City of the Sagas
Miklagarðr (Constantinople)
Miklagarð — the 'Great City', Constantinople — is the dazzling eastern pole of the Norse world, the richest city the Northmen could imagine, and the magnet at the far end of the road east. Down the rivers of Russia and across the Black Sea, or south through the Mediterranean, generations of Norsemen came to serve the Greek emperor as the Varangian Guard — his elite, axe-bearing, fiercely loyal household troops. Harald Hardrada rose to command them and carried home a fortune that bought him Norway; Sigurd the Crusader sailed in to the cheers of the whole city and chose the games of the Hippodrome over a chest of gold; even an Icelandic blood-feud could run all the way to its walls. Miklagarð marks the astonishing reach of this world — a culture of turf farms and longships whose men stood guard, gold-paid, at the heart of the greatest empire of the age.
Travels
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the saga’s own words
Walks through
Sigurd the Crusader — to Jerusalem and Miklagardunlock Hrafnkell, Priest of Freyunlock Grettir the Strongunlock Harald HardradaunlockFind Miklagarðr (Constantinople) on the map
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