Eastside Vikings: The Rus and Queen Olga of Kiev. S:2, E:6

In this episode we take a peak over the horizon at our Eastern Norse, The Rus. River Kings and warriors, this group of Viking Age Scandinavians fought, raided and settled on rivers throughout Eastern Europe and even into modern-day Russia. One of the fiercest of these Rus was a woman named Olga. She was a queen, a saint and a prolific grudge-holder. Enjoy!

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Hello?

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Hello?

SPEAKER_02 0:04

Welcome to. I don't even know what this will be. See episode six, maybe.

SPEAKER_00 0:10

Yeah, it's something. Yeah, I'm still looking at my thing.

SPEAKER_02 0:15

Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:17

Um, do you want me to um do you want me to introduce it or are we going off to our ladies? I think I have a way to get to our ladies.

SPEAKER_02 0:29

Yeah, introduce other ones, our ladies. And we can talk on the way to our ladies if you want.

SPEAKER_00 0:36

Well, Sarah, what did you in a nutshell, what did you research for this episode?

SPEAKER_02 0:42

Well, for this episode, I felt like we had thought, we feel like I felt like we felt like we needed to go east, right? Back to the Russian, the Rus. Kind of talk about because what's interesting is at the same exact time the Viking movement kind of kicked off in Western Europe and oh, off towards Iceland, kind of 1740, when they attacked Lindisfarne, you know, they attacked the monastery, and that's typically what people will say kicked it all off when it switched from trading to now raiding these people. Um there's a lot of focus on the Nor regions and going west and going south, and but at the exact almost the exact same time, which is interesting, that movement was getting pushed um east. Not getting pushed, that movement headed east and was happening east as well. Whether it was uh there's no way it could have been coordinated and it doesn't sound like it, and I think I've read that it was like a planned now we raid and everybody raid. It was just kind of something that happened. Oh, now I'm gonna talk too much. I and I have like the reasons.

SPEAKER_00 2:07

I have like I I need you to talk too much today because I went a totally different direction and I wanna go I wanna go this direction. So yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:16

Well, I want to know what direction you went, because that's interesting. My only thing I actually didn't know I was going this direction. I'm just talking about it.

SPEAKER_00 2:22

Yeah, just go because I covered um I think I'm ready for next week week when we're back from wandering.

SPEAKER_02 2:32

Oh well no, let's do this. No, no, no, no, okay. You go, you go because you're and then I want to hear your introduction.

SPEAKER_00 2:43

Just talk like you're giving a lecture. Well, no.

SPEAKER_02 2:47

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 2:48

Let me just I'll tell you because I'm telling you, I'm fascinated in what you're saying.

SPEAKER_02 2:54

Did you go east at all? Or no?

SPEAKER_00 2:57

I did not. I it's weird. I got stuck on um the thorn fin. I got stuck on the Greenland, what made them sick, why they died. I did not wonder that that way.

SPEAKER_02 3:12

Well, let's do both. I think they'll blend.

SPEAKER_00 3:15

Mine's very quick, and it's not even Well, I'm I'm already my interest is peaked, so just go.

SPEAKER_02 3:23

And when you're done, and then we'll bring them back over.

SPEAKER_00 3:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:28

Because I don't this isn't very long. This is just me talking about it.

SPEAKER_00 3:31

No, I I would like you to go long enough and then I'll ask you questions as we go, because I have all our women written down that went all over the place. So I'm ready.

SPEAKER_02 3:41

Okay. Yeah, because we're trying to get to these women that are over there too. Right. And it does come back around because these women are related in a way, if you want to say to Eric the Red's wife, who then is and I would even of course say Gudred and her, you know. So any, but it was just interesting to think like what happened, what's happening at the same time east eastward, right?

SPEAKER_00 4:08

Yes, because we have said we have talked about the Vikings um and our the lineages going back to Russia, to Kiev, to Ukraine. We mentioned that in an earlier episode. So I think it would be a good time to Okay. It's always nice to find out what's going on. You know, we've got Gudrid here safely in Greenland. We've got a prophecy that says everything's going great. Let's look at what everyone else is doing for a minute.

SPEAKER_02 4:38

And it's um uh what were you just saying? That made me think of that. Oh, also if we're talking like this, all this kind of kicked off in 750. And Gudrun's born in almost a third 300 years, 200 years later.

SPEAKER_00 4:56

250 750, she was born in 960, 960 or 980.

SPEAKER_02 5:05

Which is cool because the last lady we talked about that Ova, she died in 969. So it's kind of all these things that built up to make this world. And these people that are coming into Gudrud's life, like Thorn Finn, his legacy goes is a very Viking rich legacy. And where are the mindset is that something happened in in this same period of time that made these people venture out in a different kind of way. And um Neil Price talks about how it was initially like in the seventh century, eighth century, people would come to the Scandinavian countries to trade. So it was people voyaging to them. Yeah. So he kind of talked about the change. So he says these contacts were almost entirely coming to Scandinavia. And he's saying in the seventh century and the first decades of the eighth century, trade did not take the form of northern merchants venturing outwards. And it was but we know that it was kind of, it was just the mass amounts of trade he's saying. Um but then something switched and trade went outward. And maybe that's what happened. Maybe our people started seeing these opportunity places. But also um different groups of people were noticing the difference of these Scandinavian people, how big and strong and um they wanted them to be their mercenaries and hire them for different jobs and you know.

SPEAKER_00 6:54

Yes, and especially I, you know, as we talk about the what's happening in um Byzantine and Carthage and Tunisia and all these places, um, they were recognizing for sure these North people, these Norse people, and even in the Mediterranean, they talk about the sea people coming down to Egypt. And um and they are kind of an interesting force, and they're almost disruptors of this market system that had been going on in um Babylonia and in um you know the eastern in Russia over by um Estonia. What's what's that really famous market town?

SPEAKER_02 7:41

Ladoga, Lagoga, Lagoda.

SPEAKER_00 7:45

To to talk about what's happening in those parts of the world, we we spent a lot of time in um the Celtic world and in England and Scotland and Hebrides, Iceland and Greenland. Now it is interesting because you don't realize at the same time at a thousand AD they were disrupting stuff. Right?

SPEAKER_02 8:08

Yeah, it had it had been building to um to and I think the change of the hour trade and then the trading, then that turning into rating was not not that not hundreds and hundreds of years. I think it was pretty quick, I think. There's I mean he always does disclaimers like, well, historians will argue, or you know, so if you disagree, comment. Um but it was um so I'm getting off. So the Harold Fairhair, Harold the Fairhair kind of was the first one to kind of consolidate Norway, and he does directly affect our Iceland people. There's sagas, there's Icelandic sagas that are dedicated um to the tale of error Harold Fairhair. And what year was this? So the Eagle, it's a saga of Eagle, Eagle. Um pause, let me find out.

SPEAKER_00 9:17

And this isn't that important, but um whatever you think to say, I I feel the for this week is important, so I think you should spit it out.

SPEAKER_02 9:28

So I would have to look up when Eagle Saga is said to have taken place. Harold Fairhair, we can do him. He's um Eagle Saga. Yeah, I have a timeline for Harold Fairhair. What's the time period of Harold the Fairhare? Okay, so he was born in 860, he died in 900. So he's about our time too. And um, so he was setting up things in Norway. He was the very big uh push for the Iceland, he wanted to to consolidate it all, even Iceland, even um just all of Norway into Sweden. And he had which pushed everything this way, I think. Maybe I'm just talking out of my butt.

SPEAKER_00 10:16

Which way? East or west?

SPEAKER_02 10:18

Yeah, east. Um, because if you didn't like that, then you could go east, right? And you could still create your own adventures and you get your own gain and get your own raids. So while this was kind of happening in Norway itself, this consolidation thing happening and this tension for these young men, you know, trying to make a place in this world. Right. And then you go east, and then that was happening. There's this whole new world Latvia, Estonia, Finland. You could go, so it was like the Wild West in reverse, right? So it was the Wild East. And that's where they went, and they um they just found river routes through what is now Ukraine, like you're saying, Slovenia, Russia, and they were known as the Rus R-U-S. Those were, if you were a Rus or you were Scandinavian in this country.

SPEAKER_00 11:17

Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:18

And uh the Dreblin that I just looked up, those are the more Slavic indigenous group who eventually they would have they didn't like the Rus because they were building, they weren't just going in the raid, they were establishing towns and trade in their own trade routes, and then they were getting gain and favor with different tribes, and they made it all the way down through Ukraine to the Byzantine Empire, which was the King Kamehameha of the time, you know. Yeah, and weren't good with that, you know, they were the king's guards, and so they were a force to be reckoned with in that area. So it's interesting.

SPEAKER_00 12:03

It it is because, you know, to talk about the Celtic, to talk about England and um Ireland and the Anglo-Saxons over there is is one thing. You're dealing with um a culture that's been conquered for 500 years. You're dealing with all sorts of um, you're not dealing with an organized society, right? You still have your Celtic kings and you still have the Picts up north. And but then to go east and we start exploring uh Byzantine and Tunisia and um all of these civilizations that also have relations with the Asian civilizations, the Kong dynasty and all those things happening, um they're busy over there too. And and they figured out because the Norse were so were um what's the word, petty kings themselves and clannish and tribal and w understood that kind of warfare, they basically thrived when they'd enter a an existing marketing town who was surrounded not by a controlled um institutional power structure, but they thrived in if if an area was unstable like the Slavs or the you know, and they knew how to do that, and then they could through their kinship ties and their Norse traditional ties, they knew someone in every port, right? And that's how London was conquered, that's how Paris was conquered, um, because they weren't I'm blah, blah, blah, but there you go.

SPEAKER_02 13:51

They were experts, and this is their wheelhouse, you know.

SPEAKER_00 13:55

Think about it, how important it is to talk about this eastern part is um you have civilizations that are just being uncovered now, like Gobleck Gobekli Tepe. And the Celts emerged from this part of um the continent there from Europe. They moved westward originally thousand, you know, in BC, right? Or a thousand um but in this Estonia, in this Slavic, in this area, this almost this bread or this foundational womb of all these other cultures. And so there was a lot going on over there. You're right, and the Norse people were understanding them too.

SPEAKER_02 14:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:45

Isn't that interesting?

SPEAKER_02 14:46

They um there's two trains of there's two historic historian debates going on about the name Russia. Because I just knew that there's more than two, but the name Russia, R-U-S-S-I-A, yeah, they saw it right, Russia, R-U-S-S-I-A, um is R-U-S, Rus, that's the skin name for Scandinavium, is in the name Russia. So are we saying Russia is a Scandinavian, you know, founded. So the argument is yes, obviously, that's and then the probably the more accurate argument is well, they were really important in the creation of Russia, right? They were they did, they had they were involved in all these other little the Slavic and the Estonians and down to the Byzantine. They were just in everybody's business and also creating their own kingdoms, and that they were such an important part of it that maybe that's why some will say no, it's just a coincidence, but it is cool to think even the name Russia has the first three letters, are the name that people in that region gave for the Scandinavian Sea Kings, you know, or river kings.

SPEAKER_00 16:02

And it's cool. And and how they had no business wandering that far.

SPEAKER_02 16:09

Like and it's land, it's river-based. So we're talking a whole new kind of boat, a whole new kind of travel. They they would sail from Sweden or from Finland, you know, across the Baltic Sea. Sorry, I had to look at my map, the Baltic Sea, um, and get in through the again, the Estonia area, right where St. Petersburg, Russia is now. They were, you know, setting up shop and penetrating that part of the continent, taking river systems down through Ukraine into the what's Ukraine Sea? Is it the Black Sea? Is that the Black Sea? Yeah. Okay. Yes. Do we need to show our map? We can. It's I don't my map doesn't go that far. I think it's the Black Sea that Ukraine is north of, and then Constantinople, Istanbul is south, right? So they made it across the Black Sea, which is a pretty big sea, but so they'd have to know how to navigate that and then get down. And all along the way, they're spreading their seed and they're marrying people, and and they're they're keeping pretty, pretty true to their pagan Scandinavian rituals and faith. You've got um someday we'll have to talk really more about the I can't remember his name now. The man from he was Arab, I think, who oh yeah of all the he a lot of the information we get from yeah, comes from his journal. Yeah. And he's the one that that observed them when they wash their faces in the group, they have one bowl of water, and the first guy will wash his face, scrub, blow his nose in the water, and pass it to the next guy, and he'll wash his face. Well uh and gets he observed that. He also observed one of the most extravagant burial, you know, where he saw this the the a lot of the information we get from burials of slaughtering horses and a man's naked and blowing white powder on the fire, and the slave girl is inebriated and brought up to and has to lay with the dead body of the he's the eyewitness for that that we get. So yeah. Um, so he kind of talks about how they were so different, and so he doesn't speak very well of them, and he probably had his own bias too, but just what a and what an amazing uh pivotal moment it was when they came and started doing the thing they do, you know? So and he was um was he Turkish or was he? He was Muslim. I almost think he's Egyptian or something. Yeah. We could pause and look, he's pretty important. I could look him up.

SPEAKER_00 19:17

Yeah, he's important. He accounts because he's one of the only contemporary observers. The rest we get from the sagas, right?

SPEAKER_02 19:27

Yeah, I think there's one other contemporary, he's the most known, he's the most.

SPEAKER_00 19:32

I think there's one other yeah, um I could find on my notes.

SPEAKER_02 19:39

I know I have him. I have him's name even.

SPEAKER_00 19:41

That's not bad.

SPEAKER_02 19:41

This is the Muslim eyewitness to the Viking era who kept really good journals and diaries. He has a big long name. Yeah, it was really easy.

SPEAKER_00 19:53

Was it Sof Nain?

SPEAKER_02 19:56

No. Maybe. Oh, Ahmad M. Fadlan. Oh, H M A D Ahmad. Then the middle name is Ibn Ibn Fadlan, F-A-D N. He was a 10th-century Arab traveler and envoy um whose writings give us one of the best-known eyewitness accounts of the Rus Viking world, especially his description of the Rus he encountered on the Volga Volga in 921-922. So this is it's cool because that's about the time. He is especially famous for recording the Roos ship funeral in remarkable detail. Yeah. So he did that ship burial.

SPEAKER_00 20:36

Yeah. And um he's the same age. He's doing this exploring the same time when Gudrid's grandfather was being kidnapped.

SPEAKER_02 20:46

Yeah, so very contemporary. Yeah. Wow. Okay. Yeah. Um, so anyway, the I don't know if I have to even talk about just the the expansion, the way if you picture it, I just just picture it this whole other land. If you know anything about that part of the world, it's heavily forested. Latvia, Estonia, Ukraine, Belarus, he would have gone down through it. They would have all gone down through. Um, and winding rivers and just ambush at any moment. You had to just be a really good warrior to be existor.

SPEAKER_00 21:27

I mean, this is a totally different um guide than what we've been talking about, or or a different side, because you mentioned think about how many different types of navigational skills and ships you would have had to understand to get across the Black Sea, to get from Norway all the way down and past Denmark to get down into where Germany is or St. Petersburg.

unknown 21:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:59

And then to Navigate rivers and navigate land like terrain and they can you know I think Norway and Finland, you would learn obviously how to fight battles on land and in the mountains. In fact, they're known for skiing during battles, correct?

SPEAKER_02 22:21

Yeah, there's a really cool, it's like a 5000 BC cave drawing of uh skis. It's really cool. Yeah. Um, so they've been doing that forever. So yeah, these are cool.

SPEAKER_00 22:39

I mean, you'd have to know how to deal with all different kinds of uh watercraft and then bring everything back and know what you're looking for. And then to come home. Like that's the thing about when you talk about explorers in the more I'd say modern world, but let's say the 1800s. Um when they left, like let's say the Irish famine or um those coming over to America for the gold rush, the conventional wisdom is they left thinking they'd never come home again. And what's so strange about the Norse tales is of course you come home. Yeah you come home every winter. You know, you go down, but you come back.

SPEAKER_02 23:27

And you and you tell the tale, you put erect your room stone and tell what adventure you've done.

SPEAKER_00 23:34

Yeah, and then you look at our our um guy you just mentioned, our Arabian traveler, who's on a pilgrimage of his own, yeah, who's gonna go home and he writes to tell about it and you know and how valuable he is as a source for us to see into that world. Anyway.

SPEAKER_02 23:54

It's um it's amazing that it existed. And yes, that he survived, right? To travel around. Survived.

SPEAKER_00 24:01

So, you know, anyway, that's what here's one random menopause thought on that. Okay. They say right now the most people in history are migrating and are um not migrating, but they're, you know, you think of the Gaza Strip, you think about Syria, you think about all these places. There it's the most movement of humans from place to place that they've seen. Wow. Wow. A true might migration period again. Yeah. Like we're watching the Bering Straits thing happen or something. Yeah, that's crazy. Okay, I got you option No.

SPEAKER_02 24:45

And we do need to talk about I guess this is probably as good a time as ever. That this peop these people culturally had did the great migration. I mean, they did have to leave their lands in in 550 when all the volcanic explosions were happening, I think down with the Philippines or somewhere, and it was the dust veil that changed all their farming. It was basically the most the way he was describing it, that this plant, the plan, the whole planet was affected, and it was basically equivalent to a nuclear holocaust. That's if you've ever read about what happens after nukes go off all over the place, is that if you survive the initial blast and the fallout, then you have to deal with your skies being darkened for years and years and years. You have to change the way you farm, you have to change the way you get your food, change everything. And these this group of pe these people, these on the whole planet, this these people on this planet at this time, they don't remember it themselves because we're talking about 550 to 9, but it's in their oral lineage of this great migration period. And they do find um sites throughout Scandinavia of abandoned farms during this time. People did pick up and leave, um, starvation. And so again, it comes back to that not being fearful of venturing of migrating or moving, changing. But the cool part, like you're saying, is that it wasn't going from Europe to America and you're never coming back. It's going from Oslo to Byzantine, whatever, is Istanbul, Constantinople, with the all full intention of getting back. Like they didn't always come back on river. There's a group of men that had to come back over land, or you know, it's just but with the intention of coming back. I think that's just I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 26:56

It's one of the things about humans is our curiosity and makes us do dangerous things when we could just you know, but also you're saying our earth is a changing being, you know, that volcano happening, we can still see it in the the trees of that time, this dead cycle of the earth and you know, and ice, yeah. So I think it's more common than we think. We think the old people stay in one house for generations, and I think you're lucky if you get to do that on this planet.

SPEAKER_02 27:36

That's true. And and it's can be just as brave to venture out. It can be almost more brave to try to get back, you know.

SPEAKER_00 27:48

Like that's a good point.

SPEAKER_02 27:51

It's one thing to s pack up and ship out, and I'm heading out. It's another thing to pack up and ship out, and I'm heading out, and I need to figure out a way to get back, you know. It's just yeah, it's a different kind of mindset. That's a such a holy intention of coming home.

SPEAKER_00 28:07

Cause it reminds me of the Ashgawandan um matriarchs who had to plan enough um moccasins and enough food for their warriors when they left to get back. And for extra if they were bringing some friends with them home from the war. So you're right, there is that's important. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 28:31

So I think I think maybe why would be because they were out to the goal was to come back and get your farm, get your land, get your kingdom, get your and the way you did it was by going out, raiding, coming back. Um but obviously they did settle and they made homes in this part of the world. But um the the traveling back and forth, I think, was pretty extensive. I think it was a pretty common thing, more than I ever thought, you know.

SPEAKER_00 29:04

And I think it's important for what you're gonna talk about today is the fact that we were talking about how much Christianity maybe rocked the pagan world. But if you look at what was happening at the same time um in the East, they'd been dealing with Persians, they'd been dealing with Islam, they'd been dealing with the ancient Chinese traditions, or you know, they Christianity was new, I guess, but um they were good at like you're saying, they were bringing their traditions with them, and then they'd pick and choose and live and live live with so they were all pretty sophisticated in some sense. If they all came back for the winter and shared all the different languages and people traditions they'd met, what an interesting, way more sophisticated than I am.

SPEAKER_02 30:05

There's uh there's a I read a long time ago before we ever did this, just that because the Vikings were so um porous in their cultural acceptance through their slaves, through their travel, through with coming and going, that when it came time to convert to Christianity, it was oftentimes, we know that it was terrible in certain parts, but maybe Iceland is one of these. It was uh they're like, okay, so this is another new thing, right? Or the way it was well, the way it wasn't fought or or uh repelled so viciously as other places in Europe because they were so kind of like, yeah, it's just another belief, another, and that's fine kind of thing. I don't know if that's necessarily true now with what we've been reading so much, but I do kind of feel like maybe that exposure to all these different, especially on the eastern side to all of this. I mean, later, not around the same time, you're gonna have the Huns coming, you know, and all of this mishmash of belief and truth, and I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 31:25

So it's it's and that's not even Africa, which is it's closer to them than the Asian places possibly, except for Russia touches them all, but um so much is happening there, so much culture, so much trading, you know. It just so it's kind of cool to look at this world as a whole, this whole system, you know, to not just focus on one, the same old story.

SPEAKER_02 31:54

Yeah. But um, I'll just really quit mention some of the things he says. Well, first, this is a cute part he Neil Price is also mentioning in this in the telling of the eastern side because of the name and how important the name was. And he kind of goes off a little bit on a tangent talking about how movies and stories and fiction have given Viking names pretty cool, like outrageously fantastic names, like you know, the barbarian or the slayer, the blood eater, blah blah blah blah blah. And he says it's those are cool, they're kind of nice to think about, but he lists off some actual, truly established they're on runes and staves, like truly typical Viking names. Um one is Attie, the messmate, so your name would just be the messmate. Well, so you're fun to eat with. Yeah. Betty the cruiser, Ekil, he who sails alone, which would be kind of cool. Git Getir, the goat, guestil, the little guest, jocker the screamer, missinger, the mouse, Mayville the Seagull, and Rocky, who he who sails at dusk. Just these how then, and I don't know, this isn't really tie-in what we're talking about, but kind of just how your everyday existence would get end up being your big Viking name, you know.

SPEAKER_00 33:27

Well, and it's colorful. Like, thank goodness they had those names. And thank goodness, I mean, you look at the um Native Americans and how descriptive their names for themselves were, or how they earned their names, or you know.

SPEAKER_02 33:41

Yeah, so think of your some Slovenian or Slavic guy in the woods, and here comes, you know. I don't know. It's cool.

SPEAKER_00 33:52

No, there's some really good ones. Like um, even in our lineage, well, it would take me too long to find them, but there's some funny ones. We can pause. Okay, I'll I'll find them. There's some really funny ones, but we're not getting to your point at all.

SPEAKER_02 34:08

Oh, this is just a meandering of the east. I don't have a point.

SPEAKER_00 34:12

I won't I won't find them because I want to find them.

SPEAKER_02 34:15

Oh, darn.

SPEAKER_00 34:17

Oh, but there's like the iron hair and oh yeah. I've got 'em. Okay. Okay. Okay. So here's some early nicknames from these are from um Sweden and Finland. So King Fjord, the ancient giant. Ooh. The wind. Um that's called a king. This is in 274 AD, but Konig Jokuli Frosty Karason Frosteson, otherwise known as the Lord of Ice. Ooh, I love it. No. You know, they're just, they have good self-esteem.

SPEAKER_02 35:00

Yeah, good names.

SPEAKER_00 35:02

Yeah. But yeah, you wonder if they gave I I guess they don't give their name to themselves because we kind of learned in the sag about how Leif Ericsson got the name the lucky.

SPEAKER_02 35:14

Yeah, they give it to them. So you better hope you're sorry, you better hope that you're funny.

SPEAKER_00 35:20

That's a little aside we could cut.

SPEAKER_02 35:22

And then Roos, R-U-S means river. So they were the river people. So the Roos or the River people.

SPEAKER_00 35:28

So they knew them to come and attack.

SPEAKER_02 35:30

So they weren't the Vikings coming, they were the Roos, but they're the same. Interesting. So I don't know, the names are kind of cool. Um, so then we then you know we turn to our women. So what were women what were our women doing in this time period? And there's um several that are really interesting. I'll just talk about one, Princess Olga of Kyiv, or Kiev, however, we're supposed to say it now. Um, but Ukraine. And she was born questionably, but she's for sure. Um, what's the word? I just looked it up. I even ohangian.

SPEAKER_00 36:13

Oh they're an important line.

SPEAKER_02 36:18

Yeah. Varan Varangian. So they are Scandinavian descent, they are warriors, they were they were roosts. I mean, they're the same c group of Scandinavian people in uh Eastern Europe at that time. You know, but then you say the time again for me, I missed it. This is all going to be happening right in our time in the 900s.

SPEAKER_00 36:44

Okay, so she's right there with Gudrid and Kink and Odd.

SPEAKER_02 36:48

She's a little, she's yeah, but she's she's odd, maybe between Gudrin and Odd. Okay. Okay. Um, but this is just happening over there, and she's a daughter of a a Varangian, who which means he's just a strong warrior. Um, and she's a princess. Yeah, and he's he's created a kingdom for himself enough that they've got wealth, they've got power, they have enemies, they have people that want to negotiate with them, and she's considered she's called the princess, and she's princess Olga. But don't be confused that that name sounds really Russian because Olga is the Russian pronoun pronunciate Russian name for Helga. So she's either Helga or she's Olga. Yeah, that's why. Okay. So she's probably born Helga.

SPEAKER_00 37:41

Born in Kiev.

SPEAKER_02 37:43

She was born over there in I don't know if it's she dies in Kyiv, but I don't know if she and starts in Kyiv. But she definitely starts off over there. Ukraine's Slavic area.

SPEAKER_00 37:57

So this is another grandmother, same time period as Gudrid, living life in um Ukraine. Yeah. And I have what she is somewhere. Yeah, find it. Take a minute. Because I've studied her so long ago, so now I have and you've you've mentioned her uh several times. Yeah, I really like her. No, and I looked her up too, and she's fascinating.

SPEAKER_02 38:23

She's our great grandma through grandma Sanderson. She's 28. She's Helga, born in 1890-ish in Kievian Rus. And Dort died in Kiev. So yeah, you're right. I think she was born and died in the same place. She's flat from the clan of the House of the Varangian and the Rurik dynasty. And her name means, well, she eventually becomes a saint, long story short. But she has quite the journey in getting to it. Her dad, she's from she's the first baptized Ruse person. So she's coming from pagans, she's coming from um, you know, non-Christian family. And she marries. Oh my goodness, I can't even tell her story yet. She married Prince Igor, and he was Varangian, and he gets killed by this group of people called the Drevlians. Drevlians, and they're the local Slavic people, forest people. And wow. So her husband's killed, and she is now the queen, and she's got this land and this kingdom. And the leader of the Drevlians, the group that killed her husband, wants to marry her. And so the spoils of war. Yeah. So this is the group that I have referred to. The the king of the drevlians. See her.

SPEAKER_00 40:02

He died in 941. Take your time because you have good research. So take your time, make sure you have it. But the king of the drevlins. Was he called the mall leader?

SPEAKER_02 40:13

He might have. Oh yeah. Malk Lubeck, M-A-L-K. Prince of the Drevlands.

SPEAKER_00 40:21

Really cryptic notes, but that's I think what I have.

SPEAKER_02 40:24

So there is a you could do that. We could do that. There's there are people that do that because then his daughter becomes her slave. Who ends up being our grandma too. Wait, is this a different Olga?

SPEAKER_00 40:40

No, this is Olga. Okay, you're gonna need to gather yourself and tell this story. It's really important, and I love how we got to her. If you want to.

SPEAKER_02 40:51

I do want to.

SPEAKER_00 40:52

Otherwise, go to the other people you want to see.

SPEAKER_02 40:55

No, she's the one, the only one I'm gonna talk about. And her her daughter-in-law.

SPEAKER_00 40:59

Yeah. So just take a minute and set it out because I want to know if that's okay. Because her name is all over my notes. Like, look up Olga.

SPEAKER_02 41:12

Prince Maul, you're right. Prince Maul, you're right, Kim. Okay. So Prince Maul, who's the Drevelian leader, killed Olga's husband, and then he wanted to propose to her. And she was not, she was had a long game in mind for revenge. And so she didn't. Yeah. So she didn't just outright refuse him. She sent through couriers or whatever. Yes, send a party to talk about it. Or even this was the party that came to propose or whatever. But she knew the party was coming. And they come to her castle doors and she refuses them and sends them away. And then they're coming back. And while they're she knows they're coming back, she digs a big pit in her courtyard. And she welcomes them into the courtyard, closes the gates, and then pushes them all into the pit and has them all murdered. And then buries it, covers it all up. And then short soon after the Wait, so there's no messengers that go back.

SPEAKER_00 42:24

The guy that may you may not want to marry her.

SPEAKER_02 42:28

Well, they yeah. So they think it's a promising sign that this group never came back. So they picture they're getting wined and dined and making plans for the marriage. It's a good sign because none of them came back. So they send another group of even higher people because it's looking like there's going to be a marriage. And she puts them in the bathhouse. And she this and this is a theme. A lot of women do this. There's more than one story of a woman doing this. Uh for people proposing marriage, puts them in the bathhouse, locks the doors, and has it burned and burns them all down. But the king's not there yet, right? The prince, Prince What's his face isn't there either. Prince Maul hasn't shown up. These are all his own.

SPEAKER_00 43:13

I'm not a note where she's learned two strategies to kill them.

SPEAKER_02 43:22

They're bad, bad uh I keep saying bad ace. They're cutthroat. Yeah. I don't know. Wow. Okay. So she says no to them, and they they do find out about this. And it's her weird way of playing hard to get. Like I think it's her way of getting to the king to kill him or something. I don't know. It's revenge. It's kind of psychotic, yeah. It's like she's almost having fun with it, I feel like. Like law and crime a thousand AD. Yeah. That's crazy. So then she sends a message to the Drevelians. They don't know that all these people have been burned to death. She sends a message to the Drevelians saying, Prepare a good a big feast. We're coming. You know, we're on our way. Make a big feast, make a big dinner. Um it's in the same city where you killed my husband. So that doesn't give them a clue. So that I can weep over his grave and hold a funeral feast for him. So it sounds like things are she just has to have mourning and closure. I need to come to the city where you killed my husband, have a big feast, where still the marriage is gonna be great, whatever. So she goes with a small group of her attendants, she we goes, she weeps, she holds the feast. Hmm. And um she gets everybody drunk. All the drevellians, they get super drunk, and she tells them all to follow her, and she has them all slaughtered. So what do we have? We've killed one, two, three groups of people now. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:05

So she killed 5,000. That would be a major win if you you took care of three, you know, big groups of warriors.

SPEAKER_02 45:16

Yeah, so she killed 5,000 warriors on this night. What? Yeah. But then she returned to Kyiv, Kiev, to finish off the survivors. So um at this point, they are battling. So they she just killed a ton of their men. So they're having a big battle and a big war. And she goes to the walls of Kyiv and lays siege to the city. So then she lays siege to the Drevlian city and she sends a message and taunts them, and she's like, Why are you holding out? Um, all your cities have surrendered to me and submitted tribute, and so that they are all cultivating everybody's peaceful now, except for you, you dumb city, where the king, where the princes, you know. And so they respond that they would submit to tribute, but they were afraid she was still intent on avenging her husband, so they don't trust her. She says, She says, Well, all those murders, everything, I'm good, you know, that was enough for me. I feel peaceful now. Let's get this settled. And and they agree. So they make peace through carriers through the wall, right? They haven't opened the doors and let her in yet. She's still outside the gates, and she says, I just need three of your carrier pigeons to come. Send me three of your pigeons to show goodwill, and we'll then you know, tomorrow we'll have the big feast and we'll be all good. And again, what's that? Gotta make a f another feast. Yes, another feast. You get the men through the food, yes. So she um sees her carrier pigeons that will go home to this place on the other side of the wall, right? These pigeons, when she releases them, will go into the Drevlian city, and she puts some kind of flammable paper on the pigeons' feet, ties them, sends the pigeons back over, and then shoots fire arrows with fire and sets the whole town city on fire and wins. So she defeats them all. So she so that's how she got her legendary warrior don't mess with Olga status. Wow. Which is legendary in its own right, but what she's famous for. Oh, go ahead. No, go ahead. Well, no, that's how that's why I mean that's pretty cool what she did.

SPEAKER_00 47:39

Well, what what are her sources? Like, how do we know these legendary and why don't why don't we know them more?

SPEAKER_02 47:47

Like that would be I think you would if you were Catholic.

SPEAKER_00 47:51

Maybe.

SPEAKER_02 47:52

Oh, because she's a saint. She's a saint, yeah. So she's got it. So take that with will what you will, her stories, but they are documented um pretty good. I do have my sources for it. There's a lot of you know legend around it.

SPEAKER_00 48:12

Someone would have had to probably documented better than the sagas are. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 48:19

Because she has a feast day, she has her own feast day. She has several, several chapels in Russia. I mean, one, two, three, four, at least twenty. She's got a church in Chicago. She's got one, two, three, four in Canada. South Australia has a church for her. Where was this? Ukraine has twenty. So she's Oh, so we just don't know. We just don't know her. Well, you were Catholic and this was your patron saint. You'd know all about these stories.

SPEAKER_00 48:53

And if she were my patron saint, what would she help me with? Like what would I for her to to have her help me with?

SPEAKER_02 49:03

Her feast day is July 11th, which I think is cool. Um and she was the first they're saying the first European to be baptized, but that doesn't make sense. She was canonized in 1280. Yeah. And she's not done yet. I mean, she takes the daughter of Maul, they think, as a slave, and her name is Malusha, and she's very pagan and very sorceress-y. In fact, they think she's the one that when she did die, that they woke up from a cave to prophesy, or they got out of a cave or something. So she's very abused by Olga. Olga is a very mean mother-in-law because she has a son, um and she has to be regent for the son because the dad's dead, which is so many of our women are regents for these sons. Right. And she baptizes to Christianity, and he also baptizes to Christianity, but he gets her slave pregnant and becomes this concubine, has a son from there, and then that starts a whole like who's legitimate, blah, blah, blah. But she basically abuses this daughter-in-law for being and wants her to get baptized, and she never does. I don't think she does. Melusha, here's a picture of her coming out of the cave.

SPEAKER_00 50:36

So this is this the daughter of the poor prince that tried to marry Olga.

SPEAKER_02 50:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:43

And Olga conquered, and that deserves to be the slave.

SPEAKER_02 50:47

Yeah. Which is kind of maybe they did that as a shame thing who takes the daughter as your slave.

SPEAKER_00 50:54

Yeah, we have other grandmothers that were the slaves or took yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 51:01

So and then Melusha is then going to be the mother, legend has it, of Vladimir the Great. And it's a Norse saga that describes mother as a prophet prophetess who lived to age a hundred, and she predicts the future. So she's a legendary in that part of the world, Melusha. So you've got one woman that became a saint, and then this other woman who's uh kind of a legendary sorceress, you know, and with the same lineage coming from both, because the son of Melusha, the grandson of Olga, be is becomes a great, he has his own tales to tell, kind of thing. So that's you asked what we would be praying to her for.

SPEAKER_00 51:51

So let me find out. That is so interesting in our just our little talking about Gudrid and the pagan versus Christian. Now we've got a same time period, an opposite story. We have the the well, supposedly Christian. I don't know what kind of Christian she is, but Olga, and then the daughter is the stepdaughter or her enslaved person is um uh prophetess. Yeah, prophetess.

SPEAKER_02 52:22

Lived to a hundred, predicted the future, did the cave thing that so many of our sagas. I mean, Odin even woke up a sorceress from the cave to tell the future.

SPEAKER_00 52:34

Um tell us a little bit about why okay, you know, you tell what you want to tell. Well, no, tell them, ask me because I haven't found it yet. Um you've talked before about told interesting stories about women in caves, like the Delphi and the um, you know, how why prophet prophecy seems to happen in caves so often.

SPEAKER_02 52:56

Well, with the Delphi, it was it's just a natural gas that came out. This is in Greece, right? The Delphi. Um, uh this cave that the locals all found that emitted some kind of gas or fume that turned made it gave them hallucinations. So anybody could go to this cave, get your hallucination or revelation, ask a question and get your answer. You could go personally to this cave and get I've no, I think I've said this unless we said it in a meeting. No, you haven't.

SPEAKER_00 53:30

We we talk about it a lot because it's a great story.

SPEAKER_02 53:34

Um you could person so people could personally go up and have their own spiritual experience in this cave for whatever reason. And um then people would get too excited and it became dangerous, so then people could fall into the cave, right? So then the government had to, or the leaders had to protect the people and game this magical cave. So they made a wall around it. Well, then people will were still getting their own answers and their revelation. And what if it was like overthrow the leader, whatever?

unknown 54:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 54:06

So then they're like, okay, we just will have one person go into this cave, get all the answers, and then you can ask this person the question. And this was the oracle of Delphi. And it was a it was um at first it was a young maiden, and they had to do all they turned it into this wild, crazy, starved her for weeks, um, get her super drugged up, put her on top of this chair right over this fume. There's a picture of like this high chair where she'd sit and all the fumes are coming, and then you could ask the oracle questions, and she would tell you, you know, if your field was going to or what to do with your lover or whatever question you had. Um and then that got to be for whatever reason, whatever reason we could even say. They changed it from a young maiden to a woman of our age, a 50s woman. Maybe she wasn't getting whatever. Whatever. Maybe they were very nice and it was not humane. No, they weren't. No, they weren't nice. Older women did, post-childbearing years did, and that's the oracle of Delphi, and that's in the cave. And then you have like Odin, like I said, Odin wakes up a woman, uh sorceress in the cave, and she gives the creation story. She tells about Ragnarok, the end times, she tells about how the everything was created, and you have many people in the sagas waking up. There's one there with the end he wakes up a Val Rike to get the sword. You have a Val Reiki herself who goes through a cave to wake up her dad to get the sword. Like there's just a lot of waking up in caves, which also Christianity is into a cave, you know, a waking up in cave.

SPEAKER_00 56:02

Waking up, you're right. You're right. I mean, we could go into the womb because um, you know, Iceland has had literal caves lava tubes that they would go down into and and do ritualistic things. So they would literally go down into Mother Earth, and you know, and they say the burial mounds can be symbolic of that as well, that you're going under the earth and then you're gonna rise to your different place. So, you know, a very uh symbolic visual across like all so many different civilizations have this idea they're going into the earth and coming out again. Yeah. So I guess it's a portal or it's a place. I mean, the womb could be a portal.

SPEAKER_02 56:56

Whom is a portal, that's the ultimate portal. We don't know even know how that really all works. Spirit coming in and portaling out and through. Yeah, I mean, it's uh it's I I love that story for that reason. The the symbolic symbolism, the oracle of Delphi, of the cave, the never-ending government overstepping bounds in the name of safety, taking away people's own powers, and and then just the way that they describe the decision-making and changing who the oracle of Delphi was. It was a woman, and that kind of sets the and we're talking this was BC easily, way, way, way, way back, this Oracle of Delphi. And since then, then it was a women's power to be the prophetess and the seers and the, you know. Right. Right. Yeah. So in a way, these two women, Melusha and Olga, are intertwined in this story. One becomes a saint, a painter, saint. Oh, I haven't found out yet what you would actually. I suspect it's going to be something brave. Um, mass genocidal. Yeah, and she did. She she was like the one shining Christian in this world of paganism. And they call her the pearl in the mire.

SPEAKER_00 58:29

I'm gonna need to research her a little bit more. Or just research her curved version of Christianity. Yeah. That belief system is it because she overcame the pagan? Is that what they're trying to talk about?

SPEAKER_02 58:48

Yeah, which seems doesn't it that seem kind of late to be the first baptized Christian? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 58:58

Well, okay, if Malushka's around 936, right? Yeah, and then see Olga. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 59:07

Olga, she was a regent and blah blah blah, following her. She was the first ruler to be baptized. That's what they're saying.

SPEAKER_00 59:14

Oh, okay. Yes, because you started with Harold Fairhair, and we walked down our wandering path, and she's the first Norse, then probably.

SPEAKER_02 59:27

Yeah, and she's venerated as a saint in the Eastern Orthodox Church with the epitaph equal to the apostles. So she's I wonder if she's women power. She uh I could ask stupid blah blah blah.

SPEAKER_00 59:51

Okay, well, let's think about that because um and I want to do a little I'm gonna go probably have a problem tonight. Uh oh, no, sweet. Start researching Olga and Eastern Orthodoxy and all that stuff. Yeah. Because it's such a weird upside down story you just told.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:15

It is, it's crazy.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:16

For killing mass groups of people in ingenious and terrible ways.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:22

And then she rose up. Yeah, she's a saint, and they're saying because she rose up fr beyond above this warrior culture. So maybe as a mother she changed.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:37

Well, I think she symbolically killed paganism.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:42

Probably.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:44

And look, she enslaved a prophetess.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:49

Yeah. And abused her. And put her under the other side. Let me just ask one thing. What is Olga of Kiev or Saint Olga uh what do you call it? Worship for?

SPEAKER_00 1:01:06

Yeah. Prayed to for?

SPEAKER_02 1:01:09

Prayed to for.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:10

What's her power, like Saint Anthony?

SPEAKER_02 1:01:13

What why would someone worship or whatever the word is? Olga of Kiev. Saint Olga. Deal with that, chat. But it is a big deal. I guess to come from being a pagan princess to a Christian queen. Oh my gosh, she is fascinating.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:33

You're right. And in this whole new part of the world where you've got the Slovenians, you've got the so the Western part had the more natural um Christianity. This Christianity is funky, right? Yeah, it is.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:51

This is where you have your Gothic, your Goths are coming from here, your Aryan, you know, the whole not believing oh yeah. The the Trinity. Um He's not gonna tell me. Equal to the Apostles, because of her role in helping open the way for later Christianization of the Ruse. So she's kind of like the gateway to Christianity in this part of the country. Okay. So you could do conversion to Christian a conversion saint, steadfast widowhood. Huh. But equal to the apostle is what she stands for. So she's a high that's cool. We know another woman that was equal to the apostles. Yes, we do.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:45

Interesting. This is our same wow, funky. I'm so interested in this because Gudrid did the pilgrimage. Yeah. This lady. I I have to re- I have to do this thing that we talked about the first episode where I had to put my modern brain away for a minute and realize that I don't understand what saint means. I don't understand what um her god looked like. I don't understand um how she saw herself in her world, you know, and who is it a is it a man in wanting other women to only mourn and grieve and kill in the name of their dead husbands and not have a life after? Or yeah, I wonder.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:45

Or just regent regent queen to a future king, you know, is that all you're good for? And we have we've got a woman in Paris who, when the Vikings were attacking, like you were talking about how they came to Paris to take it over, she was a regent queen. She wasn't even the queen. Her son, her the king was a little guy, little baby, okay. And she was the regent queen. She's kind of giving credit for holding off the Vikings, you know. But she did. And then you've got the Celtic stories all over the place of these really powerful women. And then this one, she's made a saint because of her baptism into Christianity. I asked, how would you celebrate feast day? Um, you read her story, so it doesn't really say. In Psalms. So we need to find out. Yeah, it's interesting.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:43

But this is a different, another grandmother, same time period, who's dealing with this pagan Christian thing. And so we wonder why that keeps coming up in our theme or our stories. It's because that they were living that in ways.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:00

It really was. Christianity for for whatever you want to think or feel was the most pivotal thing that happened to this planet. And isn't that interesting? I mean, it just what whatever you believe, to have something so pivotal that changed so much.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:22

Um and justified so much death and evil if you think about the crew if you're thinking on the other side of the history, right? The crusades and the in the name of Christianity. You know, I mean, but everyone has a cause, so I need to be careful with that because pagans would do a lot of things in the name of whatever you were and ordered.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:57

And so just even for the dry logistical. Side of things. It was a pivotal thing, you know? And maybe it was a cause for a lot of these. But Pete, what we know is what we know is human nature, no matter where you are on the planet, we'll fight, we'll take slaves, we'll take land, we'll kick people out. Like it's not, it will happen. It happened in Scandinavia before Christianity ever showed up. It happened in the North Americas before the white man ever showed up. It happened like it's just this human nature to do this. So then when you add this religious element or whatever it was that maybe the perversion of the religion to haven't be another way to control people. Yeah. You know, kind of like putting gates around the cave.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:51

Exactly. That's a really good symbol to and to separate the gifts of nature, like that gas or like the ability to see beyond, or you know, to separate the agency of an individual from seeing for themselves their own vision of their life.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:11

It's like, you know, uh Christ says, Don't ever put let don't ever never let someone put a man between you and God. Well, in a way they're putting man between you and Earth and you and Nate, you know, it's just this thing, this thing that happens for whatever reason. Which is what my, you know, the that song, oh, what are they called? Love and Rockets, that you cannot go against nature because if you do go against nature, that's part of nature too.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:43

You know. Nature too. No, yeah. Yeah, it's a good song. No, yeah. We should have that be our song for no new.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:56

But anyway, that's really all I had on that. We've had I guess we are just making this an episode then.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:04

Yes, because um she wanted to talk. And for our listeners, if you wanna, I'll be up all night tonight learning about her.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:18

Yes. But and I want to know what you find out because there's so much with the mall, with the Delt Drevlians, the mall. There's so much going on. Um, they did find, like I like you were saying, there are there's proof that this was happening, archaeological proof. Even recently, they're finding places of Viking settlements or I guess roost settlements, um, all up and down this area. Um, this is the area where that kid's drawing is from, too. Orm. Yes. Owm. Tell us about that. We all, you need to, everybody needs to go Google. Let's all do it together and see if it actually shows us the drawings.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:04

And and um what's her name that we like? Her book talks about this pretty world.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:11

Yeah, um Yeah, the Embers of the Hands, Eleanor Barakloff has some good, has the drawings in it. And then our woman, what's her face? Heather Pringle talks about it. Orange Viking Child Drawings. Yeah, so if you oh, this part of the world, right, that we're talking about. So Google Onfin I-N-F-I-M Viking Child Drawings, and you will see these images. These drawings. The the uh it was Heather Pringle that described it so lovingly, isn't it? Yeah, I thought I thought so, yeah. Um how this little kid was probably doing school and he just drew a picture of him and his dad, and it's Viking. It's long time ago. Little kid drawings of his life as a Viking child or a Norwegian child, or and I think it was in this area that that's where those were found.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:15

I think he has his doesn't he have his little sword and he's holding his dad's hand or yeah. What do we know what year that was? Yeah, I'm gonna see. Yeah, look it up. That's a great way to end.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:30

Yeah. Oh yeah. Well on on from child from page 90. Okay, so like you can see.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:43

And these were found on Birch, right? Birch bark?

SPEAKER_02 1:10:48

Yeah, Birch Bart arcwork. And let me get you a time. Over uh. So this was found in Novurgrad Novergrad in St. near St. Petersburg, Russia. Okay. Um she's not gonna tell me a year. Woo! I was not prepared. Kim and I are have been on child taking care duty.

unknown 1:11:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:17

We've been reliving our younger years.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:21

Yeah, and not my body's not reliving it.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:25

No, they were taking care of babies under the age of four. You had four of them.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:33

So this is around 1220, so it's a little bit past the prime and the peak, but it is in he's in the Russian city of Novo Novogorod, and he is a Scandinavian little guy. And um, yeah, so you see this drawing of him. And this was dad trying to look just like his dad. And then this one, she says, is like he started to do his letters, and then he ended up drawing, you know, a horse or some picture fighting, oh, fighting a dragon, a fire-breathing dragon. Wow. So, and then is that it? Yeah. But it's just so sweet to picture first that they're, I don't know, having school, he's learning his letters, and then the awe of this warrior life, you know. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:34

It's just pretty well it shows you what's interesting to me is what a a child chooses to is important enough put to put down on paper, which is hard for their little hands, what they want to draw. And you we see that in cave drawings too, but it's so interesting how often a horse appears, even in like Odin's work or even on the runestones, even in, you know, there's always horses are so important. And then to see he and his dad, and he's wearing the same battle gear, like battle is their life, essentially.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:16

Um go ahead, and they do they do find little swords in these digs, little child swords, little toy boats, you know. It was a a play, it was just like our my child that before he even was told what a car was, knew grabbed a car and made car sounds, you know. It was just the same. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:43

I don't know. It's pretty cool. It's a good reflection of the world he was living in that that really was. And then you start to think about man, if your mother's like burying people in pits and burning them down in far, like it's a weird world of this sweetness and this savagery, you know?

SPEAKER_02 1:14:03

Yeah, because she would have been a mom. I mean, he was born before his dad died, obviously. So she's this young mother burying soldiers in pits and sending pigeons with fire, you know, setting fire to towns and going called a saint. She's a saint thing as that for killing thousands and thousands of yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:25

Because she was baptized and that makes it okay then. I guess I could have done more before I got well, never mind. Who knows?

SPEAKER_02 1:14:36

Well, she was yeah, she could have been nicer to her grand her daughter-in-law. Yeah, for sure. So she said she's a sorceress, but that is interesting.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:46

Yes, okay, anyway, we can get rid of that part. Okay. No, I love it. That was awesome. Thank you. This is what Sarah she can almost channel these women that want to be talked about. And this woman has been on our minds. And the fact I didn't realize that she was the same same time period as Gudrid. And it just kind of we wanted to talk about the Eastern stuff going on, and she's the perfect interesting chica to do that.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:18

Yeah, she dies almost exactly around the same time Gudrid is born, and that's all kicking off. So, you know, she's under the same moon. It's just really cool when you if you want to put yourself in the snow globe of the Viking only world, that there are women and on both sides of this Viking snow globe affected by the same things, striving for the same ends, loving the same kind of man, you know, it's just living the same life. It's kind of affected by the same thing, the same shaking of the snow globe, but how I don't know, it's just cool. And we're in that world right now.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:05

And that's what I love about history is it's so cool to hop around in the in a time period and see what was the same for people and what was different, and you know, just kind of examine really closely the snow globe and see how it all works from our perspective, which sometimes gets in the way, but sometimes it's cool because it gives us insight into how be better navigating.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:35

Yeah, all of this is very useful, very timely, all of this right now, I think, especially. Yeah. And and really being affected and aware of the world around you, the things you can control, the things you can't control, and move live, keep on living your life. These people kept on living their life. That's right. They could have given up or changed, like you keep living your life. If you want to go on that trip, you go on your trip. And if you want to, you just fearlessly your life is your guard, you know, your feel free to explore and live. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:21

And you know, don't let this someone's wall stop you from seeing your future, you know, and and love your people and you know. Yeah, and your story on to me that drawing you brought up is a testament of that. You're living in this battle area, but your little child has a piece of birch bark paper and he's drawing things he loves, you know? And I mean, that's you're right. That's your world. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:55

Yeah. And enjoy it. And you don't get to you get to live your story, but you don't always get to write your story, but you get to live your story, and that's great. That's true. You know, it's you live it. I don't know. This yeah, the doom and gloom and everything that is happening now, and people are starting to get that hunkering down vibe and feeling again. Right. Like, no.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:23

Yeah. And you know, enjoy that your sun is shining on your part of the world today. Yeah. You know, and because tomorrow it it might not be, and then you'll deal with it. I mean, you'll just always you'll just have confidence that you'll deal with the next five minutes, you know, you'll deal with it. So just just yeah. You know, eat that chocolate. Yeah. Drink that Diet Coke. Sit in the sun for a minute. Stand in the sun.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:52

Yeah. Yep. Live it.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:55

Tell someone's future. Tell read your tarot cards. Have fun.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:01

Read your scriptures and yes. Whatever. Do whatever you feel good to you.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:07

Yeah. The future, do it. Okay. No.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:10

Not oh, okay. Okay. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:15

All right. Well, yay. Thank you for that, Sarah. Thank you. That sounds great. All right. That sounds awesome. Okay. I'm excited. Okay. All right. So meet on I Love You Too. Okay.