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Rh was admitted to their fellowship, no woman was allowed in their town, and none of the warriors might be absent for more than three days. They were bound by oaths of fidelity to one another and each must avenge the fall of any of his companions. No word of fear was allowed and all outside news must in the first place be told to their leader. All plunder was divided by lot among the community. The harbour of Jómsborg could shelter a fleet of 300 vessels and was protected by a mole with twelve iron gates. The Jómsvikings played an important part in the affairs of Denmark and Norway in the late tenth and carly eleventh centuries, and made many Viking expeditions both in Baltic lands and in the West. In 1043 their stronghold was destroyed by Magnus the Good of Norway. Other Vikings from Denmark made raids still further east than Jómsborg, but the true Viking conquest of those districts was due not to the Danes but to the Swedes.

In the chronicle of the Russian monk Nestor (c. 1100) we read how in the middle of the ninth century certain Varangians came from beyond the sea and that one band of them, the Rus, was soon invited to rule among the Slavs and put an end to their mutual quarrels. Their leader Rurik (O.N. Hrœrekr) settled in Novgorod, while two of his men, Askol'd (O.N. Höskuldr) and Dir (O.N. Dyri), sailed down the Dnieper and settled in Kiev. These events probably took place in the half century preceding 862. Twenty years later Kiev was conquered by Rurik's successor Olég (O.N. Helgi), and Kiev, the mother of all Russian towns, was henceforward the capital of the Russian state. From Kiev the Rus advanced down the Dnieper and in 865 ravaged the shores of the Black Sea (soon to be known as the Russian Sea) and the Sea of Marmora. They appeared with a fleet of 200 vessels before Constantinople, but the city was saved by a sudden storm and the greater part of the fleet of the "Rhôs," as Byzantine historians call them, was destroyed. Olég made a more successful attack in 907 with a fleet of 2000 vessels, and the Greeks were forced to pay a heavy ransom. Attacks of this kind continued down to the middle of the eleventh century. At the same time the Rus secured valuable trading privileges from the Eastern emperors and exchanged furs, slaves and honey for the luxuries of the East. From Arab writers we hear of these Rus in districts still further east, on the banks of the Volga and the shores of the Caspian.

Though the point has been hotly contested by Slavonic patriots, there can be no doubt that these Rhos or Rus are really Swedish Vikings. Some of them accompanied a Greek embassy to the Emperor Louis the Pious in 839 and, though they called themselves Rhos, Louis made inquiries and found that they were really of Swedish nationality. They were detained for some time under suspicion of being spies: the Emperor no doubt feared some fresh design against the Empire on the part of the Northmen. A few years later, when the