o strong and warlike that it became a common
saying among the people, "Who can oppose God and Novgorod the Great?"

But trouble arose for Novgorod. Its chief trade lay through the Baltic
Sea, and here its ships met those terrible Scandinavian pirates who were
then the ocean's lords. Among these bold rovers were the Danes who
descended on England, the Normans who won a new home in France, the
daring voyagers who discovered Iceland and Greenland, and those who
sailed up the Mediterranean as far as Constantinople, conquering
kingdoms as they went.

To some of these Scandinavians the merchants of Novgorod turned for aid
against the others. Bands of them had made their way into Russia and
settled on the eastern shores of the Baltic. To these the Novgorodians
appealed in their trouble, and in the year 862 asked three Varangian
brothers, Rurik, Sinaf, and Truvor, to come to their aid. The warlike
brothers did so, seated themselves on the frontier of the republic of
Novgorod, drove off its foes--and became its foes themselves. The people
of Novgorod, finding their trade at the mercy of their allies, submitted
to their power, and in 864 invited Rurik to become their king. His two
brothers had meantime died.

Thus it was that the Russian empire began, for the Varangians came from
a country called Ross, from which their new realm gained the name of
Russia.

Rurik took the title of Grand Prince, made his principal followers lords
of the cities of his new realm, and the republic of Novgorod came to an
end in form, though not in spirit. It is interesting to note at this
point that Russia, which began as a republic, has ended as one of the
most absolute of monarchies. The first step in its subjection was taken
when Novgorod invited Rurik the Varangian to be its prince; the other
steps came later, one by one.

For fifteen years Rurik remained lord of Novgorod, and then died and
left his four-year-old son Igor as his heir, with Oleg, his kinsman, as
regent of the realm. It is the story of Oleg, as told by Nestor, the
gossipy old Russian chronicler, that we propose here to tell, but it
seemed useful to precede it by an account of how the Russian empire came
into existence.

Oleg was a man of his period, a barbarian and a soldier born; brave,
crafty, adventurous, faithful to Igor, his ward, cruel and treacherous
to others. Under his rule the Russian dominions rapidly and widely
increased.

At an earlier date two Varangians, Askho