Prince Ivar 'the Boneless' Erikson of Kiev falls in love with and marries Princess Helga (Olga) of Chernigov. While taxing her people to finance a war against Denmark, the Chernigov 20 ambush and capture the prince and his retinue and threaten to e...
"One day I became bothered by the bad I was writing about.
Erik came to me in a dream and he said, 'I know that we are
slavers and all, and very bad, even for our time, but you have
to see who we were dealing with,' and then he showed me in
my dream. I began my writing once again."
Brian Howard Seibert
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The Trouble With Pechenegs
(926 AD) When the Romans had lost Adrianople to the Bulgars, the Pechenegs had returned to the southern plains of Gardar and their tribes began grazing their herds of cattle and sheep on either side of the Dnieper River, just below the rapids. The Yavdi-Erdem of the shining gold horses under Kagan Baitzas settled on the northwest side of the river, while the Kuerci-Cur of the bluish horses under Kagan Kouel settled on the northeast side. The Qabugsin-Yula of the bark hued horses under Kagan Kourkoutai settled just south of the Erdem on the west bank and the Suru-Kul-Bey of the silver-grey horses under Kagan Ipaos settled on the east bank across from the Yula. The Qara-Bey of the black horse under Kagan Kaidoum settled on the southwest bank and the Boru-Tolmac of grey horses under Kagan-Bek Kostas on the southeast. Furthest south were the Yazi-Qapan of the dark brown horse under Kagan Giazis on the west bank, with the Bula-Copan with piebald horses under Kagan-Bek Batas on the east bank. They had caused very few problems with the merchant ships travelling up and down the Dnieper, but in the latest spring trade cycle, some Hraes' portage crews had claimed to be harried and harassed by Pecheneg horsemen. King Ivar came down from Kiev and confirmed the claims, then rode his carriage across the plain to the Sea of Azov and took a ship to Gardariki to visit with his father.
"There is trouble with the Pechenegs," he told Erik in Pecheneg.
"I heard," the Prince replied in the same language. "I think Kagan Bay wants a cut of the Dan'Way profits."
"Well he can just 'fock' off!" Ivar answered in Pecheneg. He had to revert to the Anglish Danish for the 'fock' part because Pecheneg didn't have such a word that was easily translatable.
"We'll have to at least ask him what he wants. If it is a token amount, we may be better off paying them off. It's the cost of doing business."
"I don't like it!" Ivar exclaimed. "We have legions now. We should use them."
"We have legions so we don't have to use them."
"This is the Khazars' doing," Ivar hissed. "We should make them pay off the Pechenegs."
