Northward of all, in the bleak mountain regions of Skandinavia, on the roof of Europe as it were, dwelt the Norsemen, those wild and warlike adventurers who were to leave the impress of their hand on the history of so many countries. In those days, when Iceland and Greenland were as yet undiscovered, Norway, Sweden, and Finland formed a stepping-stone to that unknown Arctic Sea which contemporary imagination peopled with weird and grimly monsters--for the North had its magic lore as well as the shining East. And the fierce vikings, fighting and plundering under their enchanted Raven banner, seemed in those credulous times not far removed from the legendary warlocks and griffons of whom they were presumed to be the neighbours.
As has been already noticed, the Khazars were essentially a trading nation, and much of the commerce of the farther East filtered through their hands into Eastern Europe. According to one authority[4] the products of the East, after crossing the Kaspian Sea, were conveyed up the Volga, and after a short land journey reached the Baltic by way of Lake Ilmen and Lake Ladoga. It is not easy to see why the shorter and simpler route along the Don and the Black Sea to Constantinople and the Mediterranean was not preferred, especially as the balance of power, and consequently of luxury and wealth, lay rather in the south of Europe than in the north. It was this trade, however, which built up the importance, possibly caused the birth, of Novgorod, that fascinating city which rises out of the mists that shroud the history of unchronicled times with the tantalising name of New Town, suggesting the existence of a yet older one. What was the exact footing of Novgorod in the early decades of the ninth century--whether an actual township, with governor and council, giving a head to a loose confederation of neighbouring Slavic tribes, or whether merely a village or camp, the most convenient station where “the barbarians might assemble for the occasional business of war or trade”[5]--it is difficult at this distance of time to determine. Seated on the banks of the Volkhov some little distance from where that river leaves Lake Ilmen’s northern shore, and connected with the Baltic by convenient waterways, it not only tapped the trade-route already referred to, but occupied a similar favourable position with regard to another important channel of traffic--that between the North and Byzantium by way of the Dniepr and Black Sea. Wax, honey, walrus teeth, and furs went from the frozen North to the “Tzargrad,” as the Imperial city was called by the Slavs, and in exchange came silks and spices and other products of the South. Furs and skins, of otter, marten, wolf, and beaver especially, were in growing demand in Europe, where, from the covering of savages, they had been promoted to articles of luxury among the wealthy of Christendom. With the land covered by dense forest, or infested by savage tribes, and the seas scoured by pirate fleets, traders preferred to keep as much as possible to the great river-routes, and the large, placidly-flowing rivers of the Russian plain were peculiarly suited to their purposes. Thus the early human wanderers adopted the same methods of travel, and nearly the same lines of journey, as the birds of passage, ducks, plovers, and waders use to this day in their annual migrations, winging their way along the coasts and river-courses from Asia to Europe and back again.