Gudorm had been well taught about his father’s world. He knew that the Saxons lived south of Jutland, a folk not unlike his. East of them, along the southern shores of the Baltic Sea and inland, were tribes whom the Danes lumped together as Wends and looked on as uncouth and backward, speakers of outlandish tongues. Beyond these, Oardariki reached on into endlessness. Its dwellers were akin to the Wends, and likewise split among chiefdoms and tiny king-doms that could never muster much strength. However, they were more skilled and well off. Some of this they owed to Northerners, who oftener traded with them than raided, and had begun to settle among them, building towns on the great rivers.

Northward from Saxland ran the hills, heaths, woods, and farms of the Jutish peninsula. The Anglians in its southern half marked themselves off from the Jutes elsewhere, but these folk were both of the same stock as other Northerners, with the same speech and ways of life, and no one king had brought either of them together under his sway. Thus the Danes were moving in on them. Already the far end of Jutland, where the Skaw thrusts out into the Skagerrak, was Danish, as all the islands eastward had long been.

The nearest of those islands, across the waters of the Little Belt, was Funen. East of this, across the Great Belt, lay the biggest, Zealand. Many lesser islands were scattered about. Beyond Zealand was the Sound, and beyond this strait, on the mainland, was Scania, likewise Danish.

North of the Scanian shires were the Geats, and north of them the Swedes. However stalwart man for man, the Geats were rather few, and most times acknowledged the overlordship of the Swedish king. His kingdom, Svithjod, widespread, wealthy, and old, was said to have been founded by Odin.

Westward over the mountains was Norway, a clutch of quarrelsome and changeable small realms. Some few were strong enough that they must be reckoned with.

North of all this and back down around the gulf that met the Baltic Sea were the Finns, wild tribesmen with a tongue and gods all their own, not warlike but breeding many wizards.

The Danes believed they had their name from Dan, who ‘long ago hammered them into oneness. However, the kingly house that among them became the rightful one, theirs by the will of the gods, stemmed from Skjold. Tales tell how he came ashore from none knew where, a babe in an oarless boat, his head resting on a sheaf of wheat. He grew up to be so strong and deep-minded that men thought his father must be Odin, who had sent him to them. They hailed him their lord, and well did he do by them, victorious in battle, openhanded in hospitality and gift-giving, just in his judgments, and wise in the laws he laid down.