THE SAGA OF PRINCE HELGI ‘ARROW ODD’ ERIKSON 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 CHAPTERS ELEVEN, TWELVE and THIRTEEN:

                                    

Prince Helgi ‘Arrow Odd’ and Hjalmar ‘the Brave’

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BOOK THREE: THE SAGA OF PRINCE HELGI ‘ARROW ODD’ ERIKSON

A Novel By Brian Howard Seibert

© Copyright by Brian Howard Seibert

WRITER’S UNCUT EDITION

(Contains Scenes of Violence and Sexuality Consistent with the Viking Period)

(May be Offensive to Some)

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CHAPTER ELEVEN

11.0  HJALMAR ‘THE BRAVE’  (Circa 861 AD)

The Viking Laws of Hjalmar ‘the Brave’:

Never rob women, even if found in the land alone with a lot of possessions.

No woman is to be taken to the ship to be raped, and if she is taken    

unwillingly, then he who does this will lose his life, be he rich or poor.   

Free all captives that surrender and require neither ransom nor oath of fealty.

It is the above laws that allow an anti-slaver aspect to Oddi’s battles.

Brian Howard Seibert

(861 AD)  Oddi and his kin sailed out from The Vik and they got a great wind, and soon arrived off the coast of Sweden, at a place where one massive headland jutted out to sea from the mainland.  They anchored their ships and raised the awnings and Oddi went ashore to see what was what, but on the other side of the headland he spotted fifteen ships and a camp on the land.  He saw games being played outside of the tents and he saw the leaders of these ships, both Hjalmar and Thord.

Oddi walked back to the beach and rowed out to his ships and told his brothers the news. Gudmund asked what they should do.  “We will split our men into two groups,” said Oddi.  “You shall sail our ships around the headland and shout a war cry at the men on the shore, and I will march overland with my half of the troop and we shall shout another battle cry at them, and it shall unnerve them so much that they will flee back to King Hlodver.”

But when Hjalmar and his men heard the battle cry of Gudmund, they didn’t heed it, and when they heard another battle cry from the land, they stood still a while, then they got back to playing their games.  Soon both groups returned from the headland, and Odd and Gudmund spoke.

“I don’t think,” said Oddi, “that these Vikings are easily frightened.”

“What will we do now?” Gudmund asked.

“Here is what I think we should do,” said Oddi, “We should not sneak up on these men.  Here we shall sleep in our ships tonight beside the headland and wait for tomorrow then sail around and challenge them.”

Then next morning they sailed around the headland and challenged the Swedes to fight.  But Hjalmar walked to the beach from his camp and said they should join him to eat first.  When Oddi and his men saw the Vikings cooking on shore, they armoured themselves and joined them.  Hjalmar asked who led such a fine troop of men.  Oddi answered: “There are more chiefs than just one.”

“What is your name?” said Hjalmar.

“My name is Arrow Odd, son of Grim ‘Hairycheek’ out of Hrafnista.”

“Ahh…Norwegians”, Hjalmar said easily.  “Are you the Odd that went to Bjarmaland recently?”

“I’ve been there,” Odd answered coolly.

 “What is your errand here?”

“I want to know,” said Oddi, “who is the greater man of us.”

“How many ships have you got?” said Hjalmar.

“I have five ships,” said Oddi, “and how many ships have you?”

“We have fifteen ships,” said Hjalmar.

“That’s heavy odds,” said Oddi.

“Ten of my ships’ crews shall sit back, watch and learn,” said Hjalmar, “and we’ll fight it out man to man.  My men could use some hard training.”

Both sides prepared for battle and the ships squared off and fought while day lasted.  In the evening a white peace shield was held up, and Hjalmar asked Oddi how he thought the day had gone.  Oddi was very pleased and said, “Your men make worthy opponents.”

“Do you want to continue the game?” said Hjalmar.

“I would not have it any other way,” said Oddi, “for I have not met better boys or hardier men, and we will continue the fight in daylight.”  And everyone did as Oddi suggested, and they bound their wounds and returned to camp for the evening.  But the next morning, after breaking fast, both sides drew up their ships into battle array and fought all that day and as night approached, they drew up a truce.  Then Oddi asked what Hjalmar thought of the battle that day and he said he was very pleased. “Do you want,” said Hjalmar, “to have this game a third day?”

“Only if it will settle things between us,” said Oddi.

Then Thord Prow Gleam said, “Is there plenty of treasure and money in your ships?”

“Far from it,” said Oddi, “we have got no plunder this summer at all.”

“That goes for us as well,” said Thord.  “I think it is foolish for us to keep fighting, because we fight for nothing, only pride and ambition.”

“What do you suggest we do?” said Oddi.

“Do you not think it good advice,” said Thord, “that we combine our efforts?”

“It pleases me well,” said Oddi, “but I am not sure what Hjalmar would think.”

“I want only the Viking laws,” said Hjalmar, “which I have always had.”

“I will know,” said Oddi, “when I hear them, just how agreeable they are to me.”

Then Hjalmar said: ‘This is the first rule, that I will not eat raw meat, nor my troop, because it is many people’s custom to squeeze flesh in cloth and call it cooked, but it seems to me that it’s a custom more fit for wolves than humans.  I will not rob merchants or farmers unless it is just to cover my immediate needs.  I never rob women, even if we find them in the land alone with a lot of possessions, and no woman is to be taken to the ship to be raped, and if she is taken unwillingly, then he who does this will lose his life, be he rich or poor.  I free all captives that surrender to me and require neither ransom nor oath of fealty.”

“Your laws are good,” said Odd.  “I have a silver kettle in my ship that we use for cooking and the rest of your laws will not block our comradeship.”  And then they joined forces, and they had as many as Hjalmar had before they met.  But the survivors were the best of the best.

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CHAPTER TWELVE

12.0  THE CALLING BACK OF THE HRAES’  (Circa 862 AD)

“The tributaries of the Varangians drove them back beyond the sea

 and, refusing them further tribute, set out to govern themselves.

 There was no law among them, but tribe rose against tribe.

 Discord thus ensued among them, and they began to war one

 against another. They said to themselves, “Let us seek a prince

 who may rule over us and judge us according to the Law.” They

 then went overseas to the Varangian Hraes’: these particular

 Varangians were known as Hraes’, just as some are called Swedes,

 and others Norsemen, Angles, and Goths, for they were thus named.”

The Hraes’ Primary Chronicle

(861 AD)  When King Frodi had left Kiev and the Varangians had left Gardar, the local Slav tribes began fighting amongst each other and all trade through the Southern Way ceased.  Slav envoys were sent to Constantinople to establish trade, but envoys of Prince Erik had already been there, reminding the Emperor of the contract that the Hraes’ had established during the Siege of 860.  Prince Vadim ‘the Brave’ didn’t even bother to send envoys to Baghdad for trade talks.  The Slavs knew that the Arabs were only interested in trade talks if slave trade was involved.  A constant influx of purchased slaves were required in the markets of Baghdad, because the offspring of slaves were considered as being born free.  Eventually Erik met directly with the Slav envoys of the Poljane and Drevjane, bypassing Vadim ‘the Brave’, and they worked out a plan for the calling back of the Hraes’ to re-establish the Southern Way.  Slav royals and chieftains would be allowed to participate in a new slave free Southern Way trade.  Erik was to be returned control of all Gardar in return for reopening freer trade.

Vadim ‘the Brave’ and a few loyal followers fled Kiev and returned to their homes in Staraya Russa in the north of Gardar.  They were not included in the new Southern Way, so they hunkered down and prepared for a siege.

Over the winter, King Frodi learned that his Kagan Bek had regained control over Gardar and he made plans to return from Denmark with the vast army he had been raising in the north.  He had a great fleet of longships being equipped in the harbour town of Liere and his daughter, Princess Eyfura, was readying her twelve sons for a return to Gardar.  Her husband, Jarl Arngrim and her brother, young Prince Alf, had another fleet of longships to prepare and the prince was excited to get under way.

(862 AD)  In the spring King Frodi and his Hraes’ sailed across the Baltic and entered the mouth of the Dvina River into the land of the Sclavs, where decades ago he had gained his first victory in a battle of hosts and had slain King Strunick with his own hand.  It was where he had first earned his byname of Angantyr , ‘the hanging god king’.  They sailed past the ruins of the Sclav fortress then on past the town of Polotsk and on to Surazh where they were to be portaged across to Smolensk on the Dnieper River.  But they had a side trip to make first.  Prince Alf and Jarl Arngrim’s fleet were portaged to the Lovat River which they sailed down and then entered Lake Ilmen.  King Frodi and Princess Eyfura watched from the lake as the Hraes’ forces under the command of Jarl Arngrim and Prince Alf laid siege to the stockaded town of Staraya Russa.

Prince Vadim ‘the Brave’ and his men held the town for a few days, but they were outnumbered a hundred to one and whole sections of stockade wall were soon aflame and, once the fires had cooled, the Hraes’ troops poured into the town by the thousands.  Jarl Arngrim entered the town with Prince Alf at his side and they surveyed the prisoners but could not pick out Prince Vadim.

“Who is Vadim ‘the Brave’!” Jarl Arngrim shouted to the encircled prisoners.  A big man with long black hair stepped forward and said, “I am Vadim ‘the Brave’!”

Another Slav fighter stepped forward and said, “I am Vadim ‘the Brave’!” and another and another.  Even a large and beautiful female warrior stepped forward and shouted, “I am Vadim ‘the Brave’!”

“Behead all who have stepped forward,” Jarl Arngrim ordered, and his men assembled all twenty four Vadims in a line and had them kneel shoulder to shoulder and two soldiers had a Vadim bow forward and a following axman lopped his head off.  When they got to the woman, she offered her beautiful long black locks to one of the soldiers to keep them from tumbling in the bloody soil, while the second soldier made her bow and the axman hesitated momentarily, then lopped her head off.  And this carried on until all twenty four had been executed.

“Any more Vadims wishing to step forward?” Jarl Arngrim asked boldly.

Prince Alf sat on his horse, white as a ghost.

Princess Eyfura watched the whole process from her ship on the lake and she fumed.

The Hraes’ then made the townsfolk watch as they burned Staraya Russa to the ground in retribution for the burning of Aldajuborg known as Staraya Ladoga the year before.

When Jarl Arngrim returned to his wife’s ship, Princess Eyfura asked him why he had killed all those people.  “Now we’ll never know if Prince Vadim died here!”

“The first man I picked out of the group was Vadim.  The rest were just lying and that’s all we would have gotten from them.”

“We could have tortured them until we got to the truth of the matter.  Now they’re dead!  Now we can’t!”

“Well,” Jarl Arngrim started, “we could go back and grab another twenty four townsfolk and torture them until we get an answer.  They’ve all been living with Vadim ‘the Brave’ for the past year.  I’m sure any one of them can tell us which real Vadim head belongs to which real Vadim body!”  And he ordered the sailors to weigh the anchor and unfurl the sail.

The Hraes’ fleet then sailed across Lake Ilmen and began expanding the town of Holmgard or Novgorod on the site of the army camp the Danes had set up during their war with the Khazars decades earlier.  They left a large troop of soldiers and craftsmen to get the town construction under way and the small fleet rejoined the large one at Surazh just in time to join in on the portaging and soon all ships were sailing down the Dnieper River.  Princess Eyfura and her husband would again return to Novgorod, New Keep, in the fall, with their sons, once construction had been completed.  Until then, she planned on their staying in Kiev with her father.

Further down the Dnieper was Chernigov, a town of the Drevjane, a Slav woodland tribe that had supported the revolt.  King Frodi and his army laid siege to that town as well, but it was larger and better defended.  Prince Erik had just arrived in Kiev for his meeting with his king when he learned of the attack from distraught Poljane princes.  He did not like staying in Kiev in the best of times, wanting to avoid the ghost of Queen Alfhild, so he left a troop of Tmutorokan soldiers in charge of the city and left for Chernigov at the head of five hundred Varangian cataphracts.  He met with King Frodi outside the walls of Chernigov and the king was in a rage.  “They have shut their own king out of their town,” he complained.  “I want them to send out all traitorous rebel leaders immediately!”

“I have arranged a truce with the Slavs,” Prince Erik explained.  “We must respect the terms or there will be bloodshed.”

“That is why I brought an army with me!” King Frodi replied incredulously.

Prince Erik looked to Princess Eyfura and Jarl Arngrim for aid.

“I’m with him,” the Jarl said, but Eyfura stepped in and said, “We must at least show some respect for the terms of Prince Erik’s truce until we can get the Danepar trade re-established.”

This settled the king down somewhat and he agreed to considering a more political approach.  Erik set up negotiations between the Drevjane princes and King Frodi and a few concessions by both parties soon had the town doors open for business.  There was a trading season to be salvaged.  Later, Prince Erik thanked Princess Eyfura for her support.  He told her that her words had saved lives and when she blushed, he saw a bit of Queen Alfhild in her.

When King Frodi and his Hraes’ arrived at the quays of Kiev, they found the doors to that city bolted as well.  Prince Erik’s troops let him in and he went through negotiations with the local Poljane princes and arrived at pretty much the same concessions and the doors to the city were opened as well.

Prince Erik asked his Tmutorokan Hraes’ officers why they had let the local Slavs lock the doors and they told their prince that they came to an agreement with the Slavs that as long as they were allowed to stay inside and move around freely, they would let the locals bar the doors.  “We felt you would want us to prevent bloodshed rather than instigate it,” the lieutenants said in unison.  Prince Erik wondered if he had given their action enough thought because they were so right.

When Prince Erik was leaving Kiev at the head of a thousand Varangian cataphracts, Princess Eyfura rode up to the Prince, dressed in her best riding outfit, and asked, “When you told my father that we must respect the terms of your agreement or there will be bloodshed, did you mean his blood?”

“By the gods, no,” Erik said.  “You saved Drevjane lives that day, my princess.”  She was her father’s daughter, the prince mused, as she rode away, just as her mother, Queen Alfhild had been King Gotar’s daughter right to the end.  He watched her ride away until she disappeared behind a crowd and he could swear he was watching Alfhild, then he looked back on his regiment of Cataphracts in their golden raiment and their plate-mail armour and he could see where she might think that.  “Death on hooves,” he thought.  “Forward!” he shouted.

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CHAPTER THIRTEEN

13.0  FIVE EASY BERSERKS  (Circa 862 AD)

“The Chuds, the Slavs, the Krivichians, and the Ves’ then said

 to the people of Hraes’, “Our land is great and rich, but there is

 no order in it.  Come to rule and reign over us.”  They thus

 selected three brothers, with their kinsfolk, who took with them

 all the Hraes’ and migrated.  The oldest, Rurik (Erik), located himself

 in Novgorod; the second, Sineus (King Frodi), at Beloozero; and the third,

 Truvor (King Roller), in Izborsk.  On account of these Varangians, the district

 of Novgorod became known as the land of Hraes’.”          

The Hraes’ Primary Chronicle

(862 AD)  When Oddi asked Hjalmar where they should go next, he said: “On Zealand I know of five berserk slavers who are hardier than other men, one called Brand, another Agnar, the third Asmund, the fourth Ingjald, and the fifth Alf.  They are all brothers and have six vessels, all large.  What do you say we do, Odd?”

“I say we set sail,” said Oddi, “to where these berserks are.”  They went to Zealand with twenty ships and heard that the berserks had gone ashore to meet up with their mistresses.  Oddi secretly slipped ashore by himself to meet them, and when he saw the brothers returning from their trysts, he planned his attack.  They were riding back on horses when they saw Oddi standing on the dirt road, bow in hand.  They immediately raised their shields, drew their swords and charged at Oddi.  The young Norseman stood his ground against the Danes and nocked one of Gusir’s Gifts, and when he loosed it, the arrow flew as if it had caught someone’s evil stare and it followed that evil eye to the head of Alf and it struck him so hard in the face that it passed through his brain and out the back of his skull and it took his helmet right off him, and Alf rolled backwards off the saddle of his horse and he fell face-first onto the road.  The remaining brothers rode around his body and continued on their course.  Oddi already had another arrow nocked and he let the second of Gusir’s Gifts fly with pretty much the same result.  Agnar’s helmet flew off his head as he rolled backwards out of his saddle and landed ass-first on the road, his body rolling and tripping up Ingjald’s horse which slowed up the charge of the others.  Asmund at the back became the man at the front, destined to receive the third and final arrow of Gusir’s Gifts, but he hit a rise in the road and bounced up out of his saddle and was struck hard in the chest and flew backwards off his mount quite dead.  When Brand stopped his horse in front of Oddi and leaped down, sword in hand, Arrow Odd was there to meet him, sword on sword, and the blades sang out.

The noon sun shone brightly as the blades flashed and Oddi and Brand parried and thrusted back and forth in a dance of death.  Beads of sweat began forming on Brand’s brow as he slashed at his opponent and Oddi saw that the nosepiece on the helm was Norman and that the helm may have come from Rouen.  Oddi also noted that his sword was a Varangian Tri-guard, possibly forged in Hraegunarstead, but too new to have been hammered and drawn by his own hand.  Focusing on the details, Oddi followed the path of the opposing blade and deflected it off to his left, then he quickly swung his sword at Brand’s chest, catching a chainmail loop in its tip and raking the Dane across his breast and thereby drawing first blood.

“Fock!” Brand cursed.  “This bodes not well.”

Oddi knew from his perfect Anglish that Brand was from Jutland and likely an overlord on Zealand courtesy of King Frodi.  The berserk broke off his attack and withdrew, biting into his shield until he flew into a rage and renewed his assault and was soon hacking Oddi’s shield to bits.  Backing down the road, Oddi found himself beside one of the horses and he managed to get the skittish horse between himself and Brand just as his shield gave out.  Brand was in full rage by then and began hacking the horse apart and took its head off with one stroke, but blood spurted out of the horse’s neck and hit Brand in the face, blinding him.  Oddi instantly lunged forward with his blade and sliced Brand through the jugular and halfway into his neck, then sliced the other jugular with his return stroke and Brand’s head fell and rolled across the road until it hit the head of the horse.

“Speed is everything!” Oddi breathed as he sidestepped the falling bodies of both the horse and the berserk.  He walked up the road to check on Ingjald, who had fallen from his horse and was laying on the road dead without injury.

When Hjalmar asked Asmund where Oddi was, Asmund realized that Oddi must had gone ashore and he told Hjalmar just that.  “Yes,” Hjalmar agreed, “he must have headed inland.  And we should not be idle while he is away.”  Hjalmar sailed with six ships and attacked and captured the berserks’ ships.  When Oddi returned, they told each other of their adventures and both had amassed wealth and honours.

Hjalmar invited Odd to return to Sweden with him and Oddi accepted.  But Gudmund and Sigurd went north to Hrafnista with their crews, agreeing to meet again at the Gota River.  Asmund took his ship to The Vik and asked Sigrid and Gudrun to come to Sweden with them, but their father was back from his Nor’Way trading and would not allow it.  But he told Asmund they could visit if they wished.  King Hlodver welcomed the Vikings with open arms, and they wintered there with much honour.  Oddi was treated with great respect, because the king thought he had no match, and, soon, the king gave him five farms.  The king had an only daughter, named Ingibjorg and she was a very attractive and skilled woman.  Oddi asked Hjalmar why he did not marry Ingibjorg, “because even I can see that both your hearts beat as one.”

“I have asked for her hand,” he replied, “but the king will not give his daughter to anyone below a king’s rank.”

“Then we shall gather our Vikings next summer,” said Oddi, “and give the king two choices, fight us or give you his daughter.”

“I don’t want to force King Hlodver’s hand with this,” said Hjalmar.  “I have had sanctuary here for a long time.”  They stayed there quietly over the winter and hunted the dwindling stock of walruses for their now prized tusks.  When Oddi had spent time on the Mediterranean his men had kept his trading company running by expanding the sale of the tusks to the artisans of Baghdad, but soon word leaked out of the silver to be made and then all Varangian traders began taking part in the hunt.  There were few walruses left in Scandinavia and a wave of hunters swept into the Orkney Islands and up the coast of the Nor’Way.

When the weather was good, Oddi and Asmund would take a dragonship north to The Vik and spend a week or two visiting with Sigrid and Gudrun at their father’s farm and they slept with the girls in their rooms, even though their parents were there, because many Scandinavians at the time enjoyed freedoms that Christian countries of the time did not.  Life was not a given and had to be enjoyed while it lasted.

Chapter 14: THE DEATH OF RAGNAR ‘LOTHBROK’ SIGURDSON of BOOK 3: THE SAGA OF PRINCE HELGI ‘ARROW ODD’ ERIKSON shall follow on next Post.

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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.