Date
Meaning & History
Variant of Ascolt. Askold and Dir (died in 882) were princes of Kiev and founders of the first Vikings' state in the Dnieper. According to the Primary Chronicle, they were of Rurik's Varangian clan.It should be noted that in the case of the historical Askold, his name was also recorded as Hǫskuldr. There has been further debate whether Askold was a given name at all; some scholars put forth the theory that later chroniclers mistook the Old Norse adjective óskyldr "strange, foreign" for a given name: 'there was probably a ruler of Kiev called Dir by the Slavs and the Varangians called him something like óskyldr Dýri — "stranger Dir". The Rus' Varangians later forgot the meaning of óskyldr so Nestor wrote about two rulers of Kiev — about Askold and Dir.'