Invitations to Nrdics etc to rule.

[Sigurd]

Back to the question:

First of all, according to my readings it is true that the people living in the Novgorod area sought amongst the Norse for their new King. The people of that area (their name escape my mind but I don’t think it was slavs) called the Norse varangians, because that was where the Norse they did business with came from; Varanger (North of Norway). The name stuck and was later adopted to the guard in Constantinople (which I believe was first instituted to fight the Rus).

Why they did this is rooted in an ancient myth. It was practiced by all Norse descended nations (e.g. Rus, Goths etc…). This is where it gets interesting; it is rooted in the Norse mythology. Around 70 BC - 0 AD a nation consisting of a blond people migrated from the Black Sea area and moved north-west. The name of this people was As or what in Norwegian is Aser (mythology defines Aser as Gods) their leader was the unmistakably Odin,Wota or Udin. He conquered and settled in what is today Russia, Poland, Germany, Denmark, Sweden and finally Norway. He built cities and left one of his many sons as kings in these city-states before moving on. He established a great settlement in Denmark which today is called Odense. He heard about the great kings of Sweden and desired to conquer these also. He sent armies over to the Scandinavian Peninsula and the king there desired to meet this great conqueror and invited him over, giving him land to settle. This is where he finally settled down. One of his sons was sent over to Norway and settled a great nation there. All later kings in these lands were direct descendants of Odin. It should be noted that many of them died either by decease or by murder (long story). Whenever a new king was needed and the previous king didn’t have any sons, they had to go and find a descendant of that old stock. The most likeable place happened to be Norway, one of the places where the kings survived and was able to breed. Sweden was however the primary home of the people that was considered gods. A good example on this was the Visigoths (I could be wrong on the actual type of Goths). Their king had died and he had no sons, instead of electing a new king they went back to Gothland (Sweden) to get a new king. This is an odd thing to do, but the king had to be a descendant of Odin and there were none in the land of the Visigoths.

I am at work and I don’t have the books in front of me, but the actual incident described by the initial poster is one of the topics of that book. I believe the king they got was the son of the current Norwegian King of that day and his name was Rurik (the "Rus" name) but I forget his Norse name. I believe it was in the 8th century.

[edit]: AdrianII: I didn’t read you post until after I had posted mine… you excerpt from Primary Chronicle of Ros confirms Rurik and the Novgorod area. It should be noted that the books that I have read believe that the 11th century historians are writing based on guesswork. Most of them place the Varangians in Sweden. We know the Norse traders traveled by water and sometimes pulled their boats on small stretches of land where it was convenient to do so and if their ships was light enough (some of the Norse ships could weigh 80 tons with a full load). But there were few Swedish traders that far north and the waterway to those areas would be around the Scandinavian Peninsula i.e. along the Norwegian coast and up before you could turn south into the great northern rivers at the base of the Kola Peninsula in the White Sea. It would be more likely that the traders of the Varangian peninsula traveled those rivers into the heart of Russia. Excavations on the Varangian Peninsula have uncovered great eastern riches, even money shells from the oceans of the south. Besides the Varangian name speaks for itself.