4. The Wild East: Rise of the Rus

In the distance across the bay, there's a dark street glow across the horizon.

“The coastline of today's Estonia. The pewter swell rolls beneath a blanket of oppressive cloud.”

The uneven crash of waves forms a mournful chorus. A group of men sit around a campfire, feasting on cooked meats. Though there's an air of merroseness in their demeanor, they lay some of the stakes to one side as if they're waiting for others to join them. Their shoulders are hunched, their heads hung in sorrow. This is a solemn banquet.

At the end of it, they rise abruptly. Then, they drag two boats up the shore, pulling them along a narrow spit of land.

“The first vessel is a small rowing boat, the second is larger, a long ship.”

The man exchanged terse nods before trudging over to a grim arrangement on the ground. A line of bodies stretches out before them, 41 of their comrades side by side in death. The marks of battles show on the blood-soked corpses, wounds gamed in their flesh. These are the members of their party who perished when they were ambushed by local tribesmen.

The man carried the bodies revelantly over to the vessels. First, on the rowing boat,

they seat six of the dead upright on the benches, as if preparing them to row into the next world. The remaining 34 are placed in the long ship, the corpse is stacked neatly in layers.

“The last body is that of their king, in whose service they came to usall. His wounds are among the worst of them all,”

a sign that he did not shirk from the fight. One of the men hammers at the blade of a sword, bending it out of shape before it is placed among the dead. Swords have spirits too, which must be released so that they may accompany the dead to the next world. Other objects are placed in the boats, beads, bear tooth pendants, antelahorn cones, and gaming pieces carved from whale bone and walrus tusks.

One of these, the king's piece, is gently positioned between the actual monarch's teeth. The mate that was set aside from the funeral feast is now distributed among the dead.

Finally, a number of dogs and hawks are sacrificed and added to the mass graves.

A roof of overlapping shields is constructed over the larger boat. The ship's sail is draped on top and two swords are driven down to mark the spot. The men are eager to be on their way. They leave the boats unbered, fearing a second attack. As they put out to sea, they cast a last glance back. The two boat tombs are visible on the headland, a lasting memorial to their fallen comrades.

Soon, a storm will pick up. It will bury the vessels in a layer of sand and grit, completing the work the men left undone. Sanctuary's paths, more sediment builds, the coastline changes, the sight of the burial moves in land, and the grave of the fallen king and his warriors is lost forever, or at least until 2008.

I'm Ian Glenn, from the Neuser Podcast Network, this is Real Vikings, Part 4.

In our very first episode, we witnessed the discovery of two Viking grave boats in Salme,

on the Estonian island of Sarrema. It's the present day name for Ersel,

find in 2008 challenged the traditional date for the beginning of the Viking age,

taking it back to as early as 750, half a century before the attack on Linda's Vaughan,

“the usual, given start point for the Viking era. Salme is important for another reason too.”

In our story so far, we followed Vikings as they strike out to the west, carrying out raids and waging war against the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of Britain, also to the south, taking on the Frankish empire on mainland Europe. Now it's time to turn our attention in another direction. One that's often overlooked when people think about the Vikings. The East. The significance of the Salme boat burials cannot be overstated.

Dr. Elena Baraclav. In some ways, Viking trade or at least contacts, and the East are the earliest evidence we have for the Viking age actually existing at all.

As we heard in our first episode, Isitopanalysis has shown that many of the men buried at Salme

“came from the Maylar Valley in Sweden. The design of their ships and the style of their weaponry”

are distinctly Scandinavian. It's hard to escape the conclusion these men are Vikings. So what exactly are they doing in Estonia? It doesn't look necessarily like they were a raiding party because it doesn't quite fit, not least with the very high status items that they have been subsequently buried with, so that includes all these beautiful gaming pieces, these beautiful weapons, jewels,

but also hunting birds. Birds of prey, which again, there's no reason you're going to take a bird of

prey on a raid. In fact, birds of prey were often given as diplomatic gifts. The suggestion is that this is actually a high status diplomacy mission. These people are heading out to make contact with different cultures and different peoples, further east, possibly in order to establish trading links. As we have heard throughout, Viking interactions with other peoples are often complex.

They're capable of switching from peaceful trading to violent raiding. Negotiating treaties

“one minute, clundering churches the next. So then you have to think, well, okay, who's attacking? Is”

it local? Is it warring peoples who are sort of objecting to the fact that this group of trying to establish diplomacy and trade links? We don't know the story that's behind it. What we do know is that great care was taken over the burial. And there seems to have been a feast with animals consumed that took place beforehand and beautiful grave goods, weapons, lots and lots of gaming pieces, several dogs

that have been sort of killed to join their masters in the next life. Whether the dead man were on the winning or losing side of whatever conflict took place, we don't know. But clearly their surviving comrades were able to recover their bodies and conduct formal burial rights on a grand scale. When it comes to geography, the presence of Viking boats in Estonia is not that surprising.

The east coast of Sweden is washed by the Baltic Sea or the Ausdmar, the eastern sea as the Vikings call it. From the east coast of Sweden to Salmi is a distance of about 170 miles as the crow flies. To the Vikings and expansive water like the Baltic is not a barrier. It's an invitation. And we know from the sagas that Vikings were active in the Baltic. In fact some historians have tried to link this expedition to the semi-legendry king Ingvar of Sweden,

whose exploits are accounted later by the historian Snorri's Storrelism in the England Gasaga. According to Snorri, writing in the 13th century Ingvar was killed while campaigning on an island in the Baltic. The name of the island, Burso. Could the high status individual buried with a king gaming piece in his mouth? Be this mystical Ingvar? It's an intriguing thought. It's worth pausing for a moment to take in the vast distances that we will cover

when following the Vikings on their eastern trajectory. Let's say you set out from Birka,

then continue deep into the Gulf of Finland to the mouth of the Navar River,

“where the modern city of St. Petersburg is located, a total distance of around 400”

nautical miles so far, but this is just the start of your journey. A comparatively short trip along the 46th mile length of the neighbour gives you access to Lake Ladoga, over 100,000 square miles of fresh water. Hugging the southern shore, you make your way east to the mouth of the Volkov River. The next leg of your journey is a river passage 120 miles along the Volkov to Lake Omen. As you travel south, you'll notice the landscape around you change.

The dense forests of today's northern Russia give way to wide open grasslands, the steps. From Lake Omen you can navigate to network of rivers leading south. At times you will have to get out of your boat and haul it over land from one river to another, a process known as Portage.

“Eventually you will reach the Black Sea via the Deneeper River, entering it near modern day”

Kirsten. But beware, this last stretch of your journey is fraught with peril.

First there are the rapids. Caused by granite outcrops turning up the floor of the river,

these rapids are so notorious that those who have traveled this way before you, have bestowed upon them cautionary titles. The first called ASUP means do not sleep. Little chance of that amid the Deneeper crashing water. After ASUP there are eight more to clear with names that translators roaring, ever violent and laughing. Whatever you do don't be tempted to sail through the middle of them, better to disembark and portage past the danger.

But rapids aren't the only peril you'll face along this stretch of the Deneeper.

The pection eggs, a fierce tribe of horse-mounted archers, no maids from central Asia,

are known to prey on travellers here, picking them off when they are at their most vulnerable. Once in the Black Sea you can hug the western shore to sail south to your ultimate destination. The great city of Constantinople, or McLaguard as the Vikings call it, where rich is await, hopefully enough to compensate you for your long and arduous journey. The distance of this last leg alone from Lake Ilman to Constantinople is around 1,500 miles.

Go back to Lake Ilman and there is another route you can take, down the lowback river and then the Volga. From there you can access the Caspian Sea, sail south across it and you come to the coast of Persia, present their eye. There you will need to arrange a secure mooring for your boat before switching to a different kind of ship, a camel, the ship of the desert, which will take you

“all the way to the capital of the Abbasid Empire, Baghdad. Why are the Vikings here?”

Why do they keep going and going along these immense river networks so very far from home? Professor Elizabeth Row. When we think about Scandinavians traveling in the East, we see that they are motivated by the same desire for portable wealth that they are when thinking about the Vikings to the West. But there are important differences. The situation in the East is rather different to what is found in Western Europe and the British

Isles and Ireland. So Northern Russia has no towns, no monasteries. In other words, no soft targets stacked with portable wealth. Instead, the Eastern Vikings must focus predominantly on trade and these extensive trade routes give them access to lucrative markets. valuable goods from India and China are coming across Central Asia.

One commodity in particular is of interest to the Vikings. It sources the sprawling Islamic caliphate that spans much of North Africa and the Middle East. The caliphate is minting coins of nearly pure silver. These are called durums. The caliphate includes territory that's now Afghanistan. This area contains a number of silver

a lot of value as bullion. The Vikings have no natural source of silver in their own home lands.

And so, if they want this precious metal, which they do, they have to go out and get it. As they come into contact with merchants and travellers from the East, they can't help being impressed by the silver coins in their possession. Traveling Scandinavians discover that there are some quite valuable coins and when they ask where these coins come from, there are pointed downstream to the vulgar. And of course, in return for these coveted

deerums, the Vikings have a number of goods to trade. Furs, wall-recivery, and above all human beings.

“Professor Stefan Brink. Slavery was enormously important for the trading”

have the economy, bringing in huge amount of silver home to Scandinavia.

And so, while it's true that Vikings are operating these preferred trading to trading, the trade they engage in more than any other is slavery. They would travel along the river and they would raid the Slavic people who lived nearby, and they would take some of them to be slaves, and they would also take as plunder, furs, and any other products of the northern forests. And so, these groups of

armed slavers/traders would gradually capture more and more slaves as they made the long voyage down the vulgar.

“Chillingly, the very name for the local people, Slaves, is from where the word "slave" derives.”

The Vikings only one thing matters.

At the trading town of Etole, Arabic merchants would come to buy the slaves, Arabic sources describe how profitable this was for both sides. In the 9th century, a river of Deirom's flows back to Scandinavia. Some are melted down and turned into rings and other valuable objects. Many are hoarded, it nonetheless flowboards are buried in the ground.

It's Friday, July 16, 1999, where on the large Swedish island of Gotlem, 100 miles out into the Baltic,

“more precisely on a farm, spilling's farm, not far from the town of Slaita.”

It's a summer's day, pleasant, apart from the mosquitoes, Gotlem is notorious for them. Trudging across a field is an archaeologist, Jonas Strum, who sweeps before him with a metal detector. His demonstrating is technique to a television film crew. They're from Swedish Channel TV4. They're shooting a segment for a political program about unlicensed digging,

the looting of artifacts, a problem that is on the rise. Gotlem's soil, Strum explains to camera, in one of several repeated takes, is becoming a favoured spot for amateur bounty hunters, a would-be treasure island. It's every detectorist's dream he adds casually to discover a hoard of Viking silver. Job done, the crew starts packing up, but then something happens.

Strum's detector is about to go literally off the scale. He will later recall how the display on his detector blinked overload, before shutting down completely, such as the magnitude of his discovery. As the crew scramble to remount the camera, word goes out, the area is soon caught and often a major archaeological excavation will get underway.

The spilling's hoard, as it will be known, will turn out to be the largest cash of Viking silver ever unearthed. For the team from TV4, quite the money shot. Here we have fun, over 700 orts, with more than 170,000 silver coins, all in principle Arabic silver deer have them, and a large just one hoard weighed 67 kilos

But not all of the silver acquired by Viking traders on the eastern trade routes is being channeled back to Scandinavia, because not all Vikings were returning home. A significant proportion of settling, putting down routes, establishing trading out posts, building a power base. Professor Ben Raffield, associated with this, is the emergence of a group

or a polity that we know as the Russ, who appear to have been major players and establishing a network of trading centers on these rivering traders.

We first hear of a people called the Russ in 839.

The annals of St. Burton mentions that a group of them are present at the court of the

“Frankish King, Louis the Pires, who, if you remember, we met in episode 2.”

Around the time Ragnar Lothbrok was making inroads into the Karolingian empire. King Louis makes inquiries and discovers that they are dislocated Swedes, in other words, Vikings. The name Rus, maybe derived from the old Norse word, Rua, meaning "terro". The may also be connected to Rus Lagan, a region on the east coast of Sweden. Rus Lagan translates as "rowing country". Either way, it seems that the Russ

are strongly associated with all power to boats. The first routes may well have come from Sweden,

as Louis the Pires believed, but over time they will be seen to be a distinct group in their own ride. The river traders, we might call them. There's a lot of debate about who the Russ were. I personally see them as a sort of multi-cultural militarized and perhaps primarily merchant group. This combination of military power and commercial acumen allows the Rus to become the dominant power along the river routes of Eastern Europe.

“Their power base is spread throughout a network of important trading settlements.”

These traders and, indeed, quite often traders hummed down these waterways, established these outposts where they can, you know, in their boats they can barter, they can get tribute from local tribes or just raid them. We start to see this vast network that's running all the way down the continent. The Norse name for the territory of the Rus is "Gatheriki" or "Round of Tams".

It shows how vital settlements are to its emerging identity. The most important

of these settlements, the central hub in the Vikings eastward expansion, is a place known today as "Staraya Ladoga" or "Old Ladoga". Since 70 years in Tashbord, that's where we are from. From the first Schritt to the Great Seaton,

“"Dang Week" begins with "Intashbord". Shappe yet, their new is running out fit with”

the "Passenden Ausrüstung und Maches zu deinem Lauf", yet, by "Dynam Händler vor Ort" or "Oder auf Intashbord Dei". Thanks to "Dendro Chronology", basically counting the tree rings and ancient timbers. Archaeologists can date the foundations of "Staraya Ladoga" to the year 753. This coincides with other Viking trading settlements, or "Imporia", being set out

further west, places like "Bea Kha in Sweden" or "Hierderby in Denmark". "Staraya Ladoga" couldn't be better placed for commercial success. It's situated at the mouth of the Volkov River, on the southern shore of Lake Ladoga, a gateway to the interior, connecting with the river networks that lead ultimately to both Constantinople and Baghdad. The street plan follows a strict linear pattern, which might give you the impression of

civic order, but bear in mind that these streets are muddy and waterlocked. Some of us like, I don't know, a service station on a motorway. It's not a politically-organized town. It's simply there to provide goods and services and to repair boats and sales and rubs and so forth to the Scandinavians who are going back and forth. Another analogy that historians sometimes use is a frontier town of the American West.

The wild east, you might say, with sword swingers instead of gunslingers.

Sami fur trappers rub shoulders with Baltic Logas. You'll hear local Slavic language

“is spoken, as well as Finnish and old Norse. Arabic too, as wide eyed travellers from the”

Caliphate shake their heads in wonder of the strange habits of the tall, imposing northerners. You'll see the multi-ethic population reflected in the different styles of the buildings. Square timber structures favored by local Slavs, sit alongside the rectangular long houses built by the Nordic traders. Those earliest layers of that port seem to be of Scandinavian foundation. It looks like they're the ones that set it up, but of course this time goes on.

Many, many more people from different cultural backgrounds are coming there to trade and so it

becomes much more multifaceted, much more culturally complex. It's a place of opportunity and enrichment where deals are made where plans take shape and partnerships are forged. Everything revolves around a three-way trade of furs, silver, and slaves. And although it may seem rough and ready and at times dangerous, old Ladoga is not a completely lawless outpost. It couldn't function if it were. Prosperity depends on security.

Someone has to maintain order internally and protect the inhabitants from outside threads. This is where the ruse come in. They provide the military muscle to keep everyone safe. Defenses are thrown up around the central residential area. A fortress is built on a promontory. The pattern is repeated all along the eastern trading routes. As a result, commercial dominance crosses over into something bigger.

So this is the point at which we see the ruse, the Scandinavians, or the people of Scandinavian descent who had been based in northern Russia. Here we see the transition from sliver merchants to political after it.

“But how do these outsiders take over the land, not just the economy of the Slavs so successfully?”

An origin story springs up. Like all origin stories, it needs to be taken with a pinch of salt.

Especially as this one is written down long after the events. It first appears in the 12th

century in a source called the Russian primary chronicle. According to the chronicle, the 860s is a time of trouble for the Slavic people. They are constantly preyed upon by northern raiders, referred to as Varangians. Derive from an old Norse word meaning "use" companion. Varangian is often used as a synonym for Viking, specifically the ruse Vikings. Eventually the Slavs managed to repel the Varangians

that then start fighting among themselves. In an attempt to bring peace to their warring land, it is said, the Slavs sent a delegation to a group of Varangians, presumably not the ones who have been attacking them, inviting them to come and rule over them. Three brothers, Rourick, Truvore, and Seneoes graciously accept the invitation. Rourick establishes himself in Novgorod, north of Lake Ilman.

His brothers base themselves a few hundred miles either side of him, laying claim to a respectable charge of territory between them. When Truvore and Seneoes die a couple of years later, Rourick takes over their lands to go with his own. And so, a dynasty is founded.

“His dynasty is called the Rourickids, and they essentially remain powerful for centuries. I think”

even even the terrible who's 16th century is said to be of the Verder kit line. Whatever the truth behind the story is clear that something significant has happened. And we can see from the Russian primary chronicle that in the 12th century the Rus rulers knew that their dynasty had its origin in Scandinavia. The Rus have really arrived in east and they are here to stay. The reason for the dynasty's success may lie in Rourick's initial decision of where to settle.

And Novgorod, where Rourick is set to a set-up, his power base, is a really strategically significant location. So, it's connected to the River Volkov, heading up north to this trading town

and further than that. The Norse name for Novgorod is home guard, the island fortress.

“It becomes the capital of Garthariki, the land of the Rus.”

After Rourick's death in 879, the center of Rourick's power shifts 560 miles south to Kiev in modern day Ukraine. But even as the Rus extend their realm to the south and east, they continue to maintain ties with their homelands in the north. They now act as middlemen between the lucrative eastern markets and Scandinavia. There are other connections too. Also, there was a kind of military connection in the form of Scandinavian mercenaries whom the Rus occasionally needed. And the recent

why the Rus occasionally needed mercenaries was because part of their Scandinavian heritage was the idea that any male in the royal family had an equal claim to the throne.

“Access to a cadre of fierce warriors is bound to be an advantage in any denastic in fighting.”

But it isn't just internal rivals that the leaders of the Rus have to contend with.

Contact without siders always has the potential to turn into conflict,

especially as the Rus continue to grow their trading empire. Bulgas, Slavs, Kazaz, Petchenegs, Magyaaz and dominating them all, the mighty Byzantine Empire. The eastern half of the old Roman realm. It's a complex picture with shifting alliances and unpredictable outbreaks of fighting. But as multicultural melting pots like old Ladoga show, violence isn't the only option when disparate groups wrap up against each other.

“Increasingly, the Rus choose another strategy. Integration.”

So we can see a possible shift from north to Slavic identity that takes place over or actually over two generations of Cuban Rus rulers. So from sort of 912 to 945, the rule of Cuban Rus is called Igor and he's married to Olga. Igor and Olga may sound like archetypal Slavic names, but they're not. Igor comes from the old northern Invad or Ivad and Olga comes from the north name Helga. But what's interesting is that they name their son

with a Slavic name, Sviatislav. It's a conscious political decision. Presumably they think it is a good idea to give their son a name that will help him to be a better ruler of people who are mostly soft. So we see that in the ruling family there's a

deliberate change of identity or a change of culture being carried out from the First North

Generations to a subsequent generation. It seems Sviatislav fully embraces his Slavic identity. So it said that he worships the Slavic gods, Perrin, who's the god of the Thunder and Volosus, the god of the Flux and he doesn't want to convert to Christianity even though he's a mum converted to Christianity because he doesn't want his followers to laugh at him. So complete is the generational shift in identity that Sviatislav no longer draws his

mercenaries from the Scandinavian homeland. The vast Eurasian steps that make up his domain require a different kind of fighter. They're not the Viking style warriors, but rather his most effective fighters are horse-mounted archers whom he recruits from the patchen eggs. The fierce nomadic tribesmen, the once-hary-ruse traders, as they portage their vessels past the Deneepa rapids, are now fighting on the side of the ruse. Sviatislav is so enamored of the

patchen eggs that he even models himself on them. Sviatislav himself is famous for taking on a nomadic identity and he has his hair in the traditional nomadic style of partly being shaven with a big ponytail on the back and he's got an earring and he dresses in the nomadic style and lives on horseback and sleeps under the tent of the stars and so forth. Unfortunately Sviatislav's enthusiasm for the nomadic way of life does not end well

Essentially he's killed by this nomadic people who, according to one contemporary

“ride eat-lice, that's their defining characteristic. They ambush him, they kill him,”

they make a cut out of his skull, they cover it with gold and then they drink from it and who knows if this happened or not. When it comes to intriguing stories that may or may not be true, one member of the Rurikid dynasty has attracted more than her fair share. Olga.

So Olga is one of those wonderful characters from Viking history or the history of Keeven Ruiz who really should be their heroine of her own historical novel or Hollywood film. Olga is the mother of Sviatislav, in whose place she will keeve as region between

“945 and 957. She's also the wife of Igor Rurik's son.”

But in 945 while demanding tribute from a Slavic tribe called the "Drevliens", husband Igor is murdered.

And so Olga exacts the most incredible revenge. It's very typical of the heroines of

old Norse literature. You see something like this in the saga and the myths and the legends. According to the Russian primary chronicle, a delegation of 20 drivliens come to Keeve to negotiate a new marriage for the widow Olga, to one of their chieftains, a man called Mal. We heard in our opening scene how diplomatic missions in the Viking era can go disastrously wrong. And so it is now.

On Olga's orders, the diplomats are herded into a pit and buried alive. Soon after, a second delegation of drivliens nobles arrives, tired and grubby after their journey, they accept Olga's invitation to pressure up in a bathhouse, where they are locked in. Olga promptly torches the building, burning them all to death. Olga now travels to the drivliens capital at the head of an army.

On a wear of the fate of his envoys, Mal believes she has come to accept his marriage proposal. A wedding feast takes place. As the celebration draws to an end, Olga's men unsheath their weapons. Tara grips the drivliens, but there is no escape. The loose warriors cut them down mercilessly.

Olga's thirst for vengeance is still not stated, and neither is her appetite for trickery. A final act of revenge is worthy of game of thrones. The surviving drivliens sue for peace, offering to pay whatever Olga wants. She agrees, though demands a bizarre tribute. She asks for just three house sparrows from each home in the drivliens capital. The mystified drivliens comply,

relieved they don't have to hand over any silver. The cages of birds pile up, row after row of them until a towering wall of wicker filled with flapping wings stands before the loose camber. Now comes the final act of the drama. Olga instructs her men to tie a piece of sulfur to each sparrow. The birds are released. As Olga anticipated, the sparrows returned to the buildings they came from.

The sulfur kindles the dry twigs and their nests, flame spread to the rafters. A great fire consumes the city. Who knows how true this is? There are several centuries between when Olga lived, and the records of what she said to have done, that certainly she's the most formidable character, and she's one of those people I think I would love to have when they say one of those historical

“dinner parties, but then I might really regret that choice if that's what she did.”

The story of Olga does not end there. Around 950, she travels to Constantinople and converts to

Christianity. It's a momentous event. She is the first ruler of Kiev to be baptized.

Many of a loyal subjects will follow her into the new faith.

She becomes one of the patron saints of Ukraine, literally an icon of the Orthodox Church.

“Most certainly a Viking to be reckoned with.”

Fascinating details about the Rus come to us from an Arabic diplomat called "Akmaid Ibn Fadlan". Ibn Fadlan was part of a diplomatic mission to the Bulga capital, located on the Volga River. Along the way he kept a journal of his experiences, including his impressions of the Rus he encountered. With her perfect physiques, the Rus are as tall as palm trees he writes.

Their complexions are fair and ruddy. Though from the neck down, the men are covered in dark

green lines, forming pictures and patterns, to two. They wear a cloak over half their body,

“leaving their arms exposed. They are never parted from their weapons.”

There are women too in the group, both wives and female slaves, these are travelling communities. One detail of the wives' attire in particular catches Ibn Fadlan's eye. They wear heavy rings around their necks, made of both gold and silver. Ibn Fadlan makes inquiries through an interpreter and discovers that every time a Rus merchant earns 10,000

deers, he has one of these chunky necklaces made for his wife. Not all his impressions are favourable.

He is shocked by the routine sexual assaults committed by the man against their female slaves and disgusted by their personal hygiene. He is appalled to see that the Rus wash an a communal bowl pass between them. The water grows progressively filthier as each man performs his morning ablutions, spitting and even blowing his nose into it. Over in Anglia Saxon England, Deferon says, "Oh, the Vikings are so clean." And then on the waterways

down the Volga, Ibn Fadlan is absolutely horrified. He is absolutely revolting. The disgust pause off the page of his words. The most shocking event that Ibn Fadlan witnesses is the funeral of a Rus chieftain. A girl of about 16 is given drink and led to a Viking merchant ship that stands on the shore of the River Volga. It is a symbolic portal from one world to another. In a cabin on board, she is stabbed to death. While her dead master, the chieftain, watches on.

Then, once the living have disembarked from the ship of death, a pire is lit beneath it by a naked man walking backwards around the boat. Orange flames lick the hecening darkness, smoke rises high into the sky. It's a good omen, a sign that Odin is

“pleased. Ibn Fadlan's account makes for a difficult read, but it is undeniably an important historical record.”

This is the unique account and a uniquely detailed account of these funeral areas. And this is played a huge role in also interpreting funeralary customs as we understand them in Scandinavia and elsewhere in the Viking world. The legacy of the Rus Vikings lives on today in many ways, but small and large. For example, if you were to go shopping in present-day cave,

you pay for your purchases in Haribnia, Ukrainian currency. The word "haribnia" means "netkring", a name that comes from the wearable currency worn by those wives of Rus merchants over a thousand years ago. But the legacy is most evident to this very day, in the name of the territory they once dominated, the land of the Rus. Russia.

In the next episode, facing turmoil in Scandinavia, pioneering Norsemen strike out for past his new. Shetland, walkny, and the fairowials present fresh opportunities for settlement.

utopia. Iceland. That's next time.

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The title is "Mia Kidnicht". [BLANK_AUDIO]