My Sword for Tyr: A Norse Megacampaign

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Chapter Six
Northern Lights
1121-1143
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Shortly after the end of the war with Denmark, Kettilmund would come of age as a sociable and well adjusted adult.

Several years of peace then go by in Sweden with little happening until in the middle of 1130 when Edla would send a declaration of war to Pohjanmaa, one of the bigger remaining powers in Finland though their armies were currently weak.

The army gathers and quickly marches up to Mustasaari to lay siege to the tribe there. Strangely, they weren't met by any army or opposing forces, nothing to stop them from taking the tribe.

Until the Finnish army suddenly comes thundering out of the woods and attacks the Swedes at Levanluhta, not even with a commander to lead the forces in this suicidal charge. For their bravery they would be slaughtered to the last man by the Swedes.

The tribe would fall shortly after this and the Chief of Pohjanmaa would promptly surrender to Edla after only 9 months at war.

The Chiefdom would be given to Egil, one of Edla's grandsons. He wouldn't rule for very long though as some Finnish nobles would be left alone and would overthrow Egil. Edla would make a deal with the new Chief for him to convert to Norse and he would get to keep the title he took from Egil.

The peace didn't last very long as Karelia, the largest of the Finnish tribes left, declared war for Viborg, bringing in a coalition of the remaining Finnish tribes to try and push the Swedes back.

Part of the sizable Karelian army would make it's way to Viborg to lay siege while the other half stayed behind. This didn't end up working too well as the Swedes would attack them at Viborg and the other half of the Karelian army would strangely not reinforce their brothers in the battle, leaving them to die.

While the Finns retreated north the Swedes would advance into Karelian lands right to Kakisalmi, their capital, taking the tribe in a short siege and capturing the Chief's son in the siege.

The Finns had regrouped though and instead of facing the Swedes they marched north to Oulu and took the settlement. The Swedes would march north to face them only for the Finns to retreat back south in a long chase. After chasing them all the way back to Viborg the Karelian chief would surrender and give up his attempted conquest of Viborg.

Edla would return to her normal rule by ordering the upgrading of the castle at Sigtuna to now include a keep.

Her vassals would make conquests of their own during this period as well, with Igne II of Bergslagen taking over a large part of Norway, connecting Trondelag with the rest of Sweden and splitting Norway into three parts.

Edla would also found the first Norse Holy Order which would function in ways similar to the Christian Holy Orders that were around at the time. They would be declared to be the second Jomsvikings and their first Grandmaster would be Fredrick Stjerne, a man deemed to be perfect for the position of first Grandmaster.

A few more years pass before Edla starts looking for her next target which would end up being Norway. The kingdom had just come out of a long civil war which saw a new ruler installed, a Gaelic man from The Hebrides. Their armies were weak and they didn't have enough gold to finance it. Edla wouldn't just take a duchy from them however, she would be taking the entire kingdom.
I wanted to declare a Great Holy War for Norway, but pretty much all of Europe joined the war and steam rolled me immediately.

The first target would be the capital at Oslo where the Swedes would run into a Norwegian army, though one being commanded by a vassal rather than the proper Norwegian army. The Norwegians here wouldn't stand a chance and quickly flee the battlefield after suffering many casualties.

After that the Swedes would be free to siege and pillage to their heart's content, the Norwegians offering no resistance to the Swedes in their conquest.

Knowing he could do little to stop them, the Gaelic Norwegian king would send out a desperate cry for help, hoping for the Swedes to get distracted by something else and allow him to gather up a proper force to face them off. The would get one response though one from an unlikely source.

The Estonians, who would try to use this opportunity to take Osel. The plan didn't really work though as the Swedes let the Estonians take Osel for now to continue the war against the Norwegians, planning to fight the Estonians once the war was over.

It was over pretty quick after this. The Gaelic Norwegian king would surrender all of his titles in Norway and return to just being a duke in The Hebrides. There were a bunch of Catholic Norwegian vassals now though, but they would convert with some gold and titles.

And with that done the Swedes would turn their attention to the Estonians, sailing over to Osel to find that it had been taken, but there were no armies guarding it. They would retake it quickly and move into Estonia itself.

Only to find out why there were no armies to meet them. All of Estonia's neighbors had declared war on them as soon as they declared war for Osel, their lands now filled by marauding armies.

Feeling some pity for the Estonians, Edla would agree to a white peace with the Estonian queen and leave. They already had enough problems to deal with.

Sweden also had some problems as well. The Ubmejeiednuo, a tribe of Old Norse Swedes that had since fully assimilated into the Sapmi culture, had attacked Norway for a province while Sweden was invading. Norway wasn't there anymore, but they hadn't stopped attacking so they would have to be dealt with.

The Swedes would sail north and face them at the gates of Nidaross itself, driving the Sapmi away and beginning a counterattack that they wouldn't recover from.

The Swedes would quickly regain all lost lands before invading the Sapmi lands themselves, hoping to end it quickly so that they could all go home and rest for a while.

Only for Iceland to declare war.

The Swedes would get the Sapmi to surrender before making the long voyage north to the isolated, frozen island of Iceland where they land at the enemy's capital and lay siege.

After several months the walls would fall and the Swedes would swarm into the city where they would find the Jarl in his castle, having idiotically decided to stay in the capital and get himself captured.

He would surrender shortly after this and the Swedish army could return home to their greatly expanded kingdom.

 

[Brisingr]

Those are some impressive conquests! Has it come time to form Scandinavia now?

 

[Cora Giantkiller]

A viking's work is never truly done, it seems.

 

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Those are some impressive conquests! Has it come time to form Scandinavia now?

Close, but sadly no. I apparently need a little more land until Scandinavia can be formed because taking over the entirety of Norway, most of Finland, and reducing Denmark to a rump state isn't enough.

 

[HistoryDude]

Well, this is interesting - most of Scandinavia is Swedish now.

Can't wait to see the mega-empire of Scandinavia expanding. Of course, harsh times might fall upon it. This is a megacampaign.

 

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Chapter Seven
End of an Era
1144-1150
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With the kingdom finally getting a moment of peace Edla would begin a project of urban expansion in the Uppland region starting with building a new city in Osthammer.

Of course the peace wouldn't last for very long as a year later Edla was already looking for the next target, deciding that Iceland would be the next target of conquest. One of the last vestiges of Christianity within Scandinavia besides the now rump state of Denmark.

The Swedes would land in Skalaholt where they would be met with a large force of Icelanders that Iceland had somehow gathered, resulting in a fight on the beaches before they are pushed into the town. Even more Icelandic reinforcements would arrive but they would be too late to turn the tide of battle and be forced to retreat into the wilderness of Iceland, allowing the Swedes to control the western part of Iceland.

As it seemed like with most wars that Sweden got into it would start to take longer than thought. While the Swedes would be able to take the western part of the island the enemy army would gather in the northeastern part of Iceland, attacking the Swedes in hit and run attacks as they tried to take the eastern part of Iceland slowly whittling them with these tactics and the harshness of the land.

As the war dragged on Edla would slowly grow more and more tired, the war in Iceland seemingly wearing her down more than the others combined.

The Swedes would eventually surprise the Icelanders by sailing into their camp in Nordland. It would be a tough battle but the Swedes would come out on top and would even manage to capture the Jarl in the battle, forcing the Jarl to surrender and bringing the harsh, isolated island into Swedish rule.

Edla would soon receive the news of victory from her family. According to accounts at the time she would smile at this and then fall asleep in her chair, her family leaving to allow her to rest. A few hours later one of them would return to find that she had died in her chair of natural causes, a smile on her face.

Edla was 79 when she died and had ruled as King and then Fylkir for 58 years, the longest of any monarch for Sweden. The nation would mourn her death and she would be given a ship burial, her corpse and many of her possessions being loaded onto an extravagant boat, pushed into the seat and then lit on fire. The first Viking ship burial in a long time and one that was very much deserved.

The nobles would vote for Tolir to become the next King and Fylkir of Sweden. At 45 years old, Tolir was the grandson of Edla and son of Georg, one of Edla's sons. He was a man with an extensive knowledge of military tactics and siege tactics, having even gone on a pilgrimage. He was known to be a content man and quite trusting of people, though he very much had a cruel streak and often handed out harsh punishments for the smallest of mistakes.

His eldest son was Aggi, a young man that knew his way around money. He was described as arrogant and stubborn, refusing to budge on the smallest of things.

He had a second son named Georg after his own father. An illusive man, he was known to be ambitious though overly cynical. Tolir would name Georg as his heir rather than the older Aggi.

Unlike his grandmother, Tolir would inherit a religiously united Sweden and Scandinavia. Most of the Catholics had been driven out or converted back to the Norse gods, only a few holdouts of Catholics and Old Norse remaining.

Tolir would continue the urbanization projects that his grandmother had started, beginning another construction in Enkoping, along with a renovating and upgrading of the temple at Uppsala.

South in Russia, Kiev would expand. Becoming forgotten about shortly after the conquest Kiev would be left to their own devices and allowed to do their own thing. The city would eventually come under control of the Duke of Norrland who would expand south into the steppes.

Tolir would inherit Sjeltie shortly after coming to rule in Sweden though this would become a bit of a problem, having also inherited two wars against the Finns and Sapmi from the inheritance. Along with some general unrest among his Norwegian and some of his Swedish vassals it would seem that Tolir's early rule could easily become a nightmare.