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Russia were Swedes [1], although it is not very
probable that their power could have been established,
as we are told, at one blow. This improbability is
heightened by the fact that, contemporaneously
with the assumed foundation of the Russian empire
by Ruric, they were already powerful enough to
appear in the guise of enemies before
Constantinople [2]. Nestor himself intimates that the track
from the country of the Varangians to that of the
Greeks, which he describes, had been long in use [3].
This is the same which is mentioned by a Greek
emperor in the tenth, and by the first historian of
northern Christianity in the eleventh century [4].
Both this way down the Dnieper to the Black Sea,
and another more to the eastward by the Volga to
the Caspian, were continually traversed by the
Swedes after the foundation of the Russian
monarchy for the purposes of war and commerce.
This is proved irrefragably, as well by the
multitude of Runic stones in Sweden, erected to the
memory of travellers to Greece, as by the large
number of Arabic coins, especially of countries
lying south-east of the Caspian Sea, and of the
ninth and tenth centuries, which are found on
Swedish soil. The sea-kings of the Ros and their
squadrons threatened Constantinople by the Black
Sea on more than one occasion, and they concluded
with the Greek emperors a treaty in which the
names are purely Scandinavian, hardly one that is
Slavonic being found. History also knows that the
same people even waged war with the Arabs on
the shores of the Caspian Sea [5]. An Italian bishop,
ambassador at the Greek court, was contemporary
with another expedition which was undertaken
against Constantinople by Igor, or as he is termed
both by the bishop and the Byzantine writers
Ingor (Ingvar), the son of Ruric. We have it
confirmed by his authority, that those who were
called Russians by the Greeks, were in reality
Normans, a name at that time common to the
Scandinavian populations [6].
The results above stated may serve to throw
light on the question, in how far the testimony or
silence of the Icelanders should of itself determine
what belongs or does not belong to the older history
of Sweden. Of all this they know nothing. What
they have preserved to us is highly valuable, but
must be explained and employed solely in connexion
with the accounts we derive from others. It
is thus we have treated their mythology and their
Ynglingasaga. Their allusions, whether in the earlier
or later Scalds, to the old connexion of Scandinavia
with the east, and of Sweden, from its position, in
particular, can be regarded as valuable and
important, only after a historical groundwork has
been laid. This eastern theatre of achievement for
the old northern champions, albeit from distance
of space and time the most obscure, is yet not
altogether lost to history. That of the west is better
known, for here the expeditions of the Northmen
shine out through the gloom; although the crowd
of enterprises incessantly renewed perplexes the
order of events. One example of this confusion is
presented in the actions of Ragnar Lodbroc and
his sons, as they are related both in the Icelandic
sagas, and by Saxo, Denmark’s Latin saga-writer,
as also by foreign annalists.
In the saga of Ragnar Lodbroc, we find his
father Sigurd Ring mentioned only as king of
Denmark, where Ragnar is made to succeed him.
King Eisten, or Östen, according to the
Hervararsaga, a son of Harald Hildetand, reigns in Upsala
over Sweden. He is depicted as powerful, wicked,
and a great sacrificer; the chief object of his
adoration is a cow, the lowing of which is said to
have scared his enemies. He is represented at
first as being on terms of good understanding with
Ragnar. This chief, by encountering and overcoming
a terrible serpent, had won Thora, daughter
of Herraud, who is called earl, or by some king, of
Gothland. From the rough breeches in which
Ragnar was clad when he performed this exploit,
he is said to have received his surname of
Lodbroc. After the death of Thora, Ragnar, resolving
never again to take a wife, chose out men to govern
his kingdom conjointly with his sons, and returned
to his original pursuit, the victories and perils of
the sea-king’s life. Once in time of summer, as it
befel, he entered with his ships the harbour of
Spangarhed in Norway, and landed his
meat-purveyors to bake for his men. But these came back
with their bread burned, excusing themselves on
the ground that they had seen a maiden of such
surpassing beauty as to render them incapable of
minding their work. She was called Kraka, was
the fairest among women; and her hair, like silk, so
long, that it reached down to the ground about her.
Ragnar finds favour in her eyes, and she becomes
his wife. After she has born four sons to him, he
visits king Östen in Upsala, where he is persuaded
to betroth himself to the daughter of the Swedish
king. On his return, Kraka discloses to him that
she is really Aslaug, daughter of the famous
Sigurd Fofnisbane, by Brynhilda, and relates the
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