THE SCENE: A recurrent motif in Viking literature is the “last stand”, whereby the doomed hero takes down many enemies before eventually succumbing to his wounds. The passage below provides an outsider’s perspective, whereby an Arab author recounts such a scene with some admiration. [Note that the Rus are a Scandinavian/Slavic tribe who eventually founded Russia].
THE TEXT: I heard amazing stories from eyewitnesses of the prowess of these Rus and their little regard for the Muslim forces mustered against them. Thus there was a story current in the region which I heard form many persons of how five Rus were assembled in a garden in Barha’a with some captive women. One of them was a beardless youth with a fair face, the son of one of their chieftains. When the Muslims found out they were there, they surrounded the garden and a large number of Daylamite and others joined forces to fight these five. They tried hard to take one of them prisoner, but it was not possible, for none of them would surrender. The Rus killed many times their own number before they could be killed. The beardless youth was the last survivor. When he saw that he was going to be captured, he climbed a nearby tree and stabbed himself in vital organs until he died.
– Experiences of Nations, Miskawayh, 10th Century AD
[Image Credit: Gisli’s Last Stand by Celia Lowenthal — https://www.inprnt.com/gallery/clowenthal/gislis-last-stand/]
