As before, to conform to current understanding “Russians” are Ruthenians. They could have been the “Rus” but, since they may have included Slavs, we use Ruthenians. Also, Jensen and Fisher use the term Wends where the text actually says “Sclavi” but we retained the translators’ terminology.
Book IX
Chapter 4
21. His sons Dian and Daxon, who in the past had been apportioned the daughters of the Ruthenian king in marriage, obtained the troops they requested from their father-in-law and with blazing enthusiasm sped to execute the business of their father’s revenge. On noting the vast army of his foes, Ragnar felt uneasy about his own forces; he therefore constructed bronze horses mounted on small wheels and had them brought round on easily manoeuvred carriages; then he gave orders for them to be launched with maximum velocity into the thick of the enemy. Their power broke up the opposing lines so well that prospective victory appeared to rest more on his machinery than his soldiery, for their irresistible weight smashed everything it struck. One general fell, the other slipped away, whereupon the entire Hellespontine army retreated. The Scythians too, attached to Daxon by close ties of blood on his mother’s side, are reported to have been crushed in that defeat. Their province was assigned to Hvitserk, while the king of the Ruthenians, diffident of his strength, hastened to fly off before Ragnar’s awe-inspinng weapons.
23. Once Ragnar realized that he had been hampered by severe weather that was not natural but contrived, he pursued his voyage as best he could till he reached the regions of KurIand and Samland; the peoples there deeply reverenced his majesty as if he were the greatest and most glorious of conquerors. Their favour maddened Ragnar all the more against the Biarmians‘ arrogance and he sought to avenge his slighted dignity in a surprise attack. Their king, whose name is unknown to us, was thrown into consternation by his foes’ sudden invasion and, having at the same time no heart for an engagement, took refuge with Matul, prince of Finnmark. Depending on the accomplished marksmanship of Matul’s archers, he harried Ragnar’s army as it wintered in Biarmaland and remained unscathed himself.
29. Meanwhile Daxon, following a long spell of futile attempts to overthrow Hvitserk, who was ruling Scythia, at last made his bid after deceiving him with a feigned truce. Though he was hospitably welcomed by Hvitserk, Daxon had secretly armed a crowd of warriors, who had ridden to the city in waggons as though coming to market, with the intention of wrecking his host’s palace in a night attack. Hvitserk beat down this gang of cut-throats with such slaughter that, enclosed as he was by a heap of the enemies’ bodies, they had to prop ladders up to the top in order to seize him. When his twelve comrades, captured by their foes at the same time, were given the chance of returning to their home country, they consecrated their lives to their sovereign, preferring to share another’s danger rather than escape their own.
30. Nevertheless Daxon, moved to pity by Hvitserk’s distinguished figure, had not the heart to pluck the budding flower of that noble nature. Not only did he offer him safety, but also his daughter’s hand together with a dowry of half the kingdom; he had rather preserve such a fine creature than punish him for his manliness. But the other, through the dignity of his spirit, sniffed at a life granted on sufferance and, scoffing at freedom as if it were some trifling gratuity, embraced the death sentence of his own accord; he told Daxon that Ragnar would be less ruthless in avenging his son when he learnt that Hvitserk had chosen this manner of dying of his own free will. His foe, in wonder at this nonchalant attitude, promised that he should be destroyed with whatever type of end he had in mind to be inflicted on him. The young man accepted the freedom of choice as a great favour and asked if he could be bound and burnt along with his comrades. Daxon submitted with no hesitation to these eager requests for death, dealing the desired method of execution as though it were some kindness.
32. After putting Ivar in charge of the kingdom and restoring Ubbi to his former favour with affectionate paternal embraces, he sailed with his navy over to Ruthenia; there he captured Daxon, entwined him with penal chains and removed him to confinement in Utgarth. Ragnar undeniably handled his dearest son’s slayer with the most merciful restraint when he chose to allow his appetite for the cherished revenge to be satisfied by exiling the culprit instead of killing him. His lenience struck deep shame into the Ruthenians for venting their rage further upon a king whom even their harsh wrongs could not drive into executing his prisoners. In a short time Ragnar actually took Daxon back into his favour and restored him to his country, on the promise that he would come to him barefoot once a year with twelve unshod elders and humbly render tribute. He believed it finer to chastise a penitent prisoner mildly rather than swing the bloody axe, to sentence a proud neck to unremitting servitude In preference to cleaving it once and for all.
Book X
Chapter 2
1. At that period Styrbjorn, son of the Swedish ruler, Bjorn, was robbed of his realm by Erik, his uncle Olof’s son; in order to beg assistance he travelled as a suppliant with his sister Gyrith to Harald, Thyra’s son; inasmuch as he found him quite ready to offer friendship, he granted Harald the hand of this sister in marriage all the more freely. After this, Harald took control of Wendish territory with his troops and settled an appropriate garrison of soldiers at Julin, the most celebrated town of that province, putting Styrbjorn in charge. Their piratical raids were conducted with a fine strength and spirit and gradually increased as victories were won round about; eventually they rose to such a harsh pitch that they brought uninterrupted disasters to sailors throughout the northern Ocean. This policy added more to Danish power than was gained by any military strategy on land. Among the fighters were Bo, Ulf, Karisevne, Sigvald and a great many others; my pen refrains from writing a comprehensive catalogue, since this would sooner weary the reader than give pleasure. Meanwhile Styrbjorn, spurred by the prick pf revenge, yearned to repay the wrong he had received and, calling Harald to his aid, let loose against Erik’s hated tyranny the wrath he felt at the recollection of his injuries.
Chapter 5
1. History tells us that Gyrith had borne Harald two sons. The elder, Hakon, outshone his brother, Sven, in the wonderful quality of his talents and the happy enhancements conferred on him by Nature. Hakon attacked the Samlanders, but when he noticed that his soldiers’ spirits were rather subdued as they considered the dangers attending this war, he set fire to the fleet, which had been drawn up on to the shore; his intention was to remove the hope of flight more effectively from their wavering minds, and by such firm compulsion he did indeed rid them of their feeble cowardice.* With the possibility of sailing gone they were made to perceive that their return had to be engineered through victory. In being complacent about despoiling himself of his vessels, he was all the more secure in seizing booty from the enemy. There was no doubt that Fortune then took pity on the Danish leader, procuring as he did the assistance of his sailors through the loss of their ships and seeing complete want of a navy as the means to military success. So he brought about a happy outcome by a plan as intelligent as it was risky. Once the Danes had conquered Samland, they slaughtered the males but forced the women to marry them; in this way they severed loyalty to their marriages at home and engaged eagerly enough in foreign unions, so that” they shared their blessings with the foe through the common bond of wedlock. The Samlanders are therefore quite right to count themselves as having a direct blood-relationship with the Danish race. So much did love for their captives seize the hearts of these warriors that they abandoned their desire to return home and settled in an uncivilized region in preference to their native land, feeling more akin to other men’s wives than their own.
* note: before even Cortez.
Chapter 8
3. While this was happening, Harald, preoccupied with hauling stone, started to interrogate closely one of his navy who had just come up to him asking if he had ever seen anywhere’else such a gigantic object handled by men’s labour. The other said he remembered setting eyes lately on the drawing of an enormous weight, accomplished by human strength. The king bombarded him with questions to find out what this was; ‘I was there when Denmark was recently taken away from you’ he replied; ‘you can judge youself which needed the heavier effort of pulling.’ That was how Harald, looking to another’s opinion for praise of his undertaking, received the news that his realm had been stolen. Only then did this ruler repent that he had fixed cattle yokes on the necks of human beings. For when he had abandoned his scheme for transporting the huge mass and wished to turn from dragging the boulder to preparation for war, he met with the severest frowns from his soldiery. Wounded by such a humiliating affront in that employment, the army refused to take up arms on behalf of someone who had required it to bear the yoke. No regal order or entreaty could induce these men to procure safety for the head of one whose shaming command had condemned their necks to this affliction. There were some, however, who did not share the popular feeling, and amid the turbulence of public upheaval preserved their customary regard for their sovereign. Relying on their support as he strove to use his power to crush his son’s initiative, Harald was himself vehemently assaulted by martial forces belonging to his own blood. Having been overcome in warfare by Sven, he pinned his faith on escape to Zealand, where he recruited a further battalion, but came away with the same kind of fortune as before, this time after a sea contest. Now that he and been stripped of fighters at home, all that was left was for him to call on a foreign contingent for aid. So, quitting his homeland, he sought exile in Julin, because it was packed with Danish warriors and could be regarded as the military nucleus most loyal to him.
4. In the meantime Sven, not yet satisfied with having dishonoured filial loyalty by animosity against his father, tried to court the people’s favour; giving rein to impiety, he resolutely bent his attentions to the abolition of holy rites and, after expelling every trace of Christian worship from the land, restored sacrificial priests to the temples and offerings to the altars of the gods. Once again his father attacked him, on the coast at Helgenaes, with a mixed band of Danes and Wends, but dragged out the day in fighting without experiencing either flight or victory. As both armies were exhausted by their struggle, they devoted the next day to a conference so that they might knit together a peace; but as luck would have it, Harald, convinced that they would come to terms, wandered off independently and disappeared into a small neck of the forest. Here he was crouching among the trees to empty his bowels, when he was hit by an arrow from the bow of Toki, who had been thirsting to avenge the injustices he had suffered; Harald was carried back wounded to julin by his retinue and there his life quickly came to an end. His body was dispatched to Roskilde, where it was given a consecrated burial place in a church founded by him not long before. His native country, at one time ungrateful for the benefits it had received from him, now gave overdue consideration to its conscientious leader’s deeds, and what it had rendered in smaller measure to the living man, it thought fit to offer him more amply now that he was dead; by paying reverence at his funeral with all their warm strength of feeling,the Danes cherished his ashes with a humanity which displaced the arrogant hate they had shown him during life.
Chapter 9
1. After Harald’s decease Sven rejoiced that a favourable opportunity had arrived when he could vent his fury on Christian practices, and he tore up the whole of this religion, root and branch; at his instigation, having already embarked on worship of the Godhead, the Danes returned to superstitious beliefs, embracing this regression to their old error all the more openly because they were secure in the knowledge that its harshest critic had perished. This foolhardy behaviour, however, was repaid with misfortunes of considerable stringency by a Divinity retaliating against men’s scorn of Him, and He hounded its originator with the most depressing twists of fate. The man who had led his people to abandon their faith was stricken with grievous severity, insasmuch as the Lord never ceased to embroil him in the worst of violent catastrophes, so that, divested of any favourable success, Sven was compelled to undergo a life of bitter experiences. When the inhabitants of the town of julin initiated a marauding raid on Denmark, its ruler was taken prisoner and found it possible to gain ransom only after promising to purchase it with his weight in gold and twice his weight in silver. The Danes, who had lavished affection on him for his desertion of holy rites, contributed the sum which restored him to his homeland, yet even then his eyes were clouded with dense mists of ignorance and he still disdained to lift them towards the rays of shining light. For this monster crammed with wickedness, whose heart was so unlike his father’s, was not ashamed to separate himself from Harald’s uncommon splendour and move towards the depths of darkness. But although his personal defects were his undoing, he profited by others’ altruism. Destiny dealt him a similar blow a second time, and after the children of noblemen had been given as security on his behalf and an agreement introduced stipulating the same amount as before, he sought and obtained assistance for his ransom. Since he was unable to meet the promised debt from his own treasury, he offered for sale woods and forests, sometimes publicly, sometimes privately, to all who had surrendered sons, dearer than their own lives, as surety for his safety; the money he then received for these estates was immediately counted out to those who had taken him into captivity. The Scanians and Zealanders bought woodlands for common use by public subscription, In Jutland, however, it was done by families closely related to each other, who participated in the purchase.
2. At this period our race frequently engaged in viking expeditions, but this was extremely rare for the Wends; nevertheless such ventures began to spread more widely amongst them because the pirates of Julin, displaying their Danish zeal against Denmark herself, were particularly harmful to its countrymen through the selfsame vigour they had derived from the national character. These regular incursions have been put down in our own day through the patrols, alert on the citizens’ behalf, of King Valdemar and Archbishop Absalon. The energetic involvement of these two has ensured that peaceful cultivation is maintained on land and safe navigation on the waters.
3. Avid to take revenge for the acts of violence against him, and, more than anything, bent on using his troops to demolish Julin, which he regarded as a den infested by a gang of cutthroats, Sven filled the sound which separates the islands of Men and Falster with his royal fleet. As soon as it appeared that he shortly intended to overrun the territory of the Wends, the dwellers in Julin boldly calculated that any attack from this cunning enemy should be anticipated by stratagem. When they found out that Danish guards patrolled the fleet at night for its protection, they chose and equipped a number of oarsmen for the assignment. At daybreak they arrived before the customary appearance of the sentinels and pretended to have just returned from their watch; rowing in a small skiff across the harbour, which was bristling with longships, they ventured right alongside the king’s vessel, where the steersman announced that he had some confidential information which Sven really ought to know about. Believing that he was bringing a report of some matter discovered in the night, the king drew back the awning which covered the ship and, poking his head out, leant forward towards the caller, expecting a friendly conversation. When the other saw that Sven was ripe for his treachery, he suddenly gripped his neck in a brutally savage clasp, dragged him from the ship and with the help of his assistants tossed him into their pirate boat. Then they sped away in flight with rapid strokes of their oars. So, by getting their nimble wits to aid them, they effected by guile what was impossible by the use of weapons. Consequently someone who a little while before had shone out from the pinnacle of grandeur was then transformed by a derisive jest of Fate into the miserable slave of barbarians; whether he had done greater wrong to his father or to religion I cannot say, but he saw the province he had dishonoured with his parent’s exile now the provider of a prison and the avenger of patricide; he also found himself obliged to strip of its wealth the motherland he had robbed of its Christian worship. Nor could his followers be very quick to help him, for they first had to roll back the tarpaulins that screened the ships, fit oars into the rowlocks and draw up their anchors from the waves. So the campaign yielded to deceit and, since its participants did not have the courage to pursue the barbarians without royal leadership, the fleet set sail and restored the soldiers to their native shores.
Chapter 13
2. Now Sven, although weary with the toils of an old man’s existence, still paid unflagging attention to divine worship during his last years, and his reverence for the Lord lasted as long as he drew breath. Free of all human perturbation, he passed away in the full glow of an excellent life. Certainly he had been divided between two fates, for a shifting fortune bandied him to and fro between derision and distinction, substituting captivity for his kingship, and exile for his captivity. Who would have imagined that he would progress from the most elevated throne to the fetters of the Wends? Who could guess that he would return from Wendish chains to a monarch’s regalia? Yet he went from ruler to prisoner and from prisoner to ruler. A companion now’to abject sorrow, now to the highest felicity, he set side by side a double measure of each destiny in the conflicting situations of his career
Chapter 14
1. At Sven’s death the English and Norwegians, not wanting their country’s highest station to be under the control of a foreign power, deemed it more satisfactory to choose kings within their own ranks instead of borrowing them from neighbours; they accordingly shrugged off their deference to Danish power and placed Edward and Olav respectively at the peak of royal grandeur. Cnut, who had taken over the throne of Denmark, was reluctant to challenge the imposing strength of these two kings in his early days of leadership, but was not keen either to see his dominion confined to the bounds of his own country; as a result he did not neglect the idea of regaining his father’s empire, but at the same time disguised the fact and made it his first objective to carry the sword into Wendish territory and Samland, on the grounds that these were weaker realms. Though he had suffered harsh wrongs from them, Sven had been wary of striking at the former people, hindered as he was by scruples about his oath, and the latter, once overcome by Hakon, had turned their hands to rebellion against the Danes after his decease. This new successor to the Danish crown skilfully contrived to punish the offence of the one, the vexation they had caused his father, and of the other for their revolt. He was quite aware that a gifted individual can gather the strength to expand his capabilities by starting with a smaller-scale enterprise, and for this reason he wished during this apprenticeship in warfare to mark the beginning of his early manhood with some noble feat. For that reason he vigorously used his force against the insurgents, perhaps with greater promptness in that active spirits, as they are putting themselves more on trial, show superior daring and so are successful in performing some remarkable task.
Chapter 16
1. But let me go back to the path from which I digressed: because Olav, backed by his brother Harald, posed a cruel threat to the Danes, Cnut mounted a naval attack from England and forced him to depart into exile to his father-in-law, Yaroslav, a prince of the Eastern peoples; having thus regained Norway, he then returned to drive from his homeland Richard, who had conceived a bitter hatred for Estrith, his wife; once she had been restored to Zealand, her brother allowed her to discharge royal duties. In the meantime occurred the death of Olof, king of Sweden, and he was succeeded by Omund, who received a name from his longevity. When Olof died, the Norwegian Olav found the confidence to return to his native soil where, enlisting aid from the Swedes, he made a daring and successful bid to seize the throne of Norway,68 for he observed that Cnut had now lost his half-brother’s assistance and was deprived of the most notable component of his forces.
Chapter 17
3. At that time, Gottschalk,* a young Wend of outstanding qualities, arrived to perform hls military service in the king’s regiment. His father, Pribignev, a strong devotee of Christian worship, was vainly attempting to recall the Wends to the faith they had revoked; contrary to the custom of his tribe, Gottschalk had been entrusted to teachers so that he could obtain instruction in letters; yet when he realized that his father had been murdered by Saxons intent on gaining possession of his country, he did not allow his fierce spirit to grow tame in such calm pursuits. He suddenly exchanged books for weapons and turned from his cultivation of knowledge to recruitment in arms, afraid that he might follow the customs of his ancestors too feebly by applying himself to foreign mental exercises; relinquishing his scholarly endeavours, he chose to play the brisk avenger before the sedentary student, because he believed it fitter to use his mind more with audacity than with diligence. So, obeying the dictates of Nature in preference to those of his instructor, he at length secured his revenge and then sought out Cnut’s corps of soldiery. In this way the young man’s mind, brought up short by a ferocious incentive when it was at the very threshold of learning, was unable to overcome the inborn harshness of his blood by the fundamental procedures of education.
* note: as the translators point out “Gottschalk was a member of the Nakkonid dynasty, powerful among the Wagrians and Western Abotrites of Western Germany. He found refuge with Cnut when his family was overthrown by King Ratibor, their rival. After varying fortunes he returned subsequently taking successful revenge on Ratibor and his sons in 1035. Saxo’s story about Gottschalk’s sudden turn from scholarly studies to arms functions as an example of how nature is more powerful than civilization.” The source of this is probably Adam of Bremen’s reference where Adam wrote “Gottschalk in his wrath and indignation, rejected the faith along with his letters and seized his arms.” However, as the translators point out, there are two differences: Adam says he Gottschalk rejected the Christian faith and says nothing of Gottschalk having been part of Sven’s retinue.
Chapter 22
2. While Magnus kept up a dogged pursuit by land and sea, a Wendish host poured unexpectedly into Jutland. Their invasion made it difficult for the victorious Norwegian to know whether he should continue the expulsion of his routed foe or counter the new threat. After a certain Wend of very noble birth had lost his twelve buccaneering sons in Denmark, he resolved to avenge his bereavement with the sword and made an attack on Jutland. Magnus therefore, at the persistent entreaties of the common people, consented to take the initiative and open hostilities; ignoring his rival, he turned his weapons from an internal enemy towards an adversary from outside and, seemingly content to forget a personal grudge, took upon himself a public grievance, since he had no wish to give the impression of pursuing his own ends too assiduously at the expense of the country’s interests. Even though the position of pre-eminence still lay in the balance and his authority was uncertain, this leader of foreign blood did not hesitate to transfer the danger to his own shoulders. Now on the night preceding the day of conflict, a truly prophetic shape overshadowed his slumbers. As he was taking rest, the ghost of someone hovered before him and foretold that he would beat his opponent and could be assured of his victory from an omen, the death of an eagle.
3. On waking the following morning King Magnus made known his dream sequence, to everyone’s deep amazement. And the portent accorded with his vision. When his troops marched forward, he sighted, alighting nearby, the eagle which had been revealed to him in his sleep; galloping towards it on his rapid steed, he launched a spear and forestalled the bird’s flight with the swift-moving missile. The strangeness of the incident raised the onlookers’ expectations of victory. Consequently the army seized on this sign to infer that the fortuitous end of the eagle spelt inevitable destruction for their opponents. Indeed, once they had all seen how the circumstances matched the dream, they were, in a way, sure of the outcome and interpreted the occurrence they had witnessed as an augury in their favour; jumping swiftly to the same conclusion, everyone assumed that it meant an almost foolproof chance of winning. Their belief in the portent carried them to such a pitch of daring that, imagining the prospect of victory already before their eyes, with complete disregard for peril they raced with one another to leap into the fray. Because they snatched the earliest opportunity of fighting, the result of the battle corresponded exactly with the auspice and the Wends were massacred to a man.
5. Furthermore there was a Wend, Gottschalk, one among many others who had abandoned military service under the unfortunate Sven; for a long period this man had been reflecting how badly his fortunes had fared beneath another’s command, and when he perceived that no good prospects remained for his lord, he relinquished his soldiership and deserted without shame; it was safer in his view to experiment with his own luck rather than subscribe to someone else’s, so that, when he despaired of the king’s ever anticipating a brighter future, he at least did not flinch from taking vengeance for the death of his father. Things turned out according to his scheme. For after he had conducted wars with varying results, he brought the Wends under his sway and, as external threats left him unbroken, so it became clear that he could not be overthrown by events at home. Yet blessed with the rule he had sought, he was not happy until, in revenge for his father’s murder, he had crushed the Saxons; a kingdom and its riches by his reckoning yielded little honour unless retribution were added to such effects.
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