Erik BJODASKELLE

                   NOTES:
    "History of the Vikings, by Gwyn Jones tells us that "Astrid...escaped the massacre (i.e., when Trygve was killed) and fled to a small island in a lake where she gave birth to her son, traditionally in the year 968-9. None desired her death more than Gunnhild, Mother of Kings, (Denmark) but with her infant son, her foster-father, Thorolf Louse- beard, and a couple of her women, she found various hiding places in eastern Norway and Sweden until the boy was three years old. Her brother, Sigurd, was a man of rank at the court of Valdimar "King of Holmgard", i.e. that Valdimar (Vladimir) who achieved power at Novgorod in 972 and in 980 became Grand Duke (Great Prince) of Kiev and of all Russia. The hard-pressed band of fugitives set off to find him, but as they sailed east acros the Baltic, they were captured by pirates from Estonia, and sold into slavery. Astrid's foster-father they killed because he looked too old for work. Six years later Sigurd, in Estonia on his royal master's business, saw this handsome young foreigner in a market-place, inquired who he was, ransomed him, and took him back to Holmgard, Novgorod, where he was trained and educated. (How much of this is fact, and how much is legend, no one knows. But that Olav Trygvesen grew to manhood in Russia, was early a Baltic viking, visited Wendland, where he met and married Geira, daughter of king Boleslav, is all correct.)