Behind the country of the Jura (Hungarians) there are coastal people;
they swim in the sea needlessly and without purpose, but only for
glorification of themselves that, they say, they have achieved
of such and such a place …
The mysterious country of the Scandinavian sagas Biarmia has haunted scientists from different countries for many years. The works of historians, geographers and even philologists are devoted to her search. A special intrigue to this search is given by the fact that this fabulously rich country, whose inhabitants preferred to fight enemies not with ordinary weapons, but causing storms, rains, darkness, or sending serious illnesses to them, could be located on the territory of Russia.
The main source of information about Biarmia is the Scandinavian sagas. It should be said that the sagas are completely unique sources: unlike the folklore works of the peoples of other countries, in some cases they can be considered as historical documents (with the exception, of course, of the sagas, which are directly called "false"). The historical significance of the "false" sagas is greatly enhanced by two circumstances. First, most of them were recorded very early - in the XII-XIII centuries. Second: the skalds and compilers of the sagas told only about what they themselves saw or heard from a trustworthy eyewitness (be sure to indicate his name, social and marital status, place of residence). Here is a typical excerpt from one of the sagas:
"Bjartmar was the name of a man who lived at the top of the Eagle Fjord. His wife was Turid, she was the daughter of Hrafn from Ketile Scythe in Duri Fjord. The mother of An Redcloak was Helga, daughter of An the Archer."
Then it also tells about the children of Bjartmar, and only then does the actual action begin. Reading these long lists of names is rather difficult and tedious, but there is nothing to be done: the author considers it obligatory to inform everyone that he is an honest man, he has nothing to hide - please, check, look for mistakes, convict a lie.
The famous Icelander Snorri Sturlson, the author of the collection of "royal" sagas "The Circle of the Earth" and "Younger Edda", wrote that not a single skald who sang glory in the face of the ruler would dare to attribute to him deeds that he did not commit: it would not be praise, but mockery.
Scandinavians were generally super critical of stories about real people. And Biarmia was visited at different times by such famous people as the Norse kings Eirik the Bloody Ax (this is described in the "Saga of Egil Skallagrimson" - events around 920-930) and Harald Gray Skin (his son - "The Saga of Olaf, son of Tryggvi "), the Swedish king Sturlaug Ingvolsson, the blood enemy of the Norwegian king Olav St. Thorir the Dog. And other, historically less significant characters of the sagas: Bossi and his brother Herraud, Halfdan, the son of Aistin and his brother Ulfkel, Hauk Gray Pants and some others. The extremely interesting Viking Orvar Odd also found time to visit Biarmia (Oddr Oervar - Odd-Sharp Arrows), who at the age of 12 ran away from his adoptive father's house after receiving from the prophetess Geydr a prediction about death from the head of a horse Faxi, which is now in stable. Doesn't this remind you of anything, by the way? Orvar Odd, will become the ruler in the south - "in the country of the Huns" (Skalds often declared all people who lived south of the Scandinavian Peninsula to be Huns, the "Saga of the Völsungs" even calls Sigurd, better known as the hero of the German epic "Song of the Nibelungs" Siegfried, as Huns). In old age, Odd will return to his homeland: he will walk around the deserted Beruriod, tell his companions that he has left fate and on the way to the ship he will touch a horse's skull with his foot … Yes, a snake will crawl out of this skull and bite him in the leg. In anticipation of death, Orvar Odd divided his people into two parts: 40 people prepared a mound for his burial, the other 40 - listened (and remembered) a poem about his life and exploits, which he composed in front of them. In addition to the "Orvar-Odd saga" (genre - "saga of ancient times", recorded in the 13th century), he is also mentioned in the "Saga of Herver" and in Icelandic ancestral sagas ("Saga of Gisli", "Saga of Egil") …
All of the above allows us to conclude about the reality of both Biarmia itself and the travels made to this country by the Scandinavians. All the more surprising is the absence of any traces of Biarmia in the Russian annals. The only exception is the Joachim Chronicle, written in Novgorod not earlier than the middle of the 17th century - much later than all these travels made in the 9th-11th centuries. Moreover, its compiler obviously used the texts of some Western European sources, from which the name "Biarmia" could have got into it (in the text - "the city of Byarma"). But the sagas, telling in detail about the adventures of the heroes in a given country, provide very little information about its whereabouts. Here is a typical example of describing the path to Biarmia:
"All this time, they had the bank on their right hand, and the sea on their left. A large river flowed into the sea here. On one side, a forest approached the river, and on the other, green meadows where cattle grazed."
Either every self-respecting Scandinavian should have known the way to Biarmia in those days, or the stories about these travels were written down by the skalds at a time when the road to this country was thoroughly forgotten. All sources say that in Biarmia there is a large river called Vina, and a forest in which the sanctuary of the goddess of the local people of Yomala is located, with an obligatory hill in which treasures are buried. As a rule, the events described in the sagas unfold around the robbery of this sanctuary. At the same time, it is emphasized that Biarmia is a country from which heroes bring a large amount of silver, and only in the background are traditional skins of fur animals.
These are the adventures prepared in Biarmia for the Viking Egil, whose people sailed there on two ships to trade with the natives.
He managed to find out that in a forest glade, surrounded by a fence, there is a hill dedicated to the goddess Yomala: biarms brought here a handful of earth and handfuls of silver for each newborn and deceased. When trying to rob the sanctuary at night, the Normans were surrounded and found themselves in a narrow space surrounded on all sides by a fence. Part of the biarm with long spears closed the exit, while others, standing on the back of the fence, struck through the cracks between the logs. The wounded aliens were captured, the biarms took the Vikings into the barn, tied them to poles and entered a large building with windows on one side standing at the edge of the forest. Egil succeeded in swinging the pole to which he was tied and pulling it out of the ground. With his teeth, he gnawed at the ropes on the hands of one of the comrades, who then freed the rest. In search of a way out, the Norwegians stumbled upon a heavy hatch and, opening it, found three people who turned out to be Danes in a deep pit. The Danes were captured about a year ago and thrown into a pit for attempting to escape. The eldest of them showed the pantry, in which the Norwegians "found more silver than they had seen in their entire lives," as well as their weapons. They wanted to return to their ships, but Egil did not agree to leave unavenged:
"We just stole this silver," he said, "I don't want such a shame. Let's go back and do what we have to do."
Having blocked the door to the house with a log, the Normans threw a smut from a fire under the birch bark, which covered the roof. Standing at the windows, they killed everyone who tried to get out of the house.
A similar situation is described in the "Saga of Olav the Saint" ("Circle of the Earth"): here the biarms raised the alarm after, trying to remove Yomal's necklace (in this saga, the male god), one of the leaders of the Vikings (Carly) chopped off his head (the head turned out to be metal and hollow - it rang when it fell). However, the Normans still managed to board ships and sail out to sea. This necklace did not bring happiness to anyone, since in order to take possession of it, Thorir the Dog later killed Karly - the man of King Olav. And then, disagreeing with the appointed vira (on account of which the ill-fated necklace was taken from him), he became the king's enemy. A few years later, he, along with Calv and Thorstein the Shipmaster, would kill the king during the Battle of Stiklastadir (1030).
Peter Arbo. Battle of Stiklastadir. Thorir the Dog stabs King Olav the Saint with a spear.
In this battle, the famous half-brother of Olav, Harald, who later received the nickname the Severe, was wounded and forced to flee to Novgorod.
But where was Biarmia? There is no agreement among researchers, it was placed on the Kola Peninsula, in Norwegian Lapland, on the Karelian Isthmus, at the mouth of the Northern Dvina, in the Yaroslavl Volga region, between the rivers Onega and Varzuga, on the shores of the Gulf of Riga and even in the Perm region.
On medieval Scandinavian maps, Biarmia is located north of "Rus", which is adjacent to Sweden and Norway. To the south of "Rus" is "Scythia", even farther south - Kiev.
The History of Norway, a 12th century manuscript found in the Orkney Islands and published in 1850, reports: “Norway is being divided into countless capes … part of it lies very close to the sea, the other is Mediterranean - mountainous, the third is forest, inhabited by the Finns … south of it - Denmark and the Baltic Sea, and from the land side - Svitod, Gautonia, Angaria, Yamtonia; these parts are now inhabited by Christian tribes, in the direction to the north, on the other side of Norway, very numerous tribes extend from the east, devotees, oh woe to paganism, namely: Kirjals and Kvens, horned Finns, and both are biarms."
Olaus Magnus, author of The History of the Northern Peoples (1555), divides Biarmia into "Near" and "Far":
"In the near, mountains covered with forests abound, and on the richest pastures numerous herds of wild animals find their food; there are many rivers, abundant with foaming waterfalls. In the distant Biarmia, strange peoples live, the very access to which is difficult, and you can get there only with great danger. for life. This half of Biarmia is mostly covered with snow, and travel is possible here, in the terrible cold, only on fast-moving deer. In both parts of Biarmia there are enough plains and fields, and the land gives a crop if it is sown; ubiquitous in a huge amount of fish, and the hunt for a wild beast is so easy that there is no particular need for bread. During war, the Biarmians do not so much use weapons as spells, with the help of which they cause thick clouds and torrential rains in a clear sky. very skillful in magic; not only with a word, but with one glance, they can so bewitch a person that he loses his will, weakens his mind and, gradually He is losing weight, dying of exhaustion."
Biarmov and Saxon Grammaticus endows with similar properties:
"Then the Biarmans changed the power of their weapons to the art of their magic, they filled the vault of heaven with wild songs, and in an instant, clouds gathered in the clear sunny sky and poured pouring rain, giving the sad appearance of the recently radiant surroundings."
And in Russia, as you probably know, a special penchant for witchcraft was traditionally attributed to various Finnish tribes.
The Flemish cartographer and geographer Gerardus Mercator placed Biarmia on the Kola Peninsula on his map of Europe.
The diplomat Francesco da Collo, in the "Notes on Muscovy" written for the Emperor Maximilian, writes that the Swedish province of Skrizinia is located opposite the Russian Biarmia and "is divided by the White Lake, a huge and abundant fish, on it, when it freezes, battles are often fought, and when the ice melts, the fight takes place on the courts."
The English merchant and diplomat (the founder of the Liverpool family) Anthony Jenkinson, the English ambassador to the court of Ivan the Terrible, drew up a map of Russia, on which Biarmia borders on the Norwegian Finnmark.
In "The Spectacle of the Earth's Circle" (atlas of maps by Abraham Ortelius - 1570, Antwerp), the White Sea is an inland body of water, and Biarmia is located in the north of the Kola Peninsula.
The last time the name "Biarmia" is found in the work of Mavro Orbini (1601), which speaks of "the Russians from Biarmia, who discovered the island of Filopodia, larger than Cyprus. Earth.
"CARTA MARINA" by Olafus Magnus 1539
"CARTA MARINA" by Olafus Magnus 1539 (detail). The White Sea is shown as an inland body of water.
So where was Biarmia after all? Let's look at the most reasonable versions of the location of this mysterious and rich country.
According to the most common of them, Biarmia was located on the southern coast of the White Sea. The following data can be cited in favor of this version:
1. At the end of the 9th century, the Viking Ottar told the English king Alfred the Great that he lived in Halogaland (north-west of Norway - the coastal strip between 65 and 67 degrees N). One day, deciding to test how far his land extended to the north, he set off in that direction, keeping to the coast, until the coast turned east, and then south. Here he discovered a large river that led inland. The language of the people he met there seemed to him similar to Finnish - let's pay attention to this fact.
2. According to the "Saga of Olav the Holy", in the 11th century the warrior of this king Karli went from Nidaros (modern Trondheim) to Halogaland, where he was joined by Thorir the Dog. Together they headed to Finnmörk (present-day Finnmark, Lappish Sami region), and further along the coast to the north. Before Biarmia they sailed "all summer".
That is, it turns out that in both cases the Norwegians passed around the North Cape, rounded the Kola Peninsula and entered the White Sea in the same way that the English captain Richard Chancellor in 1533 brought his ship "Edward Bonaventure" to the Northern Dvina. This river is identified with the Wine of the Scandinavian sagas. An indirect confirmation of this version is the saga of the journey of the Danish king Gorm, who from Biarmia enters the "kingdom of death". Some researchers believe that we are talking about the polar night, which the Danes had to endure on the way back.
However, it is known that the mouth of the Northern Dvina is very swampy and difficult for navigation, merchant ships in the 17th-18th centuries. did not dare to enter it without a pilot from local residents. Of course, it can be assumed that the Viking ships had a smaller draft, and their pilots had extensive experience in sailing in such conditions. Nevertheless, the first mention of Norwegians in the White Sea in Russian sources dates back only to 1419: 500 "murmans on buses and augers" plundered the coast and burned 3 churches.
Thomas Lowell. "Viking raid on a Christian monastery"
After a collision with a local squad, they lost 2 ships and went home. More about the Norwegian pirates in these places did not hear. Probably, up to this time, the cold and deserted shores of the White Sea did not attract much attention of the Norwegians. And the rebuff received in 1419 convinced them that the "game of the candle" is not worth it, it is easier to look for prey in warmer seas.
The Russian specialist in historical geography S. K. Kuznetsov, even before the revolution, questioned the very possibility of the Scandinavians sailing in the White Sea. Based on the distance, the speed of the Viking ships, coastal sea and tidal currents, he proved the impossibility of sailing Ottar (which lasted 15 days) beyond the North Cape. Carly and Thorir Dog, who had been swimming "all summer", could have visited the White Sea, but in this case, they would have had to spend the winter on its shores. This researcher also came to the conclusion that there were several Biarmias in the past, the nearest of which was in the Varangerfjord region, west of present-day Murmansk. It has been noticed that it is in this area that there are many toponyms beginning with "byar". It is a mountainous and wooded country, cut by many fast rivers.
Archaeologists believe that the White Sea version of Biarmia's location raises great doubts, since until now not a single item of Scandinavian origin has been found on the White Sea coast. For the same reason, such locations of Biarmia as Zavolochye, Karelian Isthmus, Kola Peninsula, Perm are doubtful. The author of the "Perm" version, by the way, is the Swedish Colonel Stralenberg, who after the battle near Poltava was captured by Russia and spent 13 years in Siberia.
Philip Johann von Stralenberg
Subsequently, he became a historian and geographer of Russia. It was Stralenberg who was the first to identify the "Country of Cities" ("Gardariki") of the Scandinavian sagas with Kievan Rus, and the "Island City" (Holmgard) - with Novgorod. Stralenberg suggested that Biarmia was located on the banks of the Kama River, calling the city of Cherdyn its capital, and the country itself "Great Perm". It was here, in his opinion, that the ships that came from the Caspian Sea met with the boats of the Vikings. This version is not very popular at the present time and has mainly historical significance.
Stralenberg also wrote, referring to the 1728 edition of the Swedish Library (Schwedische Bibliothek), that a Finnish leader named Kuso managed to subdue Biarmia for three years. This is in obvious contradiction with the "Permian" version expressed by him.
The European north of Russia is generally not very suitable for the localization of Biarmia in it. After all, as we remember, a characteristic feature of this country is the abundance of silver (more precisely, silver coins), which was the main prey of the Vikings who visited Biarmia. In the early Middle Ages, Europe experienced an acute shortage of this metal. Russia was no exception, until the 18th century silver was not mined in our country at all and came only from abroad. The main suppliers of this metal at that time were Central Asia and the Arab countries, whose merchants exchanged it for furs and slaves. It is on the path connecting Novgorod with the Caspian Sea (near Rybinsk, Yaroslavl, Rostov the Great, etc.) that numerous treasures of silver Arab dirhams with ancient German runic inscriptions on them are found. The number of coins found is already in the hundreds of thousands, and their weight is tens of kilograms. On the same path, numerous burial mounds with the burials of Scandinavian soldiers and merchants were found, which are completely absent in the European north of Russia.
The next "attack" on the mystery of Biarmia was undertaken by Scandinavian philologists, who found out that its name means "Coastal country", which, therefore, can be located anywhere. This allowed researchers to pay attention to those episodes of the sagas, which speak of the "Eastern path" to Biarmia. So, Eirik's warriors Bloody Ax Bjorn and Salgard attack Biarmia "from the north of the Eastern path", and the purpose of their campaign was also the land of Surtsdala (Suzdal!). Moreover, the "Saga of Hakone Hakonarson", which tells about the events of 1222, states that the Scandinavians at that time permanently lived in Biarmia, making regular trips to Suzdal (Sudrdalariki) from there, or sending trade expeditions there. The hero of the saga, Egmund, for example, departed from Biarmia "in the autumn to the east, to Sudrdalariki with his servants and goods."
Viking Ulfkel from the "land of Bjarm" came to the Gulf of Finland. Saxon Grammar in the "Acts of the Danes" reports that the way to Biarmia lies from Lake Mälaren in Sweden to the north along the shores of this country, and further to the east, and that the Danish king Regner (Ragnar Lothbrok) went on a campaign to Biarmia overland. He then managed to subdue Livonia, Finland and Biarmia. It is interesting that the king of Biarmia did not trust his "skillful in witchcraft" subjects in military affairs, preferring to use the Finns who know how to shoot perfectly from bows, with the help of which he constantly bothered Ragnar's army that remained in Biarmia for the winter. Finnish skiers suddenly appeared, shot the Danes from afar and disappeared rapidly, "causing admiration, surprise, and anger at the same time." The famous son-in-law of Yaroslav the Wise, who later became the king of Norway, Harald the Severe, while serving in Gardarik, "walked along the eastern route to the chickens, Wends" and other peoples of the southeastern Baltic, and the "eastern route" brought the Viking Goodlake to Holmgard (Novgorod) … Moreover, the Viking Sturlaug finds an amber temple in Biarmia, and Bossasaga claims that her heroes in the country of Bjarm, having passed the Vin forest, ended up in an area called "Glesisvellir" by the locals. Here it is worth recalling the message of Tacitus: "As for the right coast of the Sveb Sea, here they are washed by the lands where the tribes of the Aestii live … they ransack the sea and on the coast and on the shallows they are the only ones of all to collect amber, which they themselves call" GLAZE ".
Now we should talk about the Path, which in all these sources is called "Eastern". The Scandinavian source "Description of the Earth", dating from about 1170-1180, says: "The sea goes through Danmark the Eastern route. Near Danmark there is Malaya Svitod, then Öland, then Gotland, then Helsingaland, then Vermaland, then two Quenlands. and they lie north of Biarmaland. " A later Scandinavian work, Gripla, states: "Through Danmark, the sea flows along the Eastern Route. Svitod lies east of Danmark, Norway to the north. Finnmark north of Norway. Then the land turns northeast and east until it reaches to Biarmalandi, which pays tribute to the king of Gardariki (Rus) ". That is, summing up the data of these two sources, it can be assumed that Biarmia was located south of Finland, and paid tribute, probably, to Novgorod.
Modern researchers are unanimous in the opinion that the "Eastern Route" began from the coast of Denmark, went between the southern coast of the Baltic Sea, where the Vendians (Bodrichs) lived, and the islands of Langeland, Loland, Falster, Bornholm, Oland, Gotland, then it turned north to the island of Arnholm, and from it - to the east through the Åland Strait. From Cape Hanko in southern Finland, ships went to Cape Porkkalaudd and turned sharply south to the place where the city of Lyndanisse was built (Kesoniemi - Finnish, Kolyvan, Revel, Tallinn). One of the branches of this path led to the mouth of the Neva and Lake Ladoga and further to Novgorod. If we, following the instructions of the saga about Eirik the Bloody Ax, sail south of the "Eastern Route", then we will find ourselves in the Gulf of Riga, into which the Western Dvina flows - another candidate for the place of the Guilt River of the country of Biarmia. Supporters of this point of view point out that from the mouth of the Northern Dvina to the nearest forest there are several tens of kilometers, while on the banks of the Daugava and the Gulf of Riga, the forest in places approaches the sea itself, and they identify the sanctuary of the goddess Yomala with the temple of the god of thunder Yumala in Jurmala.
It remains to say that the Skalds name in the sagas all the peoples living on the eastern shores of the Baltic Sea, except for one - the Livs. It is the Livs, whose language, unlike their neighbors, does not belong to the Indo-European languages, but is Finno-Ugric (we remember that the Ottaru biarm language seemed similar to Finnish), some researchers consider the Scandinavian sagas to be biarms. Now only a small group of fishermen in the Talsi region of Latvia has remained of this formerly numerous people.
It is interesting that in the "Saga of King Hakone", written by the Icelander Sturla Tordason (nephew of the famous Snorri Sturlson) around 1265, the inhabitants of the eastern Baltic are called biarmics: "Hakon-king … ordered to build a church in the north and christened the entire parish. he received many Bjarms, who fled from the east from the invasion of the Tatars, and he christened them, and gave them a fjord called Malangr."
And here is what the Russian chronicles report about these events.
First Novgorod: "That same summer (1258) she took the entire Lithuanian land to the Tatars, and hid them themselves."
Nikon's chronicle: "That same summer she took the whole Lithuanian land to the Tatars and, with much fullness and wealth, went to her own."
Thus, it can be assumed that the authors of the sagas called different countries Biarmia. "Distant Biarmia", indeed, could be located on the coast of the White Sea, but the Scandinavians' voyages there, if they were, were episodic, and did not have any serious consequences. Near Biarmia, travels in which most of the sagas describe, was located at the mouth of the Western Dvina. Versions about other localizations of this country can be safely recognized as having only historical significance.
N. Roerich. "They drag by drag"
