Varangian Guard: Brothers of the North Sea [Old English/Old Norse/Medieval Greek] | The Skaldic Bard

Here is another song I wrote and performed (with my wife), this time in Old English, Old Norse and Mediaeval/Byzantine Greek. The use of Old English in conjunction with Old Norse is to illustrate the fact that at this point in history, the Varangian Guard was primarily made up of Anglo-Saxon warriors who fled England after the Norman Conquest, as well as Scandinavians. The Greek is adapted from Anna Komneni’s Alexiad in which she discusses the Varangians who were in her father Alexios’s service. The song details the events of the Battle of Beroia fought by Byzantine Emperor John II Komnenos against the Pechenegs in 1122. The Emperor was forced to cut an expedition east short when the Pechenegs attacked in the north of the empire from beyond the Danube. The Pechenegs camped in a deep depression near Beroia (modern Stara Zagora), and their defence proved very hard to break down. Their horseback archers proved too effective against the Emperor’s men - until he called upon the elite and heavily armed Vara