Aldeigjuborg (Ladoga)

Ladoga — Aldeigjuborg — is the river-mouth port where the road east meets the sea, the first landfall in Russia for those sailing to the realm of the Rus. Through it passed the kings and warriors of the Austrvegr: it was at Ladoga that Magnus the Good, fetched home from Yaroslav's court, rigged out his ships as soon as the spring ice loosened, beginning his journey from the East to the throne of Norway. Ladoga is the saga's image of the gateway of the east — the harbour where the river-road of the Rus opens onto the Baltic, the threshold between the Norse seas and the inland realm of Garðaríki, the port through which exiled kings and their fetched-home heirs passed on the long road between Norway and the eastern world.