Viking Cruise to Jerusalem

 

Fun Fact:

Sigurd I became king of Norway at 13 when an Irish axe ended his father's life. He received the crown jointly with his two half brothers, Eystein and Olaf, the latter being a toddler. At 17, Sigurd agreed to lead an expeditionary force to the Mediterranean and Eystein agreed to rule the kingdom while Sigurd was away. In 1177, Sigurd took 60 longships and sailed away (without meeting any extra-terrestrials who sang for him to Come Sail Away.) 

Sigurd spend some months in England before sailing south and put in at Galicia for another winter. The Norwegians had difficult times when the supply arrangements with a local earl fell through and they had to forage for provisions. Sigurd plundered the offending earl's castle and set sail again. They soon encountered a fleet of Muslim pirates--seizing eight of the galleys and scattering the rest. Sigurd then stopped off in Portugal to plunder a Muslim castle at Sintra and executed the occupants. The fun continued with a raid on a castle south of Lisbon and a battle with Muslim corsairs near Gibraltar. 

He followed that by bringing a taste of Norway to the black pirates at Formentera in the Baleric Islands. The pirates taunted Sigurd from their walled caves, and Sigurd responded by throwing a housewarming party. He had two small boats hauled to the clifftops, where he filled them with men and had them lowered into the mouth of the caves. While the Norwegians gifted the pirates with stones and arrow, Sigurd led a climbing expedition from below. On arrival, they tore down the walls and set fires to smother the caves with smoke. They killed the pirates and took more loot there than at any other rest stop.

 Sigurd continued the pillage party at Ibiza and Menorca before reaching Sicily in 1110. On his arrival in the waters of Palestine, Sigurd took aim at the Fatimid city of Ascalon. The Muslims refused to come out to party, so Sigurd has his crew drop him at Jaffa while they sailed on to Acre. At Jaffa, he met Baldwin I and the two of them headed for Jerusalem. 

Although the crusader state holdings has expanded, there were places like Ascalon, Tyre, and Sidon which continued to hold out. Sigurd took his fleet to blockade Sidon from the sea, and Baldwin brought his army by land to storm the walls. Sidon surrendered on December 4. 

Sigurd seemed to feel like he had done his part to liberate the holy land, and left for Norway. He stopped in Constantinople where he was feted extravagantly by Emperor Alexios. Sigurd traded in his ships for horses and made his way across country to Denmark, where he was given a ship for a happy return to Norway. Although he was later subject to hallucinations and panic attacks, he governed peaceably with his brothers and outlived them both.

--The above information was condensed from chapter 10 of Dan Jones' Crusaders. 

I found Dan Jones' history podcast this weekend on Amazon. Although I enjoyed them, the ones I've listened to so far lack the the depth and detail to make them really great.

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This week took us to Coeur d'Alene, the homestead, and back to Byzantium. We passed through the other fabled land where I almost accepted a job offer and my traveling companion assured me that I had made the right choice.

I finished a short story and got it off to my Skirmish Team, and I trimmed two hundred words from another story and also sent it to the team. We're on the road again next week and the week after.