Real Vikings - 4. The Wild East: Rise of the Rus

Episode Date: March 30, 2026

Swedish Vikings turn east. Navigating their way past fearsome local tribes and roaring rapids, they discover new lands and new rivers - ones that can carry longships right to the steppes of Eurasia. A Viking state is established, the Rus. And it comes with a fearsome matriarch… Olga of Kyiv…A Noiser podcast production. Narrated by Iain Glen.Featuring Eleanor Barraclough, Stefan Brink, Ben Raffield, Elizabeth Rowe.Written by Roger Morris | Produced by Jeff Dawson | Executive Producer: Joel Duddell | Research by Emmie Rose Price-Goodfellow | Fact check by Grant Jones | Sound Supervisor: Tom Pink | Sound design by George Tapp | Additional editing by Rob Plummer | Compositions by Oliver Baines, Dorry Macaulay, Tom Pink | Mix & mastering: Cian Ryan-Morgan. Recording Engineer: Tom Rouse at Jungle Studios.Get every episode of Real Vikings two weeks early and ad-free by joining Noiser+. Click the subscription banner at the top of the feed to get started. Or go to noiser.com/subscriptions Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's the middle of the eighth century. We're on the island of Ursa in the Baltic Sea. In the distance, across the bay, there's a dark streak low 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 moroseness in their demeanour.

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 men exchanged terse nods before trudging over to a grim arrangement on the ground. A line of bodies stretches out before them. Forty-one of their

comrades side by side in death. The marks of battle show on the blood-soaked corpses, wounds gape in their flesh. These are the members of their party who perished when they were ambushed by local tribesmen. The men carry the bodies reverently 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 corpses stacked neatly in layers. The last body is that of their king, in whose service they came to Ersel. 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, bare-tooth pendants, antlerhorn combs, and gaming pieces carved from whalebone and walrus tusks. One of these, the king's piece, is gently positioned between the actual monarch's teeth.

The meat 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, then two swords are driven down to mark the spot. The men are eager to be on their way. They leave the boats unburied, 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. centuries pass more sediment builds the coastline changes the site 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 i'm ian glen from the noiser podcast network this is real vikings part four in our very first episode we witnessed the discovery of two viking graveboats in salmere on the historic

Stoenian Island of Sarrema. It's the present-day name for Ursul, where our opening scene has just taken place. You may remember how the archaeological 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 Lindersvan, the usual given start point for the Viking era. Salmi 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 Sarmé boat burials cannot be overstated. Dr. Eleanor Baraklough. In some ways, Viking trade, or at least contacts in the East, are the earliest evidence we have for the Viking Age actually existing at all. As we heard in our first episode,

isotope analysis has shown that many of the men buried at Same came from the Malar 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 people, are often complex. They're capable of switching from peaceful trading to violent raiding, negotiating treaties one minute, plundering churches the next. So then you have to think, well, okay, who's attacking? Is it locals?

Is it warring peoples who are sort of objecting to the fact that this group are 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 their 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 bogs 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 Ausmah, the eastern sea, as the Vikings call it. From the east coast of Sweden to Salme is a distance of about 170 miles as the crow flies.

To the Vikings, an expanse of 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-legendary king Ingvar of Sweden, whose exploits are recounted later by the historian Snorri Sturluson in the Inglinga saga. According to Snorri, writing in the 13th century, Ingvar was killed while campaigning on an island in the Baltic, The name of the island? Ursul. 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 Thierke, a Viking emporium not far from present-day Stockholm. First cross the Baltic Sea, then continue deep into the Gulf of Finland to the mouth of the Neva 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 46-mile length of the Neva 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 Ilman. 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 Ilman, you can navigate a network of rivers leading south. At times, you will have to get out of your boat. and haul it overland from one river to another, a process known as portage.

Eventually you will reach the Black Sea via the Denepe River, entering it near modern-day Kersen. But beware, this last stretch of your journey is fraught with peril. First, there are the rapids. Caused by granite outcrops churning up the flow 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 ASUPI means do not sleep. Little chance of that amid the din of crashing water. After ASUPI, there are eight more to clear with names that translate as 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 your face along this stretch of the Denepeche Nepe. The Pechenegs, a fierce tribe of horse-mounted archers, nomads from Central Asia, are known to prey on travelers 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 Meklegaard, as the Vikings call it, where riches 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 Lovac River and then the Volga. From there you can access the Caspian Sea. Sails south across it and you come to the coast of Persia, present-day Iran. 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 network

so very far from home? Professor Elizabeth Rowe. 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. Its source is 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 Durhams. The caliphate includes territory that's now Afghanistan. This area contains a number of silver mines,

and so the caliphate is easily able to mint a very large quantity of coins that have quite a lot of value as bullion. The Vikings have no natural source of silver in their own homelands, 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 travelers 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, they're pointed downstream to the Volga. And of course, in return for these coveted dirhams, the Vikings have a number of goods to trade. Furs, wool recivory, and above all, Human beings. Professor Stefan Brink. Slavery was enormously important for the trading and the economy,

bringing in huge amount of silver home to Scandinavia. And so, while it's true that Vikings operating these prefer trading to raiding, 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 slash traitors would gradually capture more and more slaves as they made the long voyage down the Volga. Chillingly, the very name for the local people, Slavs, is from where the word slave derives. For the Vikings, only one thing matters. At the trading town of Etil, Arabic merchants would come to buy the slaves. Arabic sources describe how profitable this was for both sides. In the ninth century, a river of dirhams flows back to Scandinavia.

Some are melted down and turned into rings and other valuable objects. Many are hoarded, hidden under floorboards are buried in the ground. It's Friday, July the 16th, 1999. We're on the large Swedish island of Gotland, 100 miles out into the Baltic. More precisely on a farm, Spillings Farm, not far from the town of Sleiter. It's a summer's day, pleasant. Apart from the mosquitoes, Gotland is notorious for them. Trudging across a field is an archaeologist, Yonah Strum, who sweeps before him with a metal detector.

He's demonstrating his technique to a television film crew. There from Swedish Channel TV4, they are shooting a segment for a political program about unlicensed digging and the looting of artifacts, a problem that is on the rise. Gotland 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 horde of Viking silver. Job done, the crew starts packing up. But then something happens.

Strom's detector is about to go literally off the scale. He will later recall how the display on his detector blitzel. linked overload before shutting down completely. Such was the magnitude of his discovery. As the crew scrambled to remount the camera, word goes out. The area is soon cordoned off and 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 found over 700 hordes with more than 170,000 silver coins, all in principle Arabic silver dirab. And the largest one hoard weighed 67 kilos, enormous amounts of silver. 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 are returning home. A significant proportion of settling,

putting down routes, establishing trading outposts, building a power base. Professor Ben Raffield. Associated with this is the emergence of a group or a polity that we know as the Rus, who appear to have been major players in establishing a network of trading centres on these riverine trains.

We first hear of a people called the Russe in 839. The annals of St. Burton mentions that a group of them are present at the court of the Frankish King Louis the Pius, who if you remember we met in episode two, around the time Ragnar Lothbrock was making inroads into the Carolingian Empire. King Louis makes inquiries and discovers that they are dislocated Swedes, in other words, Vikings. The name Rus may be derived from the old Norse word Ruah meaning to row. It may also be connected to Ruslagan, a region on the east coast of Sweden. Ruzlagan translates as rowing country.

Either way, it seems that the Rus are strongly associated with all-powered boats. The first Russe may well have come from Sweden, as Louis the Piers believed, but over time they will be seen to be a distinct group in their own right. The river traders, we might call them. There's a lot of debate about who the Rusks were. I personally see them as a sort of multicultural, militarised, and perhaps primarily merchant group. This combination of military power and commercial acumen allows the roost 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 raiders, hum down these waterways, establish 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 Garthariki. or realm of towns.

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. 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 Emporia, being set up further west, places like Biaka in Sweden or Hiedebi 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. It's almost 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 sails and ropes and so forth to the Scandinavians who were 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. Whatever else it is, old Ladoga is a melting pot. Sammy fur trappers rubbed shoulders with Baltic loggers. You'll hear local Slavic languages spoken as well as Finnish and Old Norse. Arabic too, as one.

Wide-eye travellers from the caliphate shake their heads in wonder of the strange habits of the tall, imposing northerners. You'll see the multi-ethnic population reflected in the different styles of the buildings. Square timber structures, favoured by local Slavs, sit alongside the rectangular longhouses 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, as 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 threats. This is where the ruse come in. They provide the military muscle to keep everyone safe. Defensees 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 Rus, the Scandinavians, or the people of Scandinavian descent who had been based in northern Russia. Here we see the transition from slaver merchant to political actor. 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. Derived from an old Norse word meaning oath companion, Varangian is often used as a synonym for Viking, specifically the Rus' Vikings. Eventually the Slavs managed to repel the Varangians, but then start fighting among themselves. In an attempt to bring peace to their warring land, it is said the Slavs send 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, Rorik, Trouvor, and Seneus graciously accept the invitation. Rurik 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 tranche of territory between them. When Truvore and Sineas die a couple of years later, Rorik takes over their lands to go with his own. And so, a dynasty is founded. His dynasty is called the Rurikid, and they essentially remain powerful for centuries. I think even Ivan the Terrible, whose 16th century is said to be of the Rurikid 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 Scandinavian.

The Rus have really arrived in the East, and they are here to stay. The reason for the dynasty's success may lie in Rurik's initial decision of where to settle. Novgorod, where Rurik is said to have set up his power base, is a newfoundage, is a a really strategically significant location. So it's connected to the river Bolkov, heading up north to this trading town of Staraela Dogo. And then if we look south from Novgorod, the rivers then flow towards Kiev 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 Rurik's death in 879, the center of Rurikid power shifts 560 miles south to Kiev in modern-day Ukraine. But even as the Rusz 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 reason 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 dynastic infighting. But it isn't just internal rivals that the leaders of the ruse have to contend with. Contact with outsiders always has the potential to turn into conflict, especially as the ruffs continue to grow their trading empire. Bulgars, Slavs, Khazars, Petchinegs, Magyars, 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 rub up against each other. Increasingly, the ruse choose another strategy. Integration. So we can see a possible shift from north to Slavic. identity that takes place over, actually over two generations of Keevan Rus' rulers. So from 912 to 945, the ruler of Keevan Rus is called Igor, and he's married to Olga.

Igor and Olga may sound like archetype or Slavic names, but they're not. Igor comes from the old Norse name Ingvar or Ivar, and Olga comes from the north name Helga. But what's interesting is that they name their son with a Slavic name, Sviathislav. 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 Slavs. 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 Norse generations to a subsequent generation. It seems Sviatoslav fully embraces his Slavic identity.

So it's said that he worships the Slavic god's Perrin, who's the god of the thunder, and Bolos, who's the god of the flocks. And he doesn't want to convert to Christianity, even though his mom 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 homelands. 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 Petchan eggs. The fierce nomadic tribesman that once harried rooster, traders as they portage their vessels past the Dnieper Rapids are now fighting on the side of the ruse. Sviatoslav is so enamored of the peccan eggs that he even models himself on them. Sviatoslav 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, Sviato Slav's enthusiasm for the nomadic way of life does not end well. Or so the primary chronicle tells us. Essentially, he's killed by this nomadic people who, according to one contemporary writer, 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 Age history or the history of Keevan Roos, who really should be their heroine of her own historical novel or Hollywood film. Olga is the mother of Sviatoslav, in whose place she ruled Kiv as regent between 945 and 957. She's also the wife of Igor, Rorik's son. But in 945, while demanding tribute from a Slavic tribe called the Dreblians, 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 sagas, in the myths and the legends. According to the Russian primary chronicle, a delegation of 20 Dreblians come to Kiev 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 Drebly and nobles arrives. Tired and grubby after their journey, they accept Olga's invitation to freshen up in a bathhouse. Where they are locked in. Olga promptly tortures the building, burning them all to death. Olga now travels to the Dreblian capital at the head of an army. Unaware of the fate of his envoys, Maul believes she has come to accept his marriage proposal. A wedding feast takes place. As the celebration draws to an end, Olga's men unsheathe their weapons.

Terror grips the Dreblians, but there is no escape. The Rus' warriors cut them down mercilessly. Auger's thirst for vengeance is still not sated, and neither is her appetite for trickleons. appetite for trickery. Her final act of revenge is worthy of Game of Thrones. The surviving Dreblians 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 Dreblian capital. The mystified Dreblians comply, relieved they don't have to hand over any silver. The cages of birds pile up, row after roe.

of them until a towering wall of wicker, filled with flapping wings, stands before the roose camp. Now comes the final act of the drama. Olga instructs her men to tie a piece of sulphur 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 in their nests. Flames spread to the rafters. A Great fire consumes the city. Who knows how true this is? You know, there are several centuries between when Olga lived and records of what she's said to have done. But certainly she's the most formidable character.

And she's one of those people I think I would love to have, you know, when they say like 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 Constantin. Antonopal and converts to Christianity. It's a momentous event. She is the first ruler of Kiev to be baptized. Many of her loyal subjects will follow her into the new faith.

Despite her reputation for cruelty, Olga is eventually canonized, probably in the 13th century. 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 Rusk come to us from an Arabic diplomat called Ahmad Ibn Fadlan. Ibn Fadlan was part of a diplomatic mission to the Bulgar 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 their 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 twos. 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 Fadlans' 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 ruse merchant earns 10,000 dirhams, he has one of these chunky necklaces made for his wife. Not all his impressions are favorable. He is shocked by the routine sexual assaults committed by the men against their female slaves and disgusted by their personal hygiene. He is appalled to see that the ruse wash in a communal bowl pass between them. The water grows progressively filthier as each man performs as mourning ablutions, spitting and even blowing his nose into it.

Over in Anglo-Saxon England, therefore he says, oh, the Vikings are so clean. And then on the waterways down the Volga, Ivna Fadlan is absolutely horrified. It's absolutely revolting. The disgust pause off the page of his words. The most shocking event that Ibn Fadlan witnesses is the funeral of a ruse 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. one world to another. In a cabin on board, she is stabbed a death, while her dead master, the chieftain, watches on. Then, once the living have disembarked from this ship of death, a pyre is lit beneath it by a naked man walking backwards around the boat. Orange flames lick the hastening darkness, smoke rises high into the sky. It's a good omen, a sign that Odin is pleased.

Ibn Fadlans account makes for a difficult read, but it is undeniably an important historical record. This is a unique account and a uniquely detailed account of these funerary rights. And this has played a huge role in also interpreting funerary customs as we understand them in Scandinavia and elsewhere in the Viking world. The legacy of the Russe Vikings lives on today in many ways, both small and large. For example, if you were to go shopping in present-day Kiev, you'd pay for your purchases in Haribnya, Ukrainian currency.

The word herivnia means neck ring, 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 is new.

Shetland, Orkney, and the Faroeiles present fresh opportunities for settlement. But the true dissenters want a clean break. They will establish a brand new homeland, a Viking utopia, Iceland. That's next time. You can listen to the next two episodes of Real Vikings right now, Without waiting and without ads by joining Noyser Plus. Click the banner at the top of the feed or head to noisor.com forward slash subscriptions to find out more.