The 'Valkyrie' from Hårby 800 CE
"Contemporary foreign sources testify abundantly that the Byzantine Greeks, even prior to 852, knew the Russes to be Scandinavians. Luidprand of Cremona, who was in Constantinople in 949, writes of the Byzantine capital that it is situated among dangerous neighbors, for at its north it is menaced by Magyars, Pechenegs, Khazars and Rusii, "Whom we call Nordmanni [Normans]." The identification of Rusii with Normans is repeated in his subsequent account of Igor's foray of 942."
-The Russian Primary Chronicle, Laurentian Text, translated and edited by Samuel Hazzard Cross & Olgerd P. Sherbowitz-Wetzor
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Al-Masudi identified the Rus with the same northern people raiding al-Andalus in the Iberian Peninsula: "Sometime before the year 300/912–913, ships carrying thousands of men reached al-Andalus by sea and raided the Atlantic coasts. The people of al-Andalus claimed that these enemies were one of the nations of the majūs [word for Vikings in al-Andalus], who came to attack them by sea every two hundred years and that they reach their country by means of a channel which communicates with the Ocean. This is not to be confused with the channel upon which is the bronze lighthouse. Personally, I think – but God best knows the truth – that this channel communicates with the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea and that the attackers were those Rūs we have already mentioned, since they are the only people who sail those seas that communicate with the Ocean."
- quote from Ibn Fadlan and the Land of Darkness
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| Wooden replica by Morten Skovsby. (6 ft 7 in) high and weighing 300–400 kg (660–880 lb). Put on display in Assens in 2015. |
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| Note the swastika on the shield. |
Source:
Quote:
The Russian Primary Chronicle, Laurentian Text, translated and edited by Samuel Hazzard Cross & Olgerd P. Sherbowitz-Wetzor
Ibn Fadlan and the Land of Darkness
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