Blakumen

[3][4] According to its inscription, a Varangian couple named Hróðvísl and Hróðelfr set up the stone in memory of one of their sons, Hróðfúss, who had been treacherously killed by Blakumen while traveling abroad.

[3] Curta proposes that Hróðfúss was a merchant traveling towards Constantinople, who was attacked and killed by Vlachs north of the Lower Danube.

[8] Pritsak refuses to identify the Blakumen in the inscription with Vlachs, instead stating that they were Cumans, whose migration towards the westernmost regions of the Pontic steppes began around the time when the memorial stone was erected.

[9] Spinei counters this view because several mentions of the Blakumen or Blökumen (for instance in the Eymund's Saga) occur in contexts taking place decades before the earliest appearance of the Cumans in the Pontic steppe.

[2][14] They argue that the reference to the Tyrkir and Blökumen proves that Sviatopolk I hired Pechenegs and Vlachs when he decided to go to war with Yaroslav.

[16] The book narrates how the Byzantine Emperor Alexios I Komnenos, referred to by the name Kirjalax, invaded Blokumannaland where he fought against pagan tribes.

For instance, Spinei identifies the events prescribed in the Heimskringla with the Battle of Levounion of 1091 AD,[16] which ended with the catastrophic defeat of the Pechenegs by the Byzantines.