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 THIRTY THREE:
BOOK TWO: THE SAGA OF PRINCE ERIK ‘BRAGI’ RAGNARSON
A Novel By Brian Howard Seibert
© Copyright by Brian Howard Seibert
CHAPTER THIRTY THREE
33.0 BROTHER GREGORY’S BABY (Circa 840 AD)
“Prince, this tribute is not good. We have
conquered them with a weapon having one edge,
which is called the `sabre’; but their weapon
has two edges and is called `sword’, and (later)
they will have tribute from us and from other countries.”
Khazar Elders; The Nikonian Chronicle
(840 AD) After the flight of the Hraes’, the Hunnish host swept into Gardariki and pillaged and burned the town. Although the Huns had won a great victory before the gates of Gardariki, all was not well in the Khazar Khaganate. The most noble houses of the Kara-Khazars, Emperor Theophilos’s secret Khazars, had long since fled the growing power of the Huns and, while Kagan Bek Hunn and Prince Hlod were away fighting Princess Gunwar and her Hraes’ army, it took all that Kagan Humli could do to hold his empire together. His powerbase was severely eroded by the flight of the elite of his tribe, and he was dependent upon his kagan bek, King Hunn, to keep the other tribes within the fold. He was a king without an army, but, being the supreme holy leader of the Khazars, born of the purple, Kagan Humli yet wielded great power in the multi-ethnic city of Atil-Kazaran, so when the victorious Hunnish host returned to Khazaria, he showed his displeasure with the actions of King Hunn and Prince Hlod by forbidding the army from entering the city of Atil. When the kagan bek and his grandson appeared before the great kagan, the old emperor chastised them for the slaying of their own kin, Prince Hlod’s aunt, Princess Gunwar.
“Fratricide is a crime most foul in even the most backwards of cultures,” the great kagan began. “Our Jewish faith strictly forbids the act.”
“Great Kagan, Prince Hlod slew his aunt in mortal combat,” King Hunn explained. “Princess Gunwar wore the armour of a warrior and brandished her husband’s famed sword, Tyrfingr, and she swung the sword well, for all around her lay the corpses of our finest soldiery. Prince Hlod attacked her in defence of his countrymen, and the deed, though distasteful, was one of courage, for which my grandson should be praised, not chastised.”
Kagan Humli looked then to Prince Hlod for confirmation that all that had been said was true.
“My aunt was a warrior maiden, and I slew her before she slew me. All about her, our host was falling back, and our best warriors lay dead all around her. Had I not slain her, our vanguard would have fled the field.” Prince Hlod looked about him at all the Kara-Khazar officers still in the great kagan’s retinue. He then unsheathed the sword, Tyrfingr, and he held the pulsing blade in his hands, offering the hilt to his supreme commander. “This, her sword, is unmatched in any land. I offer it to you, my lord, as a sign of the unwavering loyalty of the Huns.”
The Khazar kagan took up the blade and studied it. “Our scimitars have but one edge, this sword has two,” he observed, and he stared deeply into the strange metal of the blade. “We must enjoy our victory over the Hraes’, for soon they shall return with more such swords, and it shall be we who will be laid low.” Kagan Humli then gazed upon Prince Hlod. “Take it! The sword is cursed.” And he handed the blade back to the young prince.
After crossing the Sea of Azov, the dwarf, Durin, and the cleric, Brother Gregory had sailed Fair Faxi up the Don Estuary, with its tiny precious cargo, to the Fortress of Sarkel. As Erik had done several years previous, the dwarf and the monk waited till just before dawn to navigate past the anchored Greek ships and the shore defences of the fortress. This time there was no sighting and no pursuit as the Hraes’ ship slipped past the Khazar outpost, but, in dawn’s early light, Durin saw a great Khazar encampment outside the walls of the fortress, as though an army had laid siege to Sarkel. All wondered at the spectacle as Fair Faxi slipped past the fortifications. They could not even suspect that the Kara-Khazars had fled the might of the Huns and were now travelling west to meet up with their allies, the Turkoi, and begin a great journey into Europe, where the Magyars were to become the Hungarians and the Kara-Khazars were to settle in the land of the Wends, remaining forever faithful to their Jewish religion.
Durin led the Hraes’ up the Don River and into the Khopel tributary, and once they reached its source they portaged across land to the Sura River and on up the Volga to the Kama tributary. One last portage to the Northern Dvina and they were soon outside the walls of Arthor’s settlement of Hawknista. A month of hard rowing and harder living had gotten the Hraes’ there with, to Brother Gregory’s surprise, Gunwar’s baby no worse for wear. His nurse maiden, a young, large breasted, blonde Anglish woman who had been torn from Angleland, was suffering culture shock from the sudden expedition north. She clung to Brother Gregory like the baby clung to her breasts and they shared an awning together.
As the Hraes’ beached their ship a large force of Varangians came out from the settlement to meet them. Arthor, tall, lean and enduringly grizzled, stood out at their forefront. “Hrae! Durin!” he shouted in cold greeting. “It has been a long time!”
‘Not long enough,’ thought Durin of the man that had captured his father. “Too long, Arthor!” Durin lied. “I have with me one Brother Gregory,” he said as the two groups closed together, “a Goth from Gardariki.”
“A Christian? So far north?” Arthor asked. “Well, how do you do brother? I’ve never met a Christian before. Heard a lot about you Christians, though.”
“Only good things, I hope,” Brother Gregory said, watching the tall Varangian, more or less eye to eye.
“Not a one,” replied Arthor staring back at the monk. They stood eyeing each other for a time, with Durin wondering what was to become of this confrontation of giants, and then Arthor decided that this Christian was clearly a man of mettle and he warmed to him somewhat. “But, then again, I have to deal with the blackest bunch of merchants this side of the Nor’Way, so what can one expect.”
“I pray I can prove them all wrong,” Brother Gregory responded gruffly.
“Come into our trading post,” Arthor said. “We have sweet meats and bitter ales.”
All afternoon and well into the night the Hraes’ enjoyed the hospitality of their Varangian hosts. To avert any questions as to whose child was travelling with them, Brother Gregory passed the baby’s nursemaid off as his woman and let Arthor assume that the child was his. He then told the Varangian leader that he had a most urgent and secret message for Erik’s brother, King Roller of Norway. With the infant between them, the monk and the nursemaid spent the night together under the furs of the bench Arthor had appointed them.
The next day, arrangements were made for Brother Gregory to take Fair Faxi across the Nor’Way to Hrafnista in Halogaland. Durin would not make the journey. Brother Gregory assured the dwarf that he could complete the delivery without him. “The Northmen have little respect for dwarves,” Durin explained to the monk. “I must return to my people. I have been away from them for too long.” The two men stood on the bank of the Northern Dvina, and when Durin looked off to the east his countenance had lost its youthful demeanour and a great tiredness had set upon it. His youthful adventure had come to an end. It was time for him to lead his people. Soon, a dugout boat paddled by dark-haired dwarves came down around a bend in the river and came near, but not up to, the bank. Durin waded out to the canoe, turned and waved goodbye to Brother Gregory and the Hraes’, then climbed into the boat as many small hands reached out to assist him. The dwarves then turned around to face the stern of the canoe and began paddling back upriver. The stern had become bow and the bow stern as the dwarves took their leader back to Giantland. Durin never looked back.
Soon after, Brother Gregory and the nursemaid took Gunwar’s baby aboard Fair Faxi, now crewed by Varangians accustomed to the rigours of the Nor’Way crossing. The skeleton crew rowed up the Northern Dvina without incident. The aggressive Biarmians were busy with their hunting, not expecting any merchant river traffic until the Varangian expedition in Bulgar was to return home a month later. The lone Nor’Way ship was travelling early, but its Varangian captain anchored the boat in the White Sea for two weeks waiting, what seemed an eternity, for just the right weather for a crossing. With Brother Gregory growing more impatient by the day, the handsome, blond haired young Varangian took the trouble to explain to the monk the fickleness of the Nor’Way winds.
“While the weather may seem right for a crossing,” he began, “as soon as you head out, sure as Loki is a devil, it will turn on you. A storm will come up from the other direction and blow you back right where you started, if you are lucky. If not, a calm will set in and strand you out on the cold Northern Sea where you will perish. We wait for a storm going our way. A storm to take us all the way.” And the captain waited and watched the weather until, well into the second week, heavy dark clouds began forming on the eastern horizon. He then ordered the crew to fasten in place the heavy ox-hide awnings that soon covered Fair Faxi from stem to stern, and they rowed the ship north, out and into the gale.
Brother Gregory had never experienced anything like the fury of that storm. Huge waves crashed against and carried along Fair Faxi, and it took all the strength the old double braced hull had to hold the ship together. Three days they rode upon the storm and when it ceased they were past the North Cape of Norway and Brother Gregory was a Varangian. After rowing a week in the late summer’s calm that followed, the men of Hawknista were near Halogaland and, with the circling of an island, they pulled into the tranquil blue harbour of Hrafnista.
During the feast that soon followed their arrival, Brother Gregory inquired as to the whereabouts of King Roller. A powerful young chieftain of Halogaland, Grim Hairy-Cheek, overheard the monk’s question and asked him why he was seeking audience with his cousin, the king.
Brother Gregory had given his word to Durin to entrust no one with the secret of Gunwar’s baby, so he told Chieftain Hairy-Cheek that he had an urgent message for Prince Erik ‘Bragi’, if he was still alive, or his brother King Roller of Norway.
“You’ll be glad to know that Erik is alive, if you are a friend,” Grim told the monk. “King Roller fetched him out of Frankland back to Vik Fjord more than a month ago.”
“Are they yet in Vik Fjord?”
“Erik ‘Bragi’ battles with the Goths against King Alrek of Sweden and King Roller is passing the war-arrow around all of Thule. They are raising a host to save Gardariki from the Huns.”
“Gardariki has already fallen to the Huns, I’m afraid,” Brother Gregory said sadly. “That is part of the news I have for Erik and his brother.”
Grim Hairy-Cheek could see the grief welling within the priest after his telling of the fall. “Bring your woman and child,” he said. “You will share the high seat spread with us,” and he introduced his wife, Lofthaena, to the eastern couple. Though Brother Gregory was very tired from his travels, his deep dark eyes yet compelled people to listen to his words, and, after supper, he told all of the tragic death of Erik’s wife, Princess Gunwar, before the walls of Gardariki. All present at the feast knew Erik ‘Bragi’ and many were related to him in some manner or another, so Brother Gregory’s story of battle in a far-off land affected them all very personally.
The day after the feast Grim Hairy-Cheek offered to take Brother Gregory to find King Roller. It was an offer the captain of the Nor’Way ship recommended the monk refuse.
“It grows late in the season,” the Varangian captain stated. “If we are to make it back to Hawknista this year, we must leave soon.”
But Brother Gregory wanted to follow Grim, and the young chieftain persisted in his offer, so a party set out from Hrafnista for Trondheim and an inland journey through the Uplands, in the hope of meeting up with King Roller on his way back to The Vik. Grim Hairy-Cheek, with his young wife, led the party, accompanied by Brother Gregory, his woman and child and the Nor’Way captain, along with many others, but, at every place they stopped, they learned that King Roller had just passed through with the war-arrow and had left with most of the able-bodied men of that village. After two weeks of fruitless pursuit, the Varangian captain called for a halt to the enterprise.
“If we head back for Hrafnista now,” he claimed, “we will have a chance to make the crossing back. If not, we shall remain in Norway for the winter.” Now the Varangian captain had a wife and child of his own in Hawknista, and he did not relish the thought of leaving them to spend the winter alone in the east. So, after one more village and one more close encounter at Brother Gregory’s insistence, the party headed back for Hrafnista.
“It is my own fault,” Brother Gregory told Grim, “that now the crossing has become too dangerous. You must take my child to Erik’s family farm in Stavanger Vik and keep him safely there for me. Protect him at all costs. You know not the travails of his birth.” Brother Gregory then took his heavy iron cross from about his neck and he placed the chain around the baby’s neck and he tucked the cross into its swaddling clothes. “Keep this with him always. Erik will recognize it as being mine. We must return to the east, to the Glassy Plains, but we shall come back to claim him. His welfare you must guarantee me. You must pass him off as your own.”
In the short time Grim Hairy-Cheek had known Brother Gregory, he had grown to love him. “I shall follow your wishes,” he answered, “though it surprises me you can bear to leave such a fine child behind. He shall be raised in Stavanger and he shall await your return.”
“I feared coming to the west with my sad tale,” Brother Gregory told his new friend, “but you have made me welcome and you’ve assured me that there can be harmony between our realms.” The two men hugged each other warmly, as the impatient Nor’Way captain watched, and Brother Gregory placed the child into the arms of Lofthaena.
Grim Hairy-Cheek hesitated a moment, then offered, “Your ship is old and not fit for this late a crossing. I’ve just had a new Nor’Way ship built. Leave yours and take it instead. Erik will be pleased to get Fair Faxi back, I’ll bet.” Brother Gregory thanked his new friend warmly and the easterners took Grim’s new ship and they left with the tide and rowed out and around the island.
At the North Cape, the Varangian captain waited patiently, once more, for the storm that would take them back to the east. But it was too late in the season and the storm never came. The impatience of the Varangian captain, worried about his wife and child in the east, overcame him and the staunch men of the Nor’Way ship sailed out into the Barents Sea and were stranded in a calm and perished.
Chapter 34: THE BATTLE OF THE GOTHS AND THE HUNS (Circa 841 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' 