Now that I have got that car it should also be used for local tourism. I had a meeting in my travel club yesterday, and on my way there I visited among other things the new exhibition about the Rus vikings in Eastern Europe in the Moesgård museum south of Århus. And now I already have a problem of language choice. The first generations - who mainly came from Sweden - definitely spoke Old Norse (and in some cases things like Old Gutnish from Gotland, a close relative or dialect of Old Norse). OK, I cannot write in Old Norse, but Icelandic is a fair substitute. There is a "Tale of Bygone Years" or "Primary Chronicle" written by the monk Nestor which tells about the events in Old Church Slavonic (another hole in my skills). The original version has (of course) been lost, so there are several later versions to choose from, but they tell that the story that the tribes that lived along the river Volga asked three viking brothers to put a bit of order to the trade along the river - and then the 'Varangians' ('væringjar' in Old Norse) took that as an invitation to make their own nation 'Garðaríki' there. For some reason that reminds me of what happened when king Vortigern asked some Saxons, Angloes and Jutes to help him defeat a cumbersome neighbour. And when he forgot to pay their salary they conquered most of Celtic England.
The first important person was Rurik (Hrœrekr, 'Rørik' in Danish), and his brothers were Sineus and Truvor. Rurik ruled from Novgorod (Великий Новгород, 'Holmgard' in Old Norse), but other varangians in the meantime founded Kiev further South, but the rulers there were murdered by a relative of Rurik, Oleg, whereupon he made the town his own capital (and then I have to admit that even though I have played around a bit with Ukrainian I can't write in it - shame on me).
RU: Однако могу констатировать, что Новгород оставался важным торговым городом с необычной степенью гражданского влияния (в общей сложности купцы играли важную роль), но все они прекратились, когда Иван Грозный разгромил город в 1570 году. Иван был, кстати, дальним родственником Киевской династии, и поэтому можно утверждать, что только со смертью его глупого сына цепь перестала возвращаться к династии Рюриковичей.
EN: The most interesting ruler of Kievan Rus was
Olga (Norse: Helga), who came to power when her rambustious husband Igor died in skirmishes with a tribe called the Derevlians (the 'forest people'), who for some reason refused to pay taxes. But
Olga was a cunning lady: when the derevlians sent a delegation with the message that she ought to marry their own ruler, she let the population of Kiev lift their ship up and carry it, which the delegation members thought was a special honour - but the whole ship with the delegation aboard was thrown into a deep hole and buried alive. Then she sent a message back asking for a delegation to take her back to their prince so that she could marry him. This second delegation was invited into a bath house, which was duly put on fire - well, she had promised them a hot bath, and they got it. What more can you ask for? Then she sent a message back to invite the forest dwellers to a big feast at the tomb of her late husband, and some 5000 Drevlians arrived. OK, they got all the mead ('mjöður') they could ask for, and then her troups easily killed the stuporous drunken lot off. Soon after she came with a full army from Novgorod to lay siege at the Drevlian capital Iskorosten, but hey, it refused to surrender! Then she proposed to leave it in peace if each household just please would send her three pigeons and three sparrows as a goodbye gift. They were stupid enough to do it, and she tied burning stuff to the legs of the birds and sent them back into the town, which completely burned down. Morale: don't irritate someone named Oljga! Later on she visited Byzans ('Miklagard'=the
big town), where she converted to christianity and almost got married to the emperor - but she had asked him to be her Godfather and then they couldn't be married, haha. So Oljga got home to Kiev as her own master, but with a mighty ally and a new religion (though the general shift to Christianity only really took place later). She kept her power until her son came of age and started to make wars all over the place - but he died in an ambush through Pecheneg territory.
We can't know how much of all this is a tall tale made up by the monk Nestor centuries later, but the Rus
did rule the Western part of Russia and Ukraine up to at least the second millenium, where the memory of the Viking heritage waned and people started to speak Ukrainian.
Olga.jpg
IC: Víkingar frá Noregi og Danmörku héldu að mestu í vesturátt, svo það voru sænsku (og gotlensku) víkingarnir sem ferðuðust um austur. Það eru nokkrir rúnasteinar í Svíþjóð sem segja að einhver hafi látist í austri. Á sýningunni Moesgaards er vitnað í nokkra af þessum rúnasteinum (því miður án fornnorræna textans - aðeins danskur og enskur), og ég sá líka einn slíkan á norðurslóðasafninu í Rovaniemi í Finnlandi. Í gegnum þessa staði og skriflegar frásagnir má sjá hversu mikla ferðaþrá víkinga er. Jafnvel er vísað til ferðalanga eins langt í burtu og Georgíu, þar sem her Bagrat IV konungs hefur að sögn fengið stuðning frá hvorki meira né minna en 1.000 varengunum í orrustu á Rioni-fljótin (hvar konungurinn tapaði). Kannski ferðuðust víkingarnir enn lengra - ef Haraldur Viðfar gæti komið 3.000 hermönnum til Kákasus, er líklegt að sumir hafi komist enn lengra - en þetta er bara ekki skjalfest.
F6219a04_Asgautr's_stone.jpg
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