Introduction- In which I Longwindedly Explain Myself, Or Yngvarr the Far-Travelled: A Presentation to the Alternate History Community by Rognvald
As my username suggests, I am an aficionado for an era of European history popularly known as the Viking Age. Something, perhaps my inner Norseman, stirs when I hear the mix of true history and epic legend known as the Sagas. The life of Ragnarr Loðbrók, the tale of Burnt Njál, the record of the journeys of the father-son duo of Eiríkr and Leifr, and the famous story of the adventures of one Sigurðr (better known as Siegfried, the star of some operas by one Richard Wagner) stick with me and have helped mold my imagination, for better or for worse.
I know that the Sagas are not exactly historically accurate, but I do know they are based off of real events and real people. Much like American tall-tale, the accomplishments of real men are exaggerated for effect until the exaggerations take on a life of their own. And since these exaggerations exist, and are quite prevalent, we need to rely on other sources for our knowledge.
One such source is archaeology. Archaeology can put the nail in the coffin of a legend, or it can give it new life as fact. A famous example of this is the confirmation of the reality of the Vinland Saga and Leifr's journey to America with the discovery of the settlement at L'Anse Aux Meadows. Archaeology can tell us much about what the people of the time were like, how they lived, how they died, etc..
The next sources of confirmation for the sagas are the records of those people the Norse encountered. These include the chronicles of the Anglo-Saxons, Byzantine reports on Rus raids and the Varangian guard, and others. While suffering at times from the same tall-tale syndrome as the Sagas, contemporary sources serve as a second witness to the truth at the core of the Sagas.
The last source I will mention here, which some may say fall under the first or second sources previously mentioned, are the runestones. The runestones! Usually with no more than a sentence or two, these monuments give the names of people, as well as accomplishments they or their loved ones/followers wished to commemorate. These act as great resources for finding the kernel of truth located within the mythical embroidery of a Saga.
Bear these three in mind, I will get back to them later.
A few years ago I wrote a timeline entitled "High in Erin Sang the Sword", which spoke of a Viking victory at Clontarf and the eventual establishment of a Viking High King. I wrote it alternately in the style of a Saga and of an Irish Chronicle, which, I suppose, gave me some leeway with exaggeration. I accomplished what I wanted to with it- I felt I could have gone farther, but found I had ran out of ideas. I was satisfied to end where I did. But upon further research, including a trip to Ireland, I began to consider rehashing that timeline.
However, I found myself more and more distracted by another Viking adventurer- Yngvarr the Far-Travelled.
For those of you who don't know, Yngvarr the Far-Travelled, according to Yngvarr’s Saga Víðförla (traditionally attributed to Oddr Snorrasson), was a young Swede and a fine warrior. He was good friend's with the King and the King's son. He proved his usefulness to the King time and again, but when he asked the King for a title, he was denied. Smarting from the refusal, he decided to find a place where he could become a King. He gathered warriors and sailed into the land of the Rus, where he was educated, including being taught several languages to prepare him for his expedition.
He sailed south along the Varangian Way, encountering a giant and a dragon, and ended up meeting a beautiful and wise queen named Silkisif who he taught about Jesus. After spending time in her court, and despite her protestations, Yngvarr continued his quest.
To wrap up the story, he met a King named Jolf who ruled from the idolatrous city of Heliopolis. Jolf recruited Yngvarr to help him fight his brother, Bjolf (between recruitment and fight there are some adventures, Yngvarr meets the Devil, no big deal); Jolf backstabs Yngvarr after the victory, but Yngvarr and Co. get away, by the use of caltrops. They flee to the camp, take a bunch of treasure, are beset by a bunch of attractive women (who are evil, so that those who lie with them die before morning), and try to go home. However, Yngvarr gets ill and dies, and only one ship makes it back (then there is some stuff about Yngvarr's son, but this is good enough of an intro to the subject at hand).
To quote Tevye from Fiddler on the Roof- "Sounds crazy, no?"
Well, actually...
First, contact between the Near East and Scandinavia is a well established fact. The Norse liked silk (who doesn't), and they bought a lot of it from both Byzantium and Persia (some recent evidence suggests they bought more from Persia than Byzantium). Norse and Slavic raiders struck ports on the Azerbaijani coast. Silver coins from Central Asia are prevalent in Viking graves, and a finding in March of this year discovered a ring in a Viking-era grave inscribed with the Arabic phrase "For Allah".
So we have the archaeological evidence for a Viking-Middle Eastern connection. Its a well established fact that the two cultures interacted- we are still discovering just how much they interacted.
Second, contemporary sources point out a prevalence of Norse activity in the Caucasus and Northern Persian regions during the late 10th and early 11th centuries. One Islamic leader reportedly employed Norse troops, who the local imam desperately wanted to convert. Another tells of Norse warriors in 1030 pillaging proto-Azerbaijan, getting hired by the Islamic leader of Arran to put down a revolt in a nearby region, and bullheading their way into Christian Georgia to do some mercenary work (don't worry, the Muslims picked them off on the way home).
And this is where stuff gets odd. Some Arab sources suggest that the Yngvar expedition took place between 1035 and 1041, culminating in the destruction of the Norse in a tumultuous battle on February 11, 1041 at Asib. I have tried to confirm this beyond the book I am using as reference (The Viking Age, Somerville and McDonald), so I cannot say for certain if the Arabs referred to Yngvarr explicitly or if the authors implied it, but it does coincide with some of the more traditional dates for the end of the ill-fated expedition (1042 at the Battle of Sasirerti in Georgia, with King Bagrat IV standing in for King Jolf).
So we have 1) archaeological evidence showing that Scandinavia and the Middle East interacted closely and extensivly during the period of Yngvarr. And we have 2) local, contemporary sources that speak of Norse mercenaries and Norse raids being common enough to not be massive surprises. These two sources alone can show that Yngvarr's Saga, perhaps, was based on some expedition that happened during that general period. It was an exaggeration.
But we have solid proof that Yngvarr existed. You could say it is written in stone.
Runestone.
Of all events in the entire Viking Age, not one is mentioned more often in runestones than Yngvarr's expedition. There are 26 (26!) runestones that explicitly mention the quest, surpassed only by the Greece and England runestones, which have around 30 each. The Yngvarr runestones are found across Sweden, each bearing a similar inscription, but each shedding additional light on what exactly was going on. I have taken up too much space already to write out every one, but here are six examples-
"Herleif and Þorgerðr had this stone raised in memory of Sæbjôrn, their father, who steered a ship east with Yngvar to Særkland."
"Andvéttr and Kárr and Kiti and Blesi and Djarfr raised this stone in memory of Gunnleifr, their father, who was killed in the east with Yngvarr. May God help their spirits. Alríkr, I carved the runes. He could steer a cargo-ship well."
"Þjalfi and Holmlaug had all of these stones raised in memory of Baggi, their son, who alone owned a ship and steered to the east in Yngvarr's retinue. May God help Baggi's spirit. Áskell carved."
"Tóla had this stone raised in memory of her son Haraldr, Yngvarr's brother. They travelled valiantly far for gold, and in the east gave food to the eagle. They died in the south in Særkland."
"Myskja and Máni had these monuments raised in memory of their brother Hróðgeirr and their father Holmsteinn. He had long been in the west; died in the east with Ingvarr."
"Spjóti and Halfdan, they raised this stone in memory of Skarði, their brother. From here he travelled to the east with Yngvarr; in Særkland lies Eyvindr's son."
So what can we gather from these? Well, there was a man named Yngvar, who had influence all across Sweden, gathered a large expedition of fairly well-experienced troops (also, if one looks into the text of the Saga deeply, one can see that the leiðangr, the equivalent of the Anglo-Saxon fyrd, was called out to assist in this expedition),which he led into Særkland (the Old Norse term for the Islamic World) in a search for gold and power, which met with an untimely end.
This much is confirmed. But where did they go in Særkland? I mean, it is a big place, after all. One runestone has the key.
“Guðleifr placed the staff and these stones in memory of Slagvi, his son, who met his end in the east in Chorezem.”
Chorezem… what is Chorezem?
The direct Latin transliteration of “in Chorzem” off the runestone is “i karusm”. The first scholars who examined it thought it was a misspelling of “i krþum” (which means “in Russia”). But further examination showed that karusm could actually be… Khwarezem, which is now known as Khiva. The spelling of karusm even matches up with the Turkic spelling of the name at the time, which was “qarus-m”.
So a large Swedish adventuring party (or army might be a better term), sails for Særkland in search of gold and power, and winds up in… Khiva? Near the Aral Sea?
What in Óðinn’s name were they doing there?
If they were mercenaries, why did the King of Sweden basically let a mercenary captain take a huge amount of his forces with him to Særkland? It wasn’t exactly a peaceful time.
Well, we may never know the truth, but I have my thoughts. And I was hoping that you guys would also have thoughts. So I did a search for Yngvarr’s name in the pre-1900s forum… no dice. I searched with the more common version of Ingvar and… still nothing, aside from a few references and a few other guys with the same name. I searched in ASB, and I couldn’t find it.
I’ll admit, I was disappointed. I was hoping to see what other people had said about Ingvar and his band, before I attempted to write something. I didn’t want to try to pioneer a new topic in our genre. But I guess it is my honor to do so.
I will be updating this sporadically, as I am trying to put as much thought and research and effort into it as possible. Please be patient, and please comment. Let me know if you are interested in a timeline about this, or if I am crazy, or if I should take this to another forum.
Here’s to hoping that I do this justice!