Truso

Truso, situated on Lake Druzno, was an Old Prussian town near the Baltic Sea just east of the Vistula River. It was one of the trading posts on the Amber Road, and is thought to be the antecedent of the city of Elblag.

Truso was situated in a central location upon the Eastern European trade routes, which led from Birka in the north to the island of Gotland and to Visby in the Baltic Sea and later included the Hanseatic League city of Elblag. From there, traders continued further south to Carnuntium in the Alps. This was called the Amber Road. The ancient Amber Road or roads led further south-west and south-east to the Black Sea and eventually to Asia.

East-west trade route went from Truso, along the Baltic Sea to Jutland,and from there inland by river to Hedeby, a large trading center in Jutland. Hedeby, which lay near the modern city of Schleswig in Schleswig-Holstein, was pretty centrally located and could be reached from all four directions over land as well as from the North Sea, the Atlantic Ocean, and the Baltic Sea.

Around the year 890, Wulfstan of Hedeby (by his own account) reportedly undertook a boat journey from Hedeby to Truso at the behest of king Alfred the Great. One possible reason for this expedition was because Harold needed aid in his defense against the Danes or Vikings, who had taken over most of England. The reasons for this journey are fundamentally unclear, since Truso was at the time little more than a trading center, and Alfred the Great, the West Saxon ruler, already kept in close contact with the continental Saxons and the Franks.