Olaf Tryggvason king of Norway (9951000), great-grandson of Harold I. His early life of exile and slavery is surrounded with romantic legend, and little is definitely known of it. He aided his father-in-law, the duke of Poland, in war and took part in harrying the English coast and may have been present at the famous battle of Maldon near Essex. Later converted to Christianity, he made peace (c.994) with the English. Olaf Tryggvesson founded Throndhjem church and dedicated it to St. Clement in 996.In 995, Olaf went to Norway, overthrew Håkon, and became king. He commissioned Lief Ericsson to carry Christianity to Greenland. Olaf fought for the emperor Otto III under the mythical Wendish king Burislav whose daughter he had married. On her death, he followed the example of his countrymen and harried France and the British Isles until his conversion to Christianity by a hermit in the Scilly Islands. In England he married Gyda, sister of Olaf Kvaran, king of Dublin, and it was only after some years spent in administering her property in England and Ireland that he set sail for Norway, fired by reports of the unpopularity of its ruler Earl Håkon.
Olaf made overtures of marriage to Sigrid the Haughty, queen of Sweden. King Olaf was preceded by jarl Håkon Sigurdsson who ruled Norway as a vassal of Harald Bluetooth and was preceded by Harald Greyhide. Greyhide, the son of Eirik Bloodaxe and grandson of Harald of Norway, was preceded by Håkon the Good. Håkon, surnamed the Good, never married was brought up at the court of King Athelstan in England and raised an expedition against his half-brother Erik Bloodaxe. Olaf rescued many from Bloodaxe and sucessor Greyhide.
In 920, Bloodaxe undertook a Viking expedition to Bjarmaland, in northern Russia when the Saxons retook East Anglia from the Danes as German king Henry the Fowler conquers Utrecht, which had been in posession of the Vikings for 70 years. The golden age of the Empire of Ghana began in Africa. The Welsh ruler Howell the Good merged Dyfed and Seisyllwg and established a new kingdom known as Deheubarth. Much of what we know about the Viking Age Bjarmland comes from the Norse and Islandish sagas also from the writings by the Norwegian explorer Ottar ca 870, as well as the Arabian traders from the south.The Finnish national epic, the Kalevala - the Bjarmians were the most eastern of the Finnic people referred to as Kvens, and thus Bjarmaland formed the most eastern edge of the area known as Kvenland. Egils saga tells about Nór, founder of Norway, and his ancestors who lived in Kvenland. Both his Wendish and his Irish wife had brought Olaf wealth and good fortune, but Thyre was his undoing, for it was on an expedition undertaken in the yeare 1000 to wrest her lands from Burislav that he was waylaid off the island Svold, near Rügen, by the combined Swedish, Danish and Wendish fleets, together with the ships of Earl Håkon's sons. The Battle of Swold ended in the annihilation of the Norwegians. Olaf fought to the last on his great vessel the "Long Serpent" (Ormurin Langi), the mightiest ship in the North, and finally leapt overboard and was seen no more. Olaf died during his defeat at the naval battle of Svolder. The victors, King Sweyn of Denmark and King Olaf of Sweden, divided Norway.
His youngest brother, Håkon returned from England and won support from the Norwegian nobles and Bloodaxe moved to the Orkney Islands and later to the Kingdom of Jorvik (York.) He was initially met warmly by Athelstan, who made Eirik ruler in Northumbria, with a brief to provide a defence against the ravages of the Scots, and the Irish. For a short while he resisted Saxon claims to the North with the support of a kindred spirit Wulfstan, Archbishop of Jorvik. However, in 948 the Saxon King Eadred managed to dislodge and expel Eric. His rule in Northumbria soon degenerated by the populace and was betrayed by the earl of Bernicia, Osulf, to one Earl Maccus and killed in battle at Stainmore, Westmorland, in 954. In 954 at the battle of Stainmoor, Eric's son Haeric, his brother Ragnald and Eric himself were killed, ending the Scandinavian royal tradition in Jorvik for good. At this time the area known as Northumbria included all of Yorkshire, and ranged as far North as Edinburgh and as far west as to include most of modern Cumbria.
In 961, Sigmundur Brestisson is then chieftain in the Faroe Islands. Sigmundur is the son of Brestir and his girlfriend Cæcilia. He was married with Turiš Torkilsdóttir and together had they the daughter Tóra and the sons Tórálvur, Steingrímur, Brandur and Heri. At first Sigmundur tried to Christianize the Faroe Islanders by bringing the order to the Alting in Tórshavn. That yeare Håkon the Good of Norway- a branch of the House of Yngling died and his brother, Eric Bloodyaxe, had succeeded Harold as chief king. The kings Óláfr Tryggvason and Oláfr hinn helgi, like Bloodaxe were not from Harold Hairfair dynasty from 930-1030. Many of the Norwegian kings of the Hairfair dynasty were in fact Danish vice-kings.
In 965 the Khazar kingdom is broken by Kievan Rus: a medieval Slavic state that was the forerunner of modern Russia. The Varangian Rurik of Rus born in Friesland (Holland) established himself at Novgorod c.862 and founded a dynasty. Rurik was the Viking (or Varangian) leader who ventured from Jutland. His successor, Oleg or Oleh (d. c.912), shifted his attention to the south, seized Kiev (c.879), and established the new Kievan state. The Varangians were also known as Rus or Rhos; it is possible that this name was early extended to the Slovs of the Kievan state, which became known as Kievan Rus. They are also known to have been allied with the Byzantine Empire during at least part of the 700s. In the 7th century AD they founded an independent Khaganate in the Northern Caucasus along the Caspian Sea, where over time Judaism became the state religion. Armenian chronicles contain references to the Khazars as early as the late second century. Originally the Khazars were probably allied with various Norse factions who controlled the region around Novgorod and regularly travelled through Khazar-held territory to attack territories around the Black and Caspian Seas. By 913, however, the Khazars were engaged in open hostilities with Norse marauders. In the 10th century the empire began to decline due to the attacks of both Vikings from Kievan Rus and various Turkic tribes. It enjoyed a brief revival under the strong rulers Aaron and Joseph, who subdued rebellious client states such as the Alans and led victorious wars against Rus invaders.
Varangians was a name given by Slovs and the Byzantine Greeks to Scandinavians who began to raid the eastern shores of the Batlic and Eastern Europe by the ninth century. During the 10th and 11th cent. they served as soldiers of East Slavic princes, but they gradually merged with the Slavs, adopting Slavic culture. To the southwest, the principality of Galicia had developed trade relations with its Polish, Hungarian, and Lithuanian neighbors. Centered around the city of Kiev, it included most of present-day Ukraine and Belarus and part of northwest Russia subdued medieval Alania and became part of the Caucases from the 1250s. Rurik was possibly of Wendish extraction; of a Slavic tribe which once occupied the northern and eastern parts of Germany, of which a small remnant exists and whether patricians elected an emperor. During the years from 1054 to 1224 no less than 64 principalities had a more or less ephemeral existence, 293 princes put forward succession claims, and their disputes led to 83 civil wars. The Crusades brought a shift in European trade routes that accelerated the decline of Kievan Rus'.
Riurik in Old Norse; Hrrekr, in Old English and Old High German; Hrošricus, in Kven or Iceland; Hrørikr or Rørik... The name also appears in Beowulf as Hrešrik. Beowulf and Hrólf Kraki are supposed to have lived sometime around 450550 AD when Helgi's son Hrólf Kraki who lived among Rorik, the son of Bok the covetous. The placename Bugøynes (Pykeija or Pykeijä - in Finnish) is a fishing community in the very most northeastern tip of Norway, in the province of Finnmark, situated by the Varanger Fjord (Bøkfjorden in Norwegian). The term Kven (alternative names: Kveeni, Kvaen, Kvæn, Cwen, Quen, Quain, Qwaen) - Kainulainen (Kainulaiset in plural) in Finnish - has historically been used in reference to all Northern Scandinavian people, who are of a pre twentieth century Finnish origin. Sometimes occuring Kieven before or after occurence. Heorot is the great hall built by king Hrothgar who is Hrólf Kraki's uncle when Beowulf leaves Geatland and arrives at the Danish court.
áglaéca-Middle Irish Olach
Svitjod was one of the old names for Sweden, a name still used for the country by the Icelanders.The Swedish vikings also played a role in the west during the later Viking Age. This first occurred during the conquest of England under the Danish kings Svein Forkbeard and his son Cnut from 1007-1013. Later on, Swedes were recruited by the infamous King Harald III of Norway (Harald Hardrada), to help him win back control of Norway. These Swedes subsequently helped Harald invade England in 1066.
In 1082 Skálholt becomes the diocesan seate of the first bishopric of Iceland after the consecration of the first bishop of Iceland, Ísleifur Gissurarson at Skálholt. By 1096 the cultural history of the Vikinga effect Iceland as the first Nordic Country to introduce payment of tithe to the church. The power of big farmers and chieftains had now grown stedily but unobtrusively. And in 1006 second bishopric established at Hólar in the north. Jón Ögmundsson became the first bishop there and abolished pagan customs and practises. He succeeded in changing the days of the week which were named after the pagan gods Tyr (Tuesday), Odin (Wednesday) and Thor (Thursday) to third day (žriðjudagur), midweek day (miðvikudagur), and fifth day (fimmtudagur). He also forbade dancing and love poems from the Saga Age to the end of the Age of Peace.
During the Viking Age, and before -, the Norwegians have called the above described area - i.e. the entire northernmost territories of Scandinavia, east from the Norwegian Atlantic coast - Kvenland, the land of the Kvens (or Cweens, Kvens, Kveens, Quens, Queens) . By Kvens the Norwegians have always meant the extreme northernmost Scandinavian people of Finnic background (discluding the Finnic Samis) whome the Finnish people have throughout the known history known as the people of Kainuu, a.k.a. kainuulaiset today, or kainulaiset in historical Finnish writings. The historic Viking Age Norse sagas tell about the kings of the Kvens.
During the first millennium A.D. the northernmost Finns on the Scandinavian peninsula were called Kvens by the Norse. Nearly all major wars, border disputes, trade and cultural exchanges up in Northern Scandinavia took place between the Norse and the Kvens. In the return of the second millennium A.D. the Finnish Karelians - sometimes with the support of the Slavic groups, such as the Novgorodians - participated in the border and other disputes near and within Kvenland / Lappland. In the Middle Ages and during the Viking Age Kvenland covered the vast majority of the Northern Scandinavian and Fennoscandian territories.
In the epic Finnish Kalevala legend - as in Finnish language in general - Kvenland has always been known as Kainuu or Kainu. Compared with the modern day Finnish province of Kainuu the traditional, historic territories of Kainuu - i.e. Kvenland - reached much further up north-west and north than at the present time.