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 CHAPTER THIRTY & THIRTY ONE:
Prince Eyfur (Ivar/Igor) ‘the Boneless’ Erikson of Kiev
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)
CHAPTER THIRTY
30.0 RECONQUERING THE SOUTHERN WAY (Circa 889-891 AD)
“6391 (883). Oleg (Helgi) began military operations against the Derevlians,
6392 (884). Oleg (Helgi) attacked the Severians, and conquered them.
6393 (885). Oleg (Helgi) sent messengers to the Radimichians. Thus Oleg
established authority over the Polyanians, the Derevlians, the Severians,
and the Radimichians, but waged war with the Ulichians and the Tivercians.”
“Viking warship, go fock yourself!”
Paraphrased from The Hraes’ Primary Chronicle
(889 AD) King Oddi had been in Baghdad placating the Caliphate when he received the news that Kiev had fallen to the northern rebels. He had been overseeing silk-route trade on the Caspian Sea and had just returned to Baghdad to explain why there would no slave trade via the Nor’Way when Hraes’ traders brought him the news. But he still wanted to carry on further and visit Jerusalem and the River Jordan over the winter. His friends in Frankia would want him to complete his pilgrimage. Duke Roller had shown him a silver plate exposure of his father and he had learned of a guild in Baghdad that could do such a thing and he wondered, if he had enough gold, would they travel.
Oddi had spent much of the summer at the estate of Fadlan Ibn Ahmad, the son of Ahmad Ibn Yakut, the Baghdad merchant that Erik had met in Constantinople. Fadlan had helped guide Oddi through several meetings and a treaty with the Caliph of Baghdad. But it was now late fall and the trading season was over and Fadlan had promised to contact the Alchemists’ Guild that handled silver oil emulsion imaging. True to his word, an alchemist soon arrived with several assistants and two large box-shaped devices were set up in the courtyard. Fadlan had two tall chairs set up in front of the courtyard colonnades and he and Oddi posed for the pinhole cameras. The chemist spread a thin film of asphaltic paste over two silver plates and placed one in each box so that the beams of light entering through the pinholes in the boxes targeted the full plate diameters. Oddi posed seated, with his weapons, sword and shield at his knees, a yellow tunic covering his broad chest and the long blonde hair that framed his handsome face was held in place with a gold head band. He sat back and relaxed as did his host and occasionally they would sip orange juice out of silver goblets. Then the alchemist would come out from between the boxes and quickly adjust their poses, then return and monitor the exposures. After two hours he put clay seals on the pinholes and covered the boxes with heavy black drapes.
“Our fathers posed like this thirty years ago,” Fadlan stated, “but the imaging could only be done in black and white. The Alchemists have had some success introducing some reds and yellows into the emulsions, so your outfit should really stand out.”
The night before Oddi was to leave for Jerusalem, he and Fadlan celebrated their summer’s successes with a feast. Following the meal, Fadlan rose and went to a sideboard and retrieved two silver plates and presented Oddi with one and placed the other on a wall beside the exposure of their fathers that had been taken decades before. “They were delivered this afternoon,” Fadlan explained, and Oddi could see they were identical exposures of the two of them posing in the courtyard. The pictures were incredibly detailed in various shades from black to very light gray, but the yellow of Oddi’s tunic and the gold of his hair and headband stood out and flesh tones had a myriad of hues. Again, the courtyard features were outstanding, the colonnades were finely fluted and the architectural details were extremely clear. Static items seemed very clear while the subject faces and extremities were slightly blurred but very recognizable. “The alchemist who exposed the plates is our foremost optical scientist and an expert in light sensitive oils and chemicals. He has developed oil films that react faster to light and register some colours. While these exposures have been treated to no longer react to light, it is still best to store them in darkness,” and Fadlan presented Oddi with a polished wood chest with a black velvet lining in which the picture could be stored and special inks with which the picture could be touched up.
“I’ve checked with our alchemist and he does have a man that can travel to Jerusalem with you. But he will only take one pinhole housing and he will make a number of his own exposures while there. My company shall cover all costs and the Caliph has offered you a place in the next merchant caravan going to Jordan and Jerusalem.”
Arrow Oddi went to Jerusalem and got the exposures he had promised Duke Rollo of Normandy.
(890 AD) The Eastern Roman Emperor wanted to give the Poljane a chance to re-start Southern Way trade, but Prince Erik would not allow any relaxation of his treaty restrictions. The Romans would have liked to give the Khazars a chance to re-establish their control of the Southern Way. Anybody but the Varangians who had nailed a war shield to the main gates of Constantinople, anybody but the Bragning Prince who seemed to have a special relationship with the Alchemists of Chaldea, the Bulghars of the Volga, the Khazars of Atil Kazaran, the Xungarians of the Silk Road, the Arabs of the Caliphate of Baghdad. Erik knew there was a centuries old conflict smouldering between the philosophical sciences of the Alchemists Guild and the Roman Engineers going all the way back to the Roman conquest of Greece. The studies and teachings of Plato and Socrates and Archimedes that had evolved in cooperation with Babylonian and Indian and Oriental Schools of Alchemy were being sampled and cannibalized by the Imperialis Machina that was Rome…the conqueror, Rome…the enslaver.
The crude science that evolved out of Roman military engineering ruled the world as the Romans knew it, but the world was much larger than that. And the science much more complex. When Emperor Vespasian sent the chief scientist of Rome to study Mount Vesuvius and see what Roman engineering could do to stop the impending eruption, Pliny the Elder was caught up in the conflagration that was Pompey and it cost him his life. Their science served the empire. The sciences of the Alchemists served mankind and there were many facets of it that were forbidden to governments and empires. The Eastern Romans, the Byzantines, had pried the terror of Greek fire from the Alchemists of Chaldea and Constantinople would pay for it centuries in the future when the iron tubes Erik had envisioned would spew fire and smoke and balls of steel against her cold stone walls until the city would finally fall. And further in the future, Erik saw the New Romans in the Newfoundland pry the terror of Democritian theory from their state scientists and use it on their enemies in the Orient. They too would send their scientists to study their own Vesuvius, and many of those scientists would die in the ensuing conflagration. Those that do not study history are doomed to repeat it, but those who do study history must study and understand it, not just memorize the dates. Erik understood the history of the Romans and their blood link with the Khazars, so he called for ambassadors from Khazaria to go to Constantinople and argue his case for him. The Khazars were profiting from the existing Nor’Way trade and Erik promised them profits from the reopening of Southern Way trade.
When the Slavs of Kiev, Chernigov and Smolensk learned that the only Southern Way trade going to Constantinople would have to go through the Varangians, they made it known that were willing to talk.
During negotiations it became known that a king who had seized control of Holmgard-Novgorod had, seven years earlier, rebuilt Staraya Russa, and that mysterious king was called Quillanus. The southern Slavs said he was somewhat strange looking because he wore a mask over his face, like King Frodi was wont to do, and that no one had ever seen his bare face. Even the northern Slavs thought this strange. No one knew his family or ancestry or even the land where he was from. The people of the north talked about this a great deal and the news eventually spread, and it came to Oddi’s ears when he returned to Gardariki from Jerusalem. It seemed very strange to Oddi that he should not have heard about this man during his many travels. One night at a Bragarful in honour of his return, Oddi got up in public and made a solemn vow to reconquer Kiev and the northern towns and to learn who now ruled the kingdom of Holmgard in the north. Prince Erik put together an army for him and he soon left for Kiev. He sent word to Sirnir, his blood-brother, to meet him in the summer at Surazh on the Dvina east of Wendland and Oddi and his troops left for Kiev in the spring and they started working their way up the Dnieper in one hundred and thirty ships, fully equipped.
When King Odd arrived at the quays of Kiev, the Slav ruler Kaenmarr fled north, leaving the city to the Hraes’. Oddi sent messengers to Gardariki with the news that Kiev had been retaken, then he pushed on north to Chernigov and took that town back from the Drevjane rebels by force, overwhelming the defenders in a matter of days, causing Prince Chernmal to flee north as well. King Odd then took back Smolensk from the Radimichi rebels and then Surazh from the Krivichi rebels. He met up with his comrade Sirnir there who told him he had taken Polotsk on the Dvina, forcing King Paltes to flee inland. His sworn brother added forty ships to the fleet that portaged across to the Lovat River and sailed for Novgorod. Now the Lovat drained into Lake Ilman and Staraya Russa was on its southern shore, but it had been burned by Prince Arngrim years earlier, so King Odd had to rub his eyes twice when he saw that it had been completely rebuilt. He sailed up to the town with his fleet and he found the town gates locked and warriors upon the walls. He learned from a local woodcutter that the town supported the northern rebels but were not prepared for a siege because local crops had failed and the people of the town were near starvation. Oddi saw the town as being of no real strategic importance, so instead of attacking it, he ordered his men to offload a dozen barrels of flour and leave them at the town gates. “It was the home of Vadim the Brave,” Oddi told one of his lieutenants.
Gardar is a vast land and many of its kingdoms were vassals to King Quillanus of Novgorod. Marron was the name of one king and he ruled Murom. Rodstaff was the name of another king, and Rostov was the city he ruled. Eddval was the name of a king who ruled in Sursdal and Holmgeir was the name of the king who had ruled Holmgard before Quillanus. Paltes and Kaenmarr and Chernmal were in Novgorod as well, having fled the forces of King Odd. All these kings and princes paid tribute to King Quillanus.
Before Odd had even imagined coming to Novgorod, Quillanus had been busy mustering troops for the last three winters, preparing for the Slavic uprising. Some thought that he had somehow gained foreknowledge of Oddi’s coming. All his tribute kings were with him in Novgorod. Svart Geirrid was also there. He was so-called after his father, Ogmund ‘Eythjofsbane’, had disappeared years ago. There were also hosts of Karelia, Tafestland, Refaland, Virland, Estonia, Livonia, Vitland, Kurland, Lanland, Ermland and Poland. Quillanus’ army was so large that it could not be counted in hundreds and men couldn’t imagine how it could have been gathered, let alone fed. When Oddi’s army beached their ships on the riverbank of the Volkov, he sent messengers to Novgorod to challenge King Quillanus to a tournament. Quillanus responded quickly and went forth to meet him with his army. He wore a mask on his face, as he was wont to do, and when they met, they immediately prepared for a tournament in the new Eastern Roman fashion. They both had long strong lances, but they broke four of them in the first four charges. They jousted for three days and they both failed to unseat each other. “It seems to me,” Quillanus said, “that we’ve tested each other and I believe we are equals.”
“I believe you are right,” said Oddi.
“It seems to me that we agree,” said Quillanus, “and should fight no longer. I wish to invite you to a banquet.”
“There’s just one thing,” said Odd, “that I must know first.”
“What is that?” Quillanus asked.
“I made a solemn vow to my people that I would learn who is king in Holmgard.”
Then Quillanus took off his mask, asking, “Do you know who owns this ugly face?” And Oddi realized that this man was Ogmund ‘Eythjofsbane’ Tussock, because he bore the scars given him when Oddi had torn off his beard, his face and forelock in Bjarmaland. The skin had healed over most grotesquely and no hair grew where his famed black tussock had been.
“No, Ogmund,” he cried, “I will never come to terms with you. You have done so much to harm me, and I challenge you to battle on the morrow.” Ogmund accepted the offer, and the next day their armies met in battle on a nearby plain. It was violent and brutal, and as the day wore on, many men were killed on both sides. Sirnir fought valiantly and killed many men, because his sword, Snidil, bit hard all that stood before him. But when Svart Ogmundson faced him, they battled very hard, but Snidil just wouldn’t bite, even though Svart wore no armour. The duel concluded when Sirnir, with much honour, fell dead. Oddi killed all the vassal kings of Quillanus, shooting some, and hewing down others, but when he saw Sirnir fall, the anger boiled up in him, as it seemed to be happening all over again, a personal loss of life at the hands of Ogmund and his company. He nocked an arrow and shot at Svart, but the youth put up the palm of his hand, and it would not bite. He shot another and a third and while shooting, he felt great loss now Gusir’s Gifts were gone, so he grabbed up his club and went to battle against Svart with it and Odd struck him with the club again and again and did not stop until he had broken every bone in Svart’s body and left him there dead. Quillanus had been busy, as well, and he shot arrows out of his fingers and a man was killed by each one, and with his men he killed every man of Oddi’s. But many had fallen on Quillanus’ side, too, so many that he could not count the dead. Oddi was still up and fighting, protected by his Roman plate-mail shirt. Night fell upon them, and it was too dark to fight, so Quillanus and his men went into Novgorod, about sixty in total, all tired and wounded. Oddi retreated to his ships and was greeted by the small force he left there as guards and he carried with him the body of his sworn brother Sirnir. After this battle, Ogmund garnered the byname Blaze, Quillanus ‘Blaze’, and he ruled in Novgorod for a long time.
(891 AD) Oddi had barely enough men to sail one ship and he returned to Gautland in Fair Faxi, carrying the body of Sirnir, and he erected a howe over his friend there. He inherited the lands of all his compatriots in Denmark, Skane and Gautland and set himself up as king over the lands, calling himself King Helgi ‘the Sharp’ Hraerikson, as Arrow Odd was still a very unpopular name to go by in Denmark after all the deaths he had caused there.
In the spring he took command of the new Hraes’ Southern Way fleet that assembled in Liere and they sailed east across the Baltic and south down the Dvina River. As they passed through Polotsk he wondered how the two sisters Gudrun and Sigrid were doing in Gardariki. He had married Princess Silkisif, but he would often leave the palace and visit the sisters and his sons in his longhall. As Duke Rollo had told him years earlier, his life was complicated.
At Surazh, he was approached by an embassy as he prepared to portage Fair Faxi overland to Smolensk. King Quillanus sent Oddi rich gifts of both gold and silver and many valued objects and with them messages of friendship and reconciliation. He told Oddi that he had withdrawn from Novgorod and would remain in Staraya Russa if that would end the enmity between them. Oddi accepted the gifts, being, at last, wise enough to see that Ogmund ‘Eythjofsbane’ Tussock, now called Quillanus Blaze, had also lost so much and was unbeatable, being no less a wraith than a man.
When Oddi and his fleet sailed back to Kiev he learned that Prince Erik and Princess Eyfura were there settling in, Eyfura claiming King Frodi’s inheritance from her dead brother, King Alf. King Oddi told The Prince what had transpired in the north and that the Southern Way was ready to be re-opened. And Prince Erik told him that Queen Silkisif was pregnant, but being tended to by the sisters, Gudrun and Sigrid, so he needn’t rush to get back.
CHAPTER THIRTY ONE
31.0 THE BIRTH OF IVAR THE BONELESS (Circa 896 AD)
“Prince Erik came to me in a dream and he said, ‘Ivar the Boneless
is Prince Igor of Kiev’, so I researched Ivar the Boneless. It was said in
the Sagas that he had no bones in his legs. Then I researched Prince
Igor of Kiev, hoping to find a similar nickname, but I could find none.
‘Show me,’ I pleaded with Erik. ‘Show me.’ He came to me in a
dream again and repeated ‘Ivar the Boneless IS Prince Igor of Kiev.’
So I researched further and read of Emperor John Tzimiskes telling Ivar’s
son Svein what had happened to his father: ‘on his campaign against the
Germans, he was captured by them, tied to tree trunks, and torn in two.’
But Prince Erik said, ‘Prince Igor of Kiev IS Ivar the Boneless.’ Perhaps
he did not die from the trap. But even if he did, he still would have been
called ‘the Boneless’ post-mortem anyway. It was the Viking way.”
Comment on: ‘The History of Leo ‘the Deacon’ as read by B H Seibert
(896 AD) King Odd had been spotted returning from the north in his longship, Fair Faxi, so a great crowd of Hraes’ people were on the quays of Kiev to greet him. A harbourmaster had brought the message to Prince Erik in his palace and soon he would explain to Oddi that over the winter he had married the mother of the twelve berserker brothers that Oddi had killed, and that they were now trying to have a baby together even though it was a little late in life for children.
“I’ll have to leave for Gardariki immediately,” Oddi stated quite emphatically. “It is her family duty to avenge the deaths of her sons, not to mention her father, King Frodi!”
“Princess Eyfura has assured me she has no intention of seeking vengeance,” Erik repeated, as Oddi stepped down from the highseat he was sharing with his father and searched the hall for spies, checking behind draperies and statues. He could find no others in the hall, so he rejoined his father on the second highseat.
“You are in love,” Oddi said, “and blinded by it. Princess Eyfura is a royal and will not give up her right to vengeance. That is not how royal bloods operate. They hold all the rights and give up none. They not only support slavery, they depend on it. A free man wouldn’t wear a king’s yoke if he did not have a slave wearing his own yoke first. Where there are royals, there are slaves.”
“You are now a royal, yourself, King Odd, and Princess Eyfura is not like that. She is the spitting image of her mother, and Alfhild was not like that, not vengeance minded.”
“I saw vengeance in the havoc her nails wreaked upon Frodi’s face as he perpetrated his foul deed. How could I have seen that? I have always felt connected with Queen Alfhild somehow…I don’t understand it, but I do understand I cannot stay here!” Oddi again searched about the hall, prodded the tapestries, for a spy.
“There is no one here, son.”
Oddi had arrived late evening in Kiev and Erik had sent everyone away from the hall of his palace. Only preparers of food and purveyors of wines entered and left the hall and none were presently in the chamber. “I told all to leave us alone. I wanted to be the first to tell you of my troth with Eyfura. She is the love of my life. She is Alfhild and Gunwar as one. I am afraid I have failed you again. I cleared this with Eyfura, ensuring that she bid you no ill will, but I should have cleared it with you as well. For that neglect I am sorry.”
“You have not failed me,” Oddi reassured his father. “I am glad you have found love again. I hope you have found a love such as I have for Queen Silkisif, or a love such as Hjalmar had found with Princess Ingibjorg. But he paid with his life for that love. Angantyr didn’t kill Hjalmar; your famed blade, Tyrfingr, did. Your arrow of the gods. It bit into Hjalmar sixteen times and, each time, the poison in that blade worked its evil magic on my friend until he could barely stand in the end. Had Angantyr not fully exposed himself to Hjalmar’s final death stroke, Hjalmar would not have had the strength left to kill him. Angantyr deprived me of my victory, deprived me of all twelve berserker brothers. I was so angry I almost didn’t bury the boys. But I promised the brothers full burial with weapons, so I built them all a howe on Samsey and Angantyr sleeps atop Tyrfingr. I’m sorry, I should have brought the blade back to you.”
“I gave the sword to King Frodi,” Erik explained, “and he gave it to Prince Arngrim, and Angantyr was given the blade expressly for the holmganger. So, I guess it is fitting that it should rest with him. Tyrfingr is not evil. It is just dangerous. I forged it out of a starstone metal that radiates intense energy like a fire radiates heat. The energy is the poison and any cut from the blade will never heal and will result in death, no matter how slight the wound. I’m sorry it bit your friend, Hjalmar. Tyrfingr is best left buried with Angantyr on Samso Isle.”
“Angantyr told us before he died that he had no interest in Princess Ingibjorg. That he just wanted my head for King Frodi. Hjalmar and Ingibjorg were in love and both died because King Frodi wanted my head. What makes a man do what Angantyr did just to impress his king?”
“You must not blame yourself,” Erik said. “They didn’t call him ‘the Hanging God King’ for nothing. Angantyr Frodi. Hanging Tyr Frodi. I called my sword Tyr’s Finger, Tyrfingr, after the god of justice. I conquered many lands with that sword for King Frodi, and I did it because I loved his sister, Princess Gunwar, your mother. I am so glad I finally learned the truth of your birth. It is best you buried the thing. The crushing burden of that blade was wearing on me.”
“Then I’m glad it rests between the shoulder blades of Angantyr,” Oddi stated, seeming a little less perplexed.
“You left it in its sheath, I hope.”
“Yes. It seemed to glow without it.”
“You could see the glow? That is good. Most people can’t. It is best left buried.”
“But I must leave here. I must return to Gardariki. It will always be your city, yours and my mother’s,” Oddi said. “But I cannot stay here in Kiev.”
“If I can stay here,” Prince Erik said, “then you can stay here, for I too have a connection with Queen Alfhild. Her spirit visited me soon after she had died. She came to me on the battlefield and she warned me that a witch was planning to poison Gunwar and that she was pregnant with you at the time. The witch, Gotwar, had already terminated eleven of Gunwar’s pregnancies and you were to be the twelfth and final one, dying together with your mother, in revenge for my slaying the witches twelve sons and for razing the House of Westmar. I rode back to Gardariki to save your mother and we lost the battle against the Huns while I was gone. I never told your mother this, but I slept with the spirit of Alfhild as repayment for her warning. I would do it again to save you both, but I fear that Kiev is haunted by Queen Alfhild’s spirit, and I don’t want to be here. I told Eyfura this, but she wanted to come live in Kiev anyway.”
“I shall make time and stay for a day or two,” Oddi told his father.
“Timing is the soul of soldiery,” Erik started, “and your timing is perfect. We have just received a delegation of the Poljane and Drevjane and they are cooperating with the reopening of the Southern Way. Without the wealth of the Way trade, the Slavs are turning on each other. They do not want to miss another trading season. I would like you to help with the negotiations.”
“Southern Way trade without slave trade, right?”
“They would have it no other way.”
As Erik and Oddi went through the details of the new Southern Way trade, Oddi would occasionally look about the hall as if expecting to find spies lurking in the tapestries, but he should have looked up. High above the highseats, in amongst the heavy ochred oak rafters, where the blackened war arrows rested, laid a red war shield, and curled up on it hid Hervor, Princess Eyfura’s young handmaiden.
“Now that you have told me all that was said between Oddi and my husband,” Princess Eyfura started, leaving a long pause, “there is something I must tell you of your birth. Your mother was my handmaiden, but your father was not a slave. He was my eldest son, Prince Angantyr. When your mother died following your birth, I had you raised in our household, but, for your own safety, I kept your true lineage a secret. Your father was too drunk to remember your conception, but your mother would not spare me the details. You must avenge your father’s death, as I must avenge mine. You shall begin training in the morning.”
Hervor, a lithe young woman with green eyes and auburn hair, was happy to learn that she was not slave spawn, but of royal blood. She reached out to her grandmother and Eyfura hugged her coldly. “We must keep the truth of your birth a secret until we have avenged our fathers.”
Oddi stayed in Kiev a week before they had a contract hammered out with the Slavs, then he and his crew left for Gardariki in his longship, Fair Faxi. Right after he left, Hervor’s training as a shield-maiden began. The more skill she gained, the more independent she became and she would often squabble with Eyfura’s household slaves. When handmaidens refused to believe Prince Angantyr had been her father, Hervor went to her grandmother for support. “My son was drunk when he raped your mother,” Eyfura started, “and your mother tried to kill herself afterwards. I saved her and kept her close while she carried you and after you were born she did kill herself. Is that what you want me to tell them?”
Once news of the Way’s reopening got out, it spread like wildfire and many merchant ships returning from Baghdad and Constantinople took the southern route instead of the Nor’Way, paying a double tythe just to save time. Once the fall trading season was complete, and all the merchant ships were plying their various routes, Prince Erik had more time to spend with Princess Eyfura. She was so much like the Princess Alfhild he had known a generation earlier and he remembered watching his young queen with child walking with her King Frodi and he and Gunwar had been so envious. He often wondered what would have happened had he not had that moment of anger so many years ago when Alfhild told him she needed a blooded king for a match, that he was not good enough for her, and he had lashed out at her mentally and struck a blow that had ended his love for her. Then he realized that it was his greatest fear that he would repeat that mental bow with Eyfura and ruin it all. That was why he had feared a confrontation between Eyfura and Oddi. That was why he had allowed Oddi to go without meeting his new wife. He instinctively knew that his newfound love for Eyfura was a fragile thing that would need protecting, a protection that his love for Alfhild had not received. Eyfura was as proud as her mother had been, perhaps even more so. She had so much more to be proud of.
“What are you thinking?” Eyfura asked her husband as they rested on their bed together. “You’re so deep in thought.”
“I was thinking, you have so much to be proud of,” Erik answered. “You have survived so much in this hostile land. I look upon you with so much pride. Our child shall be lucky to have you as a mother.”
“I am afraid to be a mother again,” Eyfura confessed. “What if the potion doesn’t work?”
“If the potion doesn’t work,” he said. “Then we’ll just have to work at it harder. There is an old Roman saying that goes…If you love your work…then your job must be…trying to get your wife focking pregnant!” and he pushed Eyfura onto the bed and kissed her passionately. They made love on the bed and then they made love again. As they rested, Erik said, “There are two kinds of sex. There’s having sex while you’re trying your damnedest not to get your woman pregnant, and then there’s having sex while trying to knock up your wife, and I have to say that I, by far, prefer the latter.”
“I can feel the difference,” Eyfura agreed. “You spout like a whale!”
The next morning, Eyfura asked her husband if he was still anxious about living in Kiev. He told her that sometimes he could feel the presence of Queen Alfhild’s spirit in the palace. He told her he was thankful that King Frodi and Queen Alfhild’s bedchamber down the hall was kept shuttered under lock and key.
“You must get over your fear,” Princess Eyfura told Erik. “The ghost of my mother doesn’t haunt the palace of Kiev.”
“Queen Alfhild doesn’t frighten me. I told you what happened to me on the battlefield of the Don plain many years ago. We made love shortly after she had died and I still feel bad about it.”
“You shouldn’t feel bad,” Eyfura said. “It wasn’t your fault.”
“I don’t feel that kind of bad…”
“What kind of bad do you feel?”
“I feel bad that she was so good! Once you’ve had spirit, well…nothing comes near it.”
And Eyfura pummelled her husband, and then they had sex on the bed again.
“But seriously,” Erik started, as they rested after. “She was my first love, your mother. But she chose another. A true king. Your father, King Frodi.”
“And I’m glad she did. If you were my father, I could not have married you….even this late in our lives.”
“And I am glad as well,” Erik breathed into his wife’s ear as he rolled out of bed. “I shall stay in Kiev then, but I will depend on you to keep me safe here.”
“I will not trust my mother, Alfhild, alone with you,” Eyfura chimed. “Not even her ghost!”
One night Erik held on to Eyfura as she slept, fitfully. She tossed and she turned but was asleep when he heard an odd noise down the hall. Erik slipped out of bed and crept into the hallway and he saw her….Alfhild. She was young again, her wispy blonde hair catching up the light of the tapers as she spun and walked toward the king’s chamber, trailing a hand and a finger as though to compel him to follow. When he entered the room, she was on the bed, so he closed the door behind himself. They never said a word, he just brushed her hair back and kissed her and her silks fell open and he kissed her all over as if to consume her so she could never leave again. He remembered that night on the bed in King Gotar’s high seat hall, with Tyrfingr sheathed between them, and all the nights since fell away like rose petals in the darkness of denial. A lifetime of denying their truth, denying their young love, fell away with each kiss. And they made passionate love for what seemed hours, what seemed days, then Alfhild fell asleep in his arms on the bed and Erik slipped his arm out from under her tender throat and he could see by the tapers that there were no strangle marks about her neck like the first time they made love in his campaign tent on the Don Plain, and he realised that she was younger now, from before she had died, and he slipped out of the room and returned to the bed of Eyfura. She was still sleeping fitfully as though in a trance and Erik thought this must be a dream.
The next morning Prince Erik got up early to check King Frodi’s bedchamber but it was still locked. He asked some of the handmaidens and servants if anyone had been in the room and they all answered not in years. ‘It was a dream,’ Erik thought. ‘Just a dream. What a dream.’
The next night Prince Erik went to sleep with Eyfura as before and he drifted off holding her in his arms and she woke him up with her tossing and turning once more. Again, he heard an indistinct noise out in the hallway. Erik slipped out of bed and crept into the hall and he saw her….young Alfhild. She was at the door of King Frodi’s bedchamber and she was waving him to hurry to her and they entered the room together and she stripped off her silks, and as she slowly peeled away Erik’s linen bedclothes he could see she was even younger now and she wore her hair as it had looked when he visited her in her mother’s hall when the matron was sick and coughing in her room. Again, they never said a word. He just brushed his naked body up against hers and he held her and kissed her and then he hugged her and lifted her off the floor and he slid her onto himself and she touched the floor with her toes and she went up on her toe tips and she went back down then up on her toe tips and down again and she did this until waves crashed through their bodies and they held each other for what seemed hours and Alfhild fell asleep standing in his arms. He picked her up and they disengaged and he laid her out upon the bed and he stroked her beautiful blonde hair and he stroked her beautiful young face and then he stroked her beautiful lithe body and he covered her in her shimmering silks and then covered her with a sheet and he left the room and returned to the bed of Eyfura, who was still sleeping fitfully as though in a trance. Erik slid into bed beside Eyfura and he realised that this was not a dream.
The next morning Prince Erik got up early to check King Frodi’s bedchamber but it was still locked. He asked the handmaidens if anyone knew where the key to the chamber was kept, but nobody seemed to know. ‘It was not a dream,’ Erik thought. ‘But it is not a dream that I don’t want to stop.’
The third night Prince Erik went to sleep with Eyfura as before but he didn’t drift off, staying awake as she fell asleep in his arms, and when she started tossing and turning as though in a trance, he slipped his arm out from under her and slid out of bed. He stood by their chamber door until he heard that undefinable noise out in the hallway. He stepped out into the hall and he saw her again….youngest Alfhild. The Alfhild he had seen his first time entering the Vik when she stood high upon a headland and the sun played and danced with her wispy blonde hair and drove away the shadows casting in the cliffs. She entered the king’s bedchamber and Erik did follow, and she kept her silks on and she stripped Erik naked and she led him onto the bed and she sat him against the headboard and she kissed his forehead and she kissed his lips and she kissed his chin and she kissed his throat ever so gently and she kissed his chest three times working her way down, and she kissed him and had him in her mouth, as much as she could take, and when he was wet enough she rose and sat astride him and took up the rest and she bounced high in her saddle like a princess riding out to a picnic in the woods and he exploded within her and hugged her so she would stop. But she had a nice gait going and she was still riding Erik when Princess Eyfura walked into the room and saw her handmaiden, Hervor, riding her husband’s steed.
“Eyfura, you must leave the room at once,” Hervor cried, but the voice wasn’t her’s….it was Queen Alfhild’s. And Erik woke and he pushed Hervor away from himself, as though he had seen a ghost, and Hervor said in Alfhild’s voice, “I tried to scratch his eyes out in this very bed, I clawed his face to the very end.” Then Hervor awoke and she was a frightened young woman tearing away the silks and then pulling them around her again to cover up her nakedness.
“What have you done, Hervor?” Eyfura whispered hoarsely. “You are possessed!”
Hervor sat upon the bed, hugging her knees and crying, with no idea how she had gotten there.
“It is the ghost of Alfhild,” Erik lamented. “She has tricked me. Please forgive me, Eyfura. I should have never come to Kiev!”
“Hush, girl,” Eyfura cooed, trying to calm the young woman. “How long has this been happening?” she asked her handmaiden, but the young woman had no recollection.
“I think it has been happening three nights,” Erik answered. “I remember it happening now, as one recollects a dream. Three nights! I should have not come here,” and he sat on the bed with his head in his hands. “Three nights in a row and you’ll get a Bo. When did you last have your period, Hervor?”
Hervor answered in a weird Alfhild voice, “Three nights in a row and you’ll get no Mo.”
“Ask her!” Erik demanded. “Ask her when she last had her period,” and Erik held out one finger on one hand and five fingers on the other where only Eyfura could see them.
So Princess Eyfura asked Hervor how long it had been.
“Just over two weeks,” she said.
Then Prince Erik recited this verse:
“Wait fifteen days, then three nights in a row
Fock your wife and you’ll have a Bo.
Wait only days, and have your way,
And a girl will come, come birthing day.
“It is a Warlock Song,” the Prince said. “And why did you wake up?” Erik asked Eyfura. “You were tossing and turning like you were in a trance when I left you.”
“I remember tossing and turning, but then I stopped and I woke up and then I heard a noise in the hallway.”
“What kind of noise?”
“I don’t know. It was just a noise.”
“Ghosts can’t make noises,” Erik explained. “They can only make you think you’ve heard a noise, so it’s always just a noise, but can never be described.”
“We shall never talk about this again,” Eyfura said, as a shiver coursed through her body. “Ever!” And she sent Erik back to their room as she escorted Hervor back to the servants’ chambers.
When she got back she found Erik asleep in their bed, exhausted. “Sometimes I think my mother was a witch,” she complained, sliding into bed next to her husband.
The ghost of Queen Alfhild did not return, but Princess Eyfura had no doubt that the affair was the work of her mother and bought charms and potions to keep her ghost away. She loved her mother, but she loved her husband even more.
They all stayed in Kiev together over the winter; Hervor was with child and they wanted to keep it quiet. Prince Erik went to Gardariki after the spring trading rush, but Eyfura stayed at home with her granddaughter as Hervor’s belly swelled. Eyfura kept Hervor under lock and key, ‘for the good of the baby’, she claimed. Princess Eyfura became inordinately determined that the child be born in Kiev and that no one learn that it was Hervor’s. Secretly born in the summer, Eyfura passed the baby off as her own, naming the boy Eyfur, or Ivar, after herself. And Erik and Hervor did not dispute her choices. The Poljane Slavs around Kiev called him Igor Rurikslavich in line with the naming and they called him Prince Igor of Kiev because he was their prince.
When Arrow Odd got back to Tmutorokan from Khwarizm for the fall trading rush, he learned he had a younger brother named Eyfur. And when he visited Kiev he noticed a distinct difference in the way Princess Eyfura addressed him. It was ‘King Oddi Erikson this’ and ‘Prince Eyfur Erikson that’ and he was astonished at how her pregnancy had changed the princess. She seemed to want to make sure that all knew they were brothers, even though there was a great age difference between them. But he was still nervous with the princess being around him; he had, after all, killed eleven of her sons, and so was relieved when it was time for him to return to Gardariki for the spring trading season.
Back in Gardariki, King Odd learned that Queen Silkisif was again pregnant. Their firstborn was a son named Asmund, after Oddi’s long lost best friend, and when their second child came, they named him Hraerauld Olmar, or Hilmar, after Silkisif’s father. When Oddi had reopened the Southern Way, his favourite sisters, Gudrun and Sigrid, with their sons, had followed their father north, back to Polotsk and their family Hraes’ Trading Company station there, but they soon returned to Oddi’s longhall in Gardariki to take care of their little foster-sister, Silkisif.
“Our father is retiring,” Gudrun explained to Oddi in bed, “and our sons are taking over the family’s Hraes’ station, so we must get back to help.”
“Say hi to your father for me and please give our boys a hug.”
“We will,” Gudrun and Sigrid both chimed in.
“I talked to The Prince about your father, and Erik told me that he has been a member of the company right from the start, so we have decided that when our sons take over, it shall be as family, Hraes’ family. So, The Prince has awarded our boys prenames and they shall henceforth be called Hraesmund and Hraevalodd and all their offspring shall have the right to Hraes’ prenames.”
“Thank you!” both sisters cried, and they both hugged Oddi. The titles meant that Polotsk was theirs, that they could never lose their Hraes’ rights there, and they could never be fired.
Chapter 32.0: THE SIEGE OF CONSTANTINOPLE OF 907 or T.B.B.T.N.W. of BOOK 3: THE SAGA OF PRINCE HELGI ‘ARROW ODD’ ERIKSON shall follow on next Post.
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' 