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 TWENTY NINE:

                                    

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BOOK TWO: THE SAGA OF PRINCE ERIK ‘BRAGI’ RAGNARSON

A Novel By Brian Howard Seibert

© Copyright by Brian Howard Seibert

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CHAPTER TWENTY NINE

29.0  THE SECRET KHAZARS  (Circa 839 AD)

“…attention to experience can open doors to reality

  which are locked to a man purely of reason.”

            James Robert Enterline;  Viking America

(839 AD)  As the battered and torn remnants of the Hraes’ army returned from the Don Heath, Erik prepared to depart for Constantinople in search of aid.  King Frodi and the Hraes’ had traded with the Greeks for many years, and it was Greek support of the Khazar aggressions that was threatening Hraes’ domination of the Southern Way trade.  “I know many powerful merchants in the Roman capital and we still have a valid treaty with them.  I garnered the support of Emperor Michael; I shall sway the sympathies of Emperor Theophilos, too.”

“The Khazars, too, have much support in Constantinople,” a worried Gunwar cautioned.  “It is far too dangerous!”

“It is the only option open us,” Erik argued.  “The Huns must surely think me killed, dead amongst my Centuriata–brave souls–so they will not be in a hurry to press their attack.  Again, Prince Hlod will send emissaries requesting Gardariki as his rightful inheritance.  He shall be loath to attack his supposed father’s sister.  We must use this time to garner support from other areas.  Your brother has failed to get more than a few messengers past the Magyars on the Dnieper, but I have just gotten word that King Olmar shall soon be arriving with a host.  A fresh army shall give the Huns second thoughts about attacking the Fortress of Gardariki.”

“I shall defend Gardariki in your absence,” Gunwar cried.

“No!  You must stall your nephew, give me time to rally support to our cause, to hire mercenaries for a fresh Hraes’ army, to get the Greeks to help lift the Magyar blockade.  Stall the Huns for time and time alone.  If the Hunnish host does not waver at the arrival of King Olmar’s forces, you are to gather up the people of Gardariki and flee to Sugedea.  The Goths shall protect you there.”

“But,” Gunwar began to complain.

“No buts!” Erik ordered.  “Under no circumstances are you to engage the enemy!  Understood?”

Princess Gunwar nodded, sadly.

Then Erik did one thing he was to regret for the rest of his life.  He gave Gunwar Tyrfingr.  The sword he and Dvalin had forged he passed on to his wife.  She took up the weapon, the crux of its shadow falling across the high seat, as a true defender of the faith, for she had been baptised in the Greek Orthodox ceremony by Brother Gregory the day before.  She was the first royal convert of the Hraes’ to Christianity.  There would be others, but she was the first, and she was determined to convert all the Hraes’ of Gardariki and Gardar to the faith, and to defend their land from Arab, Turk or Khazar.

“I leave the security of my household in your hands,” Erik told Durin.  “Do not let anything happen to Princess Gunwar.”

The dwarf nodded solemnly.  “I shall let no harm come to your wife.”

Erik boarded Fair Faxi, crewed by fresh young Varangians replacing the lost souls of his Centuriata, and he waved goodbye to his wife.  It was the first time in a decade that Fair Faxi was manned by other than Centuriata members, and the fact saddened Erik greatly.  Gunwar waved goodbye to Erik, and a tear trickled down her cheek as she watched her pagan husband sail off into the west.

Good winds and fine spring weather gave the mission false portents of success.  Several weeks of sailing had the confines of the Bosporus on both port and starboard of Fair Faxi, and soon the walls of Constantinople came into view.  A Greek trireme came out from the Golden Horn and escorted the Norsemen to a dock.

The Varangians were afforded all the courtesies entitled them by treaty with the Greeks, and Erik’s first stop was the House of Lanterns.  There, he attempted to elicit support from the many merchants that had traded him silks for his furs and amber.  But the Greeks were aware of Erik’s situation: they knew of the uncountable horde of Magyars on the Hraes’ Dnieper waterway, and of the Khazars’ Fortress of Sarkel on the Don River;  they’d already heard of the Hraes’ defeat on the Don Heath, and they were quite prepared to watch Gardariki fall to the Huns.  They would but buy their furs from the Khazars now.

After several days of solicitations, Erik found some merchants who either attempted to get him an audience with the Emperor Theophilos or turned him in to the Imperial Guard.  Erik was not sure which.  But the result was that he was either arrested, or held for an audience, with Erik again unsure as to the intent.  His men, meanwhile, were given a place of residence in the merchant quarter of Constantinople, the St. Mamas Quarter, in accordance with the Hraes’ treaty with the Greeks and they were provided for.

After a week of confinement, Erik began to wonder if his requests for an imperial audience were getting through to the Emperor, but one evening, in spring’s early dusk, a man in a dark purple cloak came to visit Erik in his cell.

“I represent the Emperor,” the man said, as the Immortal Guardsman let him into the chamber.  He was a middle-aged man with short cropped hair and a neat appearance.  He entered the room with the easy confidence of one familiar with command.  “Your application for an audience with the Emperor is reported to be for a request of relief from Greek support of the Khazars in their attacks upon your Rhos people.  Your inquiry is being considered, but, I’m afraid, it does not look promising.”

Erik offered his visitor a chair.

“The main problem, you see,” the emissary explained, “is that the Emperor Theophilos is a Khazar.  On his mother’s side, that is.  He is fully cognizant of the, shall we say, difficulties that have developed between the Hun tribes of the Khazars and the Rhos barbarians.”

“There are two sides to every story,” Erik countered.  “The Emperor Michael always showed us favour in our dealings with him, but the Emperor Theophilos has shown us nothing but contempt.  It is my intention to reverse this situation, if possible.”

“Erik Bragi, is it?” the emissary asked.  “It is one thing to marry a Khazar princess, and quite another to be birthed by one.  Perhaps if you knew more about the Khazars you would appreciate the strong ties between our two peoples.”

It was apparent that the Greek was going to touch upon a rather lengthy subject, so Erik offered him some wine from a pitcher on a small table in the corner of the room.  Erik poured himself a goblet and sat down at the table.  The Greek noble pulled his chair up to the table as well and continued his tale.

“Almost three centuries after the death of our Christian Lord, Caesar Valerian set out from Rome with a large army to fight the Parthians, led by Shapur, in Persia.  Overconfident, with the might of Rome behind him, and its iron legions under his command, he attacked the Parthians in their native lands and was resoundingly defeated.  He was the one and only Roman Caesar to be captured by an enemy, and the greater part of his army fell into the hands of the Parthians as well.  Their king, Shapur, treated Valerian shamefully, for he was a barbarian, unused to the courtesies afforded man through civilization.  He used Valerian as his personal slave and subjected him to all manner of humiliation, even using the beloved Emperor as a footstool upon whose back he stood while mounting his charger.  The Roman Caesar suffered years of such abuse, yet, whenever an enslaved officer or soldier of his shattered legions came into his presence, they would abase themselves before him as though he remained a Caesar still in Rome.  This must have made a strong impression upon Shapur, who had dreams of re-establishing the splendours of the ancient Persian sovereigns such as Cyrus and Darius, or perhaps he realised that mocking the blood rights of an Emperor of Rome was only undermining his royal presence within his own realm.

“Whatever the reason, after enduring years of grinding captivity, Caesar Valerian was offered the chance to be repatriated with his legions if he swore allegiance to the Persians and was willing to settle and protect one of the far-flung border provinces of King Shapur’s growing Sassanid Empire.  Since aid from the Roman Empire had not materialized, Valerian accepted the offer of the Persians, and, with all his soldiers yet willing to follow him, he set off for the Caucasus Mountains and established a small dominion that was sworn to protect the north-eastern limits of the Persian Kingdom.  His men and their descendants were known as the Caesar’s people, and his imperial bloodline has been carried down through the ages in the great kagans, the sacred rulers of the Khazars.  It is Imperial Roman blood, no less purple than that of our own line of Emperors’, and the Emperor Theophilos has both Roman lines coursing through his veins.  Now, perhaps, you comprehend the difficulties I face in obtaining a royal audience for your cause.”

Erik nodded.

“But I shall keep trying,” the emissary said as he prepared to leave.

“You have my thanks for your efforts,” Erik assured him.  “Please come back soon and tell me more of the Khazars and of your own people, too, for you appear to be a storyteller of no small eloquence, and I, in turn, shall recite for you the poetry of the northern lands.”

The emissary did return several times to visit Erik in the two months he was held captive by the Romans, and, when the court official could not come, he sent an aged scholar, versed in the ancient histories of Rome and other civilizations, to read Erik Latin and Greek scripts.  The old scholar often left the heavier Latin texts in the cell, rather than trudge them back the next day, and Erik would secretly practice reading the script of a language a nun had taught him on a trip down the Dnieper River years before.  When the old scholar returned the next day, Erik would compare what he had read to what was read to him.  In this manner he covertly furthered his literacy.

Livy’s history of Lucius Junius Brutus, founder of the Roman Republic, particularly caught up Erik’s imagination.  With Erik’s alleged nephew, Prince Hlod, accusing him of usurping Gardariki, Erik was naturally drawn to the tale of the Roman Prince Brutus, who survived his uncle’s murderous usurpation of his father’s kingdom by playing the fool, a part played so well that the very name Brutus became synonymous with the Latin words for dull witted.

“Why wouldn’t King Tarquinius have just slain Prince Brutus outright?” Erik asked the royal emissary one cool spring evening.

“The slaying of one born of the purple, even in such early times of Rome’s history, was frowned upon by the people.  King Tarquinius may even have had some affection for the boy, so, as long as he appeared to be no threat to the rule of the king, he was allowed to live.  When the Tarquin sent him off with his sons to Greece, I personally believe it was likely intended that he was to be slain in far off lands, but Brutus amused his sons with his mad antics, and for that reason was not killed.  His apparent madness protected him from such foul murder.  Cursed are those who kill the mad and, at the very least, his foolishness provided amusement for and endeared him to his cousins.”

“It was solely for that amusement,” Erik said, “that Brutus was allowed to live.”

“Precisely,” the emissary agreed.

“What really makes the tale,” Erik added, “is the fact that young Brutus gains the favour of the gods while supposing to perform some of his greatest buffoonery.  When Brutus hollows out a cornel stick and fills it with gold, then offers it to Apollo while the sons of King Tarquinius consult the Delphic Oracle, it becomes apparent that the prince’s deranged behaviour covers a covert act of vengeance.  While the king’s sons laugh at Brutus and think him that much more a fool for offering a mere stick to Apollo, the young prince gains celestial favour by means of the gold hidden within the cornel.”

The imperial official sat back in the Spartan chair of the chamber and smiled.  “You are right, Erik Bragi.  It is the twofold benefit Brutus gains from his actions that really makes the story.”

“And when the king’s sons are told that the first one to kiss his mother will succeed to the throne, Prince Brutus comprehends the oracle’s words and falls face first into the sands on the shore of Rome, kissing the soil of his motherland, again gaining the favour of the gods while reinforcing the belief in his sheltering madness.  Once more his duplicity is double edged.”

“I like your perceptions, Erik,” the emissary declared happily.  The wine and the conversation had put him in a bright cheery mood.  “I shall see that you get your audience with the Emperor Theophilos.”

The next morning an officer of the Immortals came to take Erik before the Emperor.  The heavy-set Greek showed the Norseman every courtesy as he directed him past the Gallery of Daphne and the Triclinium of Augustus and around the Excubitors Schools and the Court of Schools to the Palace of Magnaura, where the imperial throne room was located.  Past more officers of the Immortals, the guard led Erik up to the great oaken doors that sealed the throne room from the elements.  More Immortals toiled to open the heavy twelve-foot-high doors and Erik’s guide led him over the threshold into the immense chamber.

The throne room was like nothing Erik had ever seen before.  It was a large hall with huge stone columns running down the interior on either side, supporting a heavy oak beam and slab roof, and was barren of all furniture save for the emperor’s throne high upon a marble dais.  At the base of the dais, on either side, were two golden statues of lions, and off to the right of the dais was a brazen tree with mechanical birds upon it that twittered and sang and moved to their own music.  When the mechanical lions roared Erik was reminded of the strange dream he had had in his youth, under the influence of the poisonous brews Kraka had concocted.  In the dream he had learned of all things past and future, the future holding lasting peace for man when machines could talk, and here he saw, with his own eyes, machines that twittered and roared, as though presaging the power of machines.

“You are impressed with my mechanical fauna?” the Emperor Theophilos asked, as he walked into the chamber.  When the leader of the Roman Empire sat down, Erik got a full view of the man and stepped back in disbelief.  The Emperor and the emissary who had visited Erik so many times in the past few months were one and the same.  “Come forward, Erik,” the Emperor said.

“I had a dream once,” Erik began.  “It told me that when machines could talk, man would at last find peace, but these are not the machines I had envisioned.”

“We talked much about dreams and stories when I came to you as my own emissary.  Now I am the Emperor Theophilos and this is the audience I promised you.  State your purpose.”

“Many times, have I told you my purpose here,” Erik answered, regaining himself, “but not while you were in your official capacity, I see.  You know full well that I seek aid from Khazar attack, or, if not that, at least Greek assurances of non-intervention.”

“And you know full well that we cannot give you those assurances,” the Emperor said, perplexed.  “The Khazars have always been our allies.  They’ve helped us in over a century of wars with the Arabs.  Can you promise your Hraes’ people will always help us against the Arabs?”

“It is not the Arabs that Constantinople and our Hraes’ lands will need protection from,” Erik said.  “Our greatest threat shall come from the east,” he said wistfully.

“More dreams?” the Emperor asked.  “You Norsemen place great weight by your dreams.”

“The Magyars are but a presage of the things to come.  Soon, the Khazar Empire shall crumble, and Turks shall come in swarms out of the east, and they shall overcome Asia Minor and, eventually, Constantinople itself.  It shall be an Emperor named after this city, Constantine, who shall fall before the shattered walls, defending her.”

“Were I true to my dreams and my own Khazar blood, not only would I withhold you aid, but I would refuse you your freedom; but I have come to know you as a friend these last months, expounding upon you the written word, sharing with you the ancient tales of both our peoples.  It would not seem fitting to reward friendship with treachery, therefore, we have prepared an imperial request that you may take to the Franks granting you free passage through their lands.  In that way you may circumvent the Magyar blockade and make your way back to the land of Gardar, for only your great kagan, King Frodi, has the power to help you now.”

“I am grateful for your generosity,” Erik told the Emperor.

“We shall send your ship back to Tmutorokan, and we shall provide two senior officials and an escort of Immortals to guide you to the land of the Franks.”

Once more Erik thanked Theophilos, and that was the last he ever saw of the emissary cum Roman Emperor.

Chapter 30: ESCAPE AT INGLEHEIM  (Circa 839 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.

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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.

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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.