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 EIGHTEEN:
BOOK TWO: THE SAGA OF PRINCE ERIK ‘BRAGI’ RAGNARSON
A Novel By Brian Howard Seibert
© Copyright by Brian Howard Seibert
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
18.0 SEA OF CORPSES OR THE CONQUEST OF KIEV (Circa 831 AD)
“The Prince with Eagles Barley doth feed the bloody moor-fowl:
The Hord-King bears the sickle of Odin to the gory Swan’s crop;
The Sater of the Vulture of the Eagles Sea of corpses
Stakes each shoal to the southward which he wards, with the spear-point.”
Thjodolfr; Skaldskaparmal
(831 AD) When Erik was a young lad of twelve and living with his foster-father Brak, he had set out on an exploration of the high meadows of their district. It was late winter, and a thaw had set upon the land. Erik ventured out onto a frozen lake, to practice skating on a pair of bone skates the dwarf, Dvalin, had made for him, when he heard a quiet cracking in the ice below his feet; Erik froze. He had wandered out onto thin ice. When he attempted to backtrack, the ice behind him creaked in protest. Only when he stood perfectly still was the ice quiet. He stood upon his bone blades on the ice, perplexed, heart pounding, blood racing. Further advance would be foolhardy he reasoned but retracing his gliding steps back across ice he may have already overstressed was equally dangerous. Angling back on a slightly different route seemed his best bet, so, slowly and painstakingly, Erik worked his way off the lake, and only with the greatest sigh of relief did he set his foot blades of the dwarves upon firm ground again.
With just such care and caution did Erik work his way back up through Asia. And with a like sigh of relief did he set his eyes upon King Frodi once again as the two met up in the settlement of Alfgeir’s relatives in the land of the Radimichi. Roller was with him, and with them came Gunwar and Alfhild. The women could not long stay parted from their husbands, so they had joined the Company of Valkyrie, women who dispatched the slain, that accompanied all Odin blessed hosts into battle.
There was frenetic activity throughout the settlement, as armies cleared land and set up camps. A road had been made of the portage between the Dvina and Dnieper Rivers, and the fine longships of the Danes were set upon wains and hauled by oxen to the southern waterway.
King Frodi, receiving report of the size of the armies he faced, asked of Erik how he should go about tackling such forces. “It is with boldness that the wolf attacks the bear,” was Erik’s reply. “We need wolves to gorge upon the carcasses of the enemy; we have enough men sating themselves upon the king’s treasury.”
Later, when Erik was alone with King Frodi, he told the young king of the news he had learned from King Hunn. The adulteress, Hanund, had been pregnant when she was driven from Denmark, and now King Hunn, through Prince Hlod, had a claim upon the throne of Denmark. The legitimacy of the claim was questionable, but it did exist. Erik admitted to Frodi that he had always perceived the Southern Way to be a grave threat to the Nor’Way, but he was willing to support it as long as all Northmen benefited from it. Were it to fall under control of the Khazars, through Prince Hlod, or any other means, he would do whatever he could to undermine it. King Frodi understood Erik’s family rights to the Nor’Way, and he knew where his foremost man stood on the matter. “I’ve always considered the Southern Way, my Danepar, to be my greatest accomplishment,” King Frodi started, “but I’ve never considered the fact that my claim to it could be challenged from the southern end. I shall never accept any other than my own dominion over it.” They decided then and there that all claims from that quarter were to be refuted and the issue was left at that, no compromises, no sharing.
It was decisiveness that Erik had wanted from King Frodi, and that’s what he got. By week’s end the whole fleet of the Danes and Norwegians had been dragged across from the Dvina and was sailing down the Dnieper. They came across a small fleet of Dregovichi monoxylan that was making its way downriver to meet up with the fleet of King Olmar, and King Frodi thought it would be mean for so many to attack so few, but Erik gainsaid this, declaring: “Our wolves must sate themselves with the enemy, no matter how spare the carcass.” And the Danes fell upon the Dregovichi and slaughtered the small host with little effort. Erik had in mind, not only an easy victory to whet the appetite of their army, but also a gnawing fear in the back of his mind of the damage a small Slav fleet could do against a broken and retreating Danish navy. He was taking the advice King Olmar had given him to heart, and he was leaving nothing to fate.
In the land of the Drevjane, the Danish fleet came against the flotilla of the Slavs, consisting of the fleets of six kings or tribes, each comprising five thousand men, at approximately fifty to a monoxyla. The crude ships of the Slavs were ungainly and drawn up in poor battle array when the lean Danish navy engaged them. The Danish longships manoeuvred in formation through the huge flotilla, firing arrows and catapulting huge stones at will, ramming the smaller monoxylan when opportunity presented itself, and steering clear of Slav squadrons that appeared combat ready. In this manner the multitudes of the Slavs were quickly reduced to a hardened knot of monoxylan surrounding the ship of their king, Olmar. Erik led his Centuriata, in Fair Faxi, straight through this formation up to the monoxyla of the king, and before the violent attack of the bold Norwegian and his terrible sword, Tyrfingr, King Olmar submitted to the Danes. Erik accepted the Slav king’s surrender most graciously and King Olmar, in turn, had a gift for Erik: a small gold trident cloak pin, which he placed about Erik’s neck.
The true extent of the Danish victory became apparent when the sailing of their longships became hampered by the multitude of corpses and debris floating upon the Dnieper. As fast as they could clear away the floating carcasses of the dead, other bodies would drift across their path, slowing the speed of the Danish fleet to that of the river. Adrift amongst the throng of the dead, the Danes fought yet again with the vanquished, as though the slain had arisen once more to defend their lands from the incursion of their victors.
All the kings of the Slavs had fallen in this great river battle, save kings Olmar and Dag. To gain the allegiance of the defeated kings, King Frodi declared: that all kings slain should receive a ship’s pyre as funeral rites; that all captains should be accorded cremation at ten to a ship; and that the heads of households should be buried with their weapons. He further ordered the Slavs: to conduct their future warfare in imitation and support of the Danes; to make payment for their wives; and to respect the purity of maidens on risk of severance of bodily parts. To his own people, he proclaimed that all hired men must attack when facing one enemy, defend when facing two, fall back a step facing three and feel free to run when faced by four or more. In return for this resoluteness he promised to pay his house carls three marks of silver, his hired men two and retired soldiers one mark of silver each spring. In this manner King Frodi attempted to instil professionalism in the ranks of his men, but many, Erik included, felt that it rewarded position over courage and rank above accomplishment.
Once the hasty funeral obsequies were completed the Danes and Norwegians continued down the Dnieper, once more resuming their war with the dead. All the corpses that had been lost in the water and all the ships that had broken up in the waves had floated downstream, choking the huge river and blocking the passage of King Frodi’s fleet. Only with much effort did the armada succeed in escaping the clutches of the dead. The journey was particularly hard on King Olmar, for the corpses had been his valiant subjects, and it was for no lack of courage or want of spirit that they were now bobbing amidst the waves.
When the navy made it through the sea of corpses, King Olmar became less despondent and began to tell Erik tales of the Slavs and of the city of Kiev, over which he had lorded. It struck Erik that he was taking great pains to instruct him on the ways of a people he had barely met, almost as if the king had some unknown purpose, but Erik let him continue at his own speed and paid strict attention to the old monarch. “After the destruction of the tower of Babel and the division of man into tongues,” King Olmar continued, “a tribe of Japheth’s, called Nordics, became generally known as Slavs, settling the Danube and spreading over many lands. The Slavs who came to settle the plains about the Dnieper River came to be called Poljane, meaning Prairie Slavs, and our brothers, who settled the forests about the northern part of the river came to be called Drevjane, meaning Woodland Slavs. We Poljane lived apart, on the hilly shores of the Dnieper, which flows to the Black Sea. Soon after the time of Christ, the Lord of the Christians, the apostle Andrew, Peter’s brother, came to the land of my forefathers and, journeying up a curve in the river, he stopped on the hills of a shore and made camp. The next morning, he told his pupils, “Divine grace will shine upon these hills and here will arise a great city which God will have built here, and there will be many churches.” He went up upon the hills and he blessed them, and he erected a cross upon one of them. Six centuries later, three Poljane, all brothers, called Kii, Sheck and Koriv, and a sister named Lybed, established a town on those hills and they called it Kiev after the eldest brother. Some say that Kii was a ferryman, but that is not true. He was of royal birth and he owned the ferry and he commanded the town. I know this to be true,” King Olmar said, “because he was my forefather. All my progenitors, since, have ruled Kiev, including myself, until now,” he ended sadly.
After several days sailing, the Danish fleet came around a great bend in the Dnieper and on the right bank, rising up three hills, was Kiev. It was a scattering of a city, with fields planted in the valleys between the hills and clusters of buildings crowded about the crests. At the top of each hill was a stockaded fortress to protect the inhabitants from wandering bands of nomads and cruel eastern hordes. Curiously, each fort flew a flag sporting a trident, shaped just like the one Erik’s mother had owned.
The fleet pulled up to the wharves and quays along the river that King Olmar’s fleet had been anchored at only weeks before. Prince Erik was the first to disembark, followed by Kings Frodi, Roller, Olmar and Dag. The people of Kiev had either fled or barricaded themselves up in their hill forts, but when King Olmar sent messengers up to the hills telling his people to welcome the Danes as liberators from Khazar suzerainty, the people came down and welcomed the Northmen and feasts were prepared and there was much celebrating, for King Frodi and Erik had decided to ally themselves with Kings Olmar and Dag, leaving them in charge of Kiev while they set out to fight the Khazars. It was good that the populace of Kiev had the opportunity to celebrate their good fortune for one night, because the next day the carnage of the sea of corpses came floating down the Dnieper. All were solemn that day, Slavs and Danes alike, as the rotting bodies of thousands of warriors and the broken shards of a thousand ships floated with the current past Kiev. Many of the Poljane who had lost men were out on the shores and in boats searching for loved ones, but the task was overwhelming. Some were sickened by the smell, others by the sight, so most of the corpses continued on their silent journey to the Black Sea.
Once order had been established in Kiev, the majority of the Danish fleet set off in search of the Huns, with one exception: Erik and Frodi insisted that their wives remain in Kiev under the protection of King Olmar. While Erik had no reason to trust King Dag, he had growing faith in King Olmar. There seemed to be a bond developing between them, and Erik began wondering why King Olmar held him in such high regard. He knew it had something to do with the trident pin of his mother, but he’d not had the opportunity to question Olmar on it, and he wasn’t at all sure it was a subject he wished to broach.
A day down the Dnieper found the Danish navy at war once again with the shattered fleet of the Slavs. Again, the ships of King Frodi had to push their way through the sea of corpses, as if the soldiers of King Olmar had risen from their watery graves to cause yet more trouble for the Northmen. Three more days on the Dnieper, and they reached the mouth of the Orel, the river that Erik had sailed up when he first searched for King Hunn. It was possible, Erik reasoned, that the Khazars could use the reverse of the route that he had taken in order to reach Kiev. Were that the case, the Danes should sit tight and await the arrival of the Hunnish host. But instinct told him otherwise.
“They shall take a more southern route,” Erik proclaimed. “Their army is too large to live off the land. They’ll hug the coast, establishing a line of supply and purchasing grain from Greek settlements on the Black Sea. Their navy shall sail from the Arab sea to the sea of the Greeks and meet up with them at the mouth of the Dnieper.” Like other Varangians of his day, Erik believed the Caspian and Black Seas to be connected by a waterway. He was to learn later in life, the hard way, this error in geography. “The Khazar navy shall accompany them upriver to the Dnieper rapids, where the seven cataracts shall halt them.”
It was decided that the Danish navy would continue down the Dnieper and penetrate the rapids to meet them. First, they came upon a rapid called Essoupi, meaning Do Not Sleep in the native Slav, a narrow rushing cataract broken by jagged rocks that caused the water to veritably roar. Experienced Poljane guides had the Danes unload their ships and draft the vessels through a narrow channel by the right riverbank, some hauling on the boats with ropes from the shore, others stripping down and wading through the torrent with them. Only the strongest of their men worked this rapid and Erik was first among them in the waters. Daily, these men guided ships through the rapids and nightly they rested, but the rapids were so loud that they had trouble sleeping and had to move some distance from the waters to get some respite. Erik guessed that was why the Poljane called it Essoupi.
The second cataract, called Ostrovouniprach by the Slavs and Oulvorsi by the Norsemen, both meaning Island Rapid, was similar to the first and was traversed in a like manner. The third rapid was called Gelandri which the Poljanes explained as meaning Noise of the Rapid and it, too, was coursed in a similar fashion.
The fourth of the seven rapids, the largest, was called Neasit by the Slavs and Aeifor by the Danes, because pelicans nested out in the rocks of the cataracts. Here, there was no safe passage along the banks, and the troops had to haul their ships out of the water and drag them six miles around the maelstrom. It was very hard on the keels of the ships, but the Slav monoxylan that accompanied the Danish navy were well suited for the portage. The troops then launched and loaded their vessels and sailed downstream for the fifth cataract, called Voulniprach in Slavic and Varouforos in Norse, because it forms a large lake. It was traversed in the same manner as the first, as was the sixth rapid, called Veroutzi and Leanti in the Slav and Norse tongues, meaning the Boiling of the Water.
The seventh and last rapid, called Naprezi or Stroukoun, meaning Little Rapid, was reached just upstream of the Ford of Vrar, a wide and shallow ford susceptible to attack on horseback. The Stroukoun Rapid was navigable and gave the Danes little trouble. The Ford of Vrar, however, was a little more difficult. The larger draft ships had to be unloaded and partly floated, partly dragged along the ford, which was no deeper than a man’s waist. Downstream from this, the Danes reached the Island of Saint Gregory, where they camped and rested and exercised, safe from Khazar attack. It was on this island that old Gotwar called for further sacrifices to Odin, and the Danes, being short of prisoners or slaves, complied by sacrificing cocks at the base of a gigantic oak tree there. Although the old hag demanded more, Erik told her it would have to suffice until they met an enemy unwilling to become an ally.
Chapter 19: BROTHER GREGORY or THE SARCOPHAGUS OF ST. STEPHEN (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' 