The article is devoted to the pre-Christian ideas of the Scandinavians about the journey to the other world. In archaic burial cult, the afterlife was associated with the tomb, which was the entrance (gate) to the other world, and the lord of the afterlife (Scandinavian Hel). From this arose paradoxical beliefs in the life of the deceased simultaneously in the tomb (the afterlife) and wandering to the other world (in the underworld Hel, heavenly Valhalla). Archaeological burial complexes of the Viking age reflect these ideas: in the afterlife dwellings (burial chambers) there were cock horses, etc.

Old Icelandic Kings’ and Family, but primarily Viking sagas base many of their stories about Scandinavians in Eastern Europe and in Rus’ on narrative motifs, i.e. stereotyped tales about the deeds of the hero. This feature is especially characteristic of Viking sagas. Most of their heroes find themselves in Gardariki (in this case only the north-western part of Eastern Europe) where they fight local rulers or enter their service, marry the wife/widow or the daughter of the local ruler and eventually become ‘konungs of Gardariki’ themselves. Though these are common narrative motifs, their consistent localisation in Eastern Europe seems to suggest that their emergence and secure place in the Old Norse narrative tradition reflect the activities of Scandinavians in the Ladoga region (according to one of the sagas, the ‘jarldom that belongs to Ladoga’) in the 8th and 9th centuries, the time of the consolidation and functioning of the Ladoga-Il’men’ polity under the rule of Scandinavian ‘konungs’. The past is thus represented in the form of narrative motifs based on recurrent events.

The article is devoted to a little-known historical poem on the Third Crusade (‘Le Pas Saladin’). This literary work, which was very popular during the Middle Ages, is considered to be based on true facts concerning the history of the Battle of Jaffa (1192). The aim of the article is to place the poem in a broader context, in order to see how, within the text of the ‘Pas Saladin’, history devolves into legend and how actual events are deliberately distorted and reinterpreted by an unknown narrator. The author of the article admits that the process of reconsidering the history of the famous battle could be related to the European search for political and national identity.

The article presents an analysis of major lists of the names of people and anthropomorphic beings in þulur síðari alda (post-medieval Icelandic þulur). At least some names from each list can be traced back to Old Icelandic lists of giants’ names (heiti) in the Prose Edda. It is further demonstrated that some post-medieval þulur continue the naming tradition discernible in Rígsþula and Allra flagða þula, relying on the names of household items and features of the people/trolls’ appearance and behaviour as sources for their names, while other post-medieval þulur instead continue the naming tradition of Hyndluljóð, where names (including those of berserks) are closer to normal human names. The naming of anthropomorphic beings – whether giants or humans – is thus not a homogeneous tradition either in Old Icelandic pulur or in post-medieval pulur, and the borderlines between the RÞ+AFÞ-branch of naming tradition and the HdL-branch continue into the naming practices in different name lists in post-medieval þulur.

Any scholar, or indeed any interested reader, concerned with the cultural history of Rus’ in the 10th to 13th centuries has inevitably to face a kind of paradox: while the role of Scandinavians in the political and ecclesiastical life of pre-Mongol Rus’ was far from insignificant, the evidence from native Russian sources concerning this group of immigrants is scarce and quite fragmented. Against this background, any coherent sequence of elements on Russian–Scandinavian relations in extant Old Russian written sources acquires particular importance. Extraordinarily, across the entirety of the narrative space of the 10th to 12th centuries, Rurikids aside, there is just a single family whose Varangian origins are identified explicitly, whose close affinities with Scandinavia are noted, and for whom biographical details of three men representing three generations are given. These three men are Yakun the Varangian, his nephew Shimon and one of Shimon’s sons, named George. A very curious series of coincidences was therefore needed to leave records of at least three generations of a Scandinavian family in Old Russian manuscripts – and records containing unambiguous indications of their Varangian origin. This ongoing investigation into Varangian genealogy seems to support the suggestion that some of the chronicle’s more complex and enigmatic stories may echo oral histories of aristocratic families whose descendants, in one way or another, had personal ties to writers involved in creating the history of Rus’.

The publication includes my translation of Blóð-Egils þáttr as it stands in Knýtlinga saga, with a preface and comments. The same þáttr that occurs in Flateyjarbók was translated by Elena Gurevich, a unique connoisseur and translator of Icelandic þættir, and included into her edition of Icelandic þættir. Blóð-Egils þáttr occupies chapters 33–40 of Knýtlinga saga, but it is presented not as a separate þáttr, but as part of the narration. It might seem that the þáttr contributes to the development of the plot, but Danish sources, some of which the author of the saga had been familiar with, successfully explain the subsequent events without the participation of Bloody Egill. The þáttr serves other purposes: it helps to create the image of King Knut (Knud den Hellige, 1080–1086). In it, all those features of the king that are discussed elsewhere in the saga, are manifested in a concentrated form. The king severely but fairly restores order in his country, while Christian behaviour and law are inseparable for him. A pagan Viking in his youth and a saint in the future, in this þáttr he appears as a zealous Christian who does not want to be bound by ancient laws and customs but affirms the new Christian laws of his country.

This publication offers the first translation of the Nítíða saga into Russian, supplied with a commentary and an introduction, in which the genre, style and linguistic peculiarities of the saga are analysed. The Nítíða saga presents an uncharacteristic example of the maiden-king narrative, as its plot is centred, not on the quest for a bride by a valorous hero, but rather on the attempts of the valorous heroine to avoid marriage. The saga makes no use of the motif of verbal and physical humiliation of the heroine or her suitors, which is common in maiden-king sagas. The heroine of the saga is shown as a wise ruler, who sacrifices her wishes for the sake of her realm and agrees to marriage, affirming her right to choose a husband who succeeds in gaining her affection.