotar had once bestowed upon his Bragning prince. King Roller left with his Norwegian forces, for most of King Gotar’s army knew the son of Ragnar Sigurdson and followed him willingly, leaving the Danes to return to their own land.
On the way back to Zealand, Erik asked Princess Alfhild why she had denied him the kingship. “Have you fulfilled your debt to your father?” he asked. “Was this the one slip you’ll have me forgive?”
Princess Alfhild’s hands clutched the top strake of Fair Faxi, the ship that her father had once built, and tears welled up in her eyes, though she said with a steady voice, “I denied you your kingdom not out of malice, but out of love for my husband, who needs your eloquent tongue and sharp wit more now than ever. I am afraid of what will become of you when I do withhold my favour, and what will become of those around you!” and she looked at Gunwar, standing proudly by Erik, and she began to cry.
Soon after their return to Denmark, King Frodi and Queen Alfhild had a daughter, and they named her Eyfura, meaning ‘Island Fir’, after a small island with a lone pine they had sailed by after the death of King Gotar. The Peace of Frodi held sway over Denmark for three years, during which its king and queen had another child, a son they named Alf, after Alfhild. Much to everyone’s consternation, Gunwar remained barren. Erik, though disappointed, never showed it. It was a time of peace and a time for young love, but there was a brooding cloud rising in the East. King Hunn, Kagan Bek of the Khazars, had been much put off by King Frodi’s rejection of his daughter, Princess Hanund. When she had returned to Khazaria shamed and, unknown to the Danes, pregnant, her father allied himself with Olmar, King of Kiev and the Eastern Slavs, and began raising an army with which to attack the Danes.
Chapter 16: THE KHAZARS (Circa 831 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' 