Varangian Guard: Basil II's Axemen, Harald Hardrada and Anglo-Saxon Exiles

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The Varangian Guard grew out of the Rus, Norse traders and rowers from eastern Sweden who worked the rivers of Eastern Europe down to the Black Sea. In 988 Emperor Basil II, facing an aristocratic revolt, received 6,000 warriors from Vladimir I of Kiev in exchange for the hand of his sister Anna and Vladimir's conversion to Christianity. Foreigners with no Greek, no family in the Senate and no stake in palace feuds made ideal bodyguards: they swore to the throne itself, and when Nikephoros II was murdered in 969 the guards knelt to his killer, John Tzimiskes.

In battle they were reserve shock troops wielding the two-handed Dane axe, and at Beroia in 1122 they hacked through a Pecheneg wagon fort. Returning veterans were so rich that Snorri Sturluson told of a right to loot the treasury at an emperor's death, a claim historians doubt. Harald Hardrada fought 18 battles in imperial service before becoming king of Norway. After 1066, dispossessed Anglo-Saxons arrived on 235 ships and the unit became known as the Anglo-Varangians, sent to fight the Normans in Sicily. Up to 3,000 Varangians reportedly fought at the fall of Constantinople in 1453.

The Icelander Bolli Bollason came home in scarlet with 12 followers and a gold-hilted sword called Footbiter.
Harald Hardrada is believed to have blinded the deposed Emperor Michael V.
A Swedish law barred anyone from inheriting property at home while staying in Greece.
Hundreds of Greece Runestones in Sweden commemorate men who served or died in the East.
A Byzantine cross carved by Ulf of Borresta on the Risbyle Runestone is now a Swedish municipal coat of arms.

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