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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.
After a while, as he slunk along the bottom of a dry ditch, he descried in the distance an old man driving a cart. This was Truvor, the fisherman, who, since two or three days of December sunshine had melted the ice, had had a good catch of fish in the lake by the mountain-side. "Aha!" said the fox to himself, "I should relish a dinner of fine, fresh trout.
But two years passed away ere Sineous and Truvor died, and Rurik united their territories with his own, and thus established the Russian monarchy. The realms of Rurik grew, rapidly by annexation, and soon extended east some two hundred miles beyond where Moscow now stands, to the head waters of the Volga. They were bounded on the south-west by the Dwina.
The fox did not move a muscle, and Truvor decided that he had been frozen to death by the cold of the preceding night. "I will take him home to my wife," he remarked, as he flung the limp body into his cart. "His coat will make a very nice rug for our parlour, and she can use his brush to dust with."
In the year 862 Slavonic legates went away beyond the sea to the Variag tribe called Rus, and said, 'Our land is great and fruitful, but there is no order in it; come and reign and rule over us. Three brothers accepted the invitation, and appeared with their armed followers. The eldest of these, Rurik, settled in Novgorod; the second, Sineus, at Byelo-ozero; and the third, Truvor, in Isborsk.
Rurik established himself at Novgorod, on lake Ilmen. Sineous, advancing some three hundred miles further, north-east, took his station at Bielo Ozero, on the shores of lake Bielo. Truvor went some hundred miles further south to Truvor, in the vicinity of Smolensk. Thus there were three sovereigns established in Russia, united by the ties of interest and consanguinity.
Three brothers, named Rurik, Sineous and Truvor, illustrious both by birth and achievements, consented to assume the sovereignty, each over a third part of the united applicants; each engaging to coöperate with and uphold the others. Escorted by the armed retinue which had come to receive them, they left their native shores, and entered the wilds of Scandinavia.
They said: "Our land is great and fruitful, but it lacks order and justice. Come take possession, and govern us." With the arrival from Sweden of the three Vikings, Rurik and his two brothers Sineus and Truvor, the true history of Russia begins, and the one thousandth anniversary of that event was commemorated at Novgorod in the year 1862. Rurik was the Clovis of Russia.
Truvor is far too selfish to share them with me, so I will have them all." To achieve the purpose in view, he laid himself flat in the road over which the fisherman must pass and pretended to be dead. The fisherman beheld him with surprise when he drew near, and jumping from his seat poked his sleek sides with his whip.
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