Welcome to the British History Podcast. My name is Jamie and this is episode 190, House

of Lessx. Everybody lies.

This show is free and independent due to members of court. And as thanks for helping keep

the community going, I offer members only content, including extra episodes and rough transcripts.

Here's a sample of what they're listening to on the members' feed right now. There are a

couple other routes that seem to have gone south along this circuitous path through a whole variety

of rivers, but eventually they reached the Black Sea and Constantinople. Feel free to look at a map

just to take in how far a voyage that would have been. Now one way would have gone through the

bulk of river and the other one went through the Gulf of Riga. But regardless of which path they

took, it was a monster trip. And once in Byzantium they would trade fur, wall recivory, and any other

northern treasures that they had in exchange for silk, jewelry, wine, and fine goods that were

harder to obtain on the north. You also had Scandinavian warriors and assorted Vikingar bands

who would follow those same routes and then hire their services out to anyone who was looking for

some thugs. Some of them would eventually become the varangian guard.

If you'd like to hear more and would like to support the show, you can do so over at the

British History Podcast dot com. And thank you very much to Trish, Terry, and I'm not making this

up. Catherine Bigelow, who I'm assuming is the same person who made the greatest surfer heist

movie of all time. Classic. Alright, this is going to be a longer one, and it will hopefully make

up for the fact that it's a bit late because I was wrecked by a manky staking candy pie.

But before we begin, we need to fix something. I've avoided doing this for years, literally years now.

But I'm getting increasing numbers of emails regarding this subject so it needs to be addressed.

Many moons ago, I took a history course that had an unexpected long lasting impact upon me.

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