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PART THREE: IN THE BORDER COUNTRY (#u3860283c-2a34-5b89-87d0-35256523d08a)
I: How Orm built his house and church, and how they named his red-haired daughters (#u3e57918c-5659-5647-a760-5db6ed80f11a)
II: How they planned a christening feast for King Harald’s grandson (#u6a7dc57c-a638-5b9e-8000-770bb316a894)
III: Concerning the strangers that came with salt, and how King Sven lost a head (#u4e4c0f83-2eae-5f24-9bd8-4a08b621d7a3)
IV: How Orm preached to the salt-pedlar (#u4b5c7dc5-b8aa-55fb-83a7-13ee34a37318)
V: Concerning the great christening feast, and how the first Smalanders came to be baptized (#u631cf754-e6e3-593f-b8f8-cf0e7b7f76d1)
VI: Concerning four strange beggars, and how the Erin Masters came to Father Willibald’s assistance (#u10579399-df4b-53bd-95aa-32f1ea3f676b)
VII: Concerning the King of Sweden’s sword-bearer, and the magister from Aachen and his sins (#uc2cfefd8-680a-5c24-b2b3-cd3391862887)
VIII: Concerning the sinful magister’s second sin, and the penance to which he was condemned for it (#ua28849d7-4273-54ef-9c67-c3ff2d2623ca)
IX: How the magister searched for heifers and sat in a cherry-tree (#uac6e891a-9f2f-52ab-96bf-2abe267ffca2)
X: Concerning the women’s doings at the Kraka Stone, and how Blue-Tongue’s edge became dented (#u68d82b1d-0aef-5080-8484-09abb274c5e8)
XI: Concerning Toke Grey-Gullsson, and a misfortune that befell him; and of a foul gift Orm received from the Finnvedings (#ue9eea877-75fe-5822-adfa-0e6ac51eb7a3)
XII: Concerning the Thing at the Kraka Stone (#u9996b39e-1450-512c-8a84-f81e3fd49dcc)
PART FOUR: THE BULGAR GOLD (#ucb43f0e2-d768-544a-a46e-be59833d5faa)
I: Concerning the end of the world, and how Orm’s children grew up (#u450c15de-d6d8-58c4-8b51-4dbabd3fcd96)
II: Concerning the man from the East (#ua6d3c12a-b14b-589e-9748-3afd976bdf7e)
III: Concerning the story of the Bulgar gold (#ud9323992-f683-5bc5-88f3-cdf56b70da83)
IV: How they planned to get the gold (#u30274a76-6be1-54e8-8125-3f93f53021a6)
V: How they sailed to the Gotland Vi (#uda7d592f-d8d1-56f6-9cb7-cdf4d32f905e)
VI: How they rowed to the Dnieper (#uad711bc2-d9c4-5243-9c57-887ef11b126a)
VII: Concerning what happened at the weirs (#u35145da3-1718-5338-bad3-7d8d4ea7a58c)
VIII: How Orm met an old friend (#u339d7751-38cf-58e2-8638-4217ac0ef6fd)
IX: Concerning their journey home, and how Olof Summer-Bird vowed to become a Christian (#ue4cfe9dd-0663-5f45-95e4-dadcf53be5bc)
X: How they settled accounts with the crazy magister (#ub0e33f9e-5bb9-5d69-80a1-eec0b2cd9090)
XI: Concerning the great hounds’ chase (#uc8dacb27-5449-5738-8de5-376ea3ae7887)
Footnotes (#ufa0fb72e-dd9c-57ee-a376-7be8330f271f)
About the Author (#u51a8d9a8-eccb-5b1f-881c-69f24990d8a5)
About the Publisher (#uebd64d7c-f170-5c7e-b3e1-629d15b0a97c)
TRANSLATOR’S NOTE (#ulink_41c08e09-d17e-549c-9446-78d3a1f9afb9)
The action of The Long Ships covers, approximately, the years A.D. 980–1010. At that time, the southern provinces of Sweden belonged to Denmark, so that Orm, although born and bred in Skania, regarded himself as a Dane.
The Vikings harried the countries of northern and western Europe more or less continuously for a period of over 200 years, from the end of the eighth century until the beginning of the eleventh. Most of the raids on western Europe were carried out by Danes and Norwegians; for the Swedes regarded the Baltic as their domain, and founded a kingdom in Russia at the end of the ninth century which endured for 350 years, until the coming of the Mongols. Ireland was, at first, the favourite western hunting-ground of the Vikings; it was not until 838, forty years after the first attack on Ireland, that they began to raid England in large numbers. For the next sixty years, however, they – especially the great Ragnar Hairy-Breeks and his terrible sons – troubled England cruelly, until Alfred withstood them and forced them to come to terms. Then, from 896 until 979, England enjoyed eighty years of almost unbroken respite from their fury. In France, the Northmen were so feared that, in 911, Charles the Simple ceded part of his kingdom to them; this came to be known as Normandy, the Northmen’s land. Vikings peopled Iceland in 860, and Greenland in 986. In the latter year a Viking ship heading for Greenland went off its course and reached America, which, because of the good grapes they found there, the men named ‘Wineland the Good.’ Several other Viking ships sailed to America during the next twenty years.
The Battle of Jörundfjord, or Hjörungavag, so frequently referred to in the following pages, was one of the most famous battles fought in the north during the Viking Age. It was fought between the Norwegians and the Jomsvikings. The Jomsvikings (to quote Professor C. Turville-Petre) were ‘a closed society of Vikings, living according to their own laws and customs. None of them might be younger than eighteen years, and none older than fifty; they must not quarrel among themselves, and each must avenge the other as his brother.’ No woman was allowed within their citadel, Jomsborg, which was sited on the southern shore of the Baltic, probably in the region of where Swinemunde now stands. According to Icelandic sources, Canute’s father, King Sven Forkbeard, invited the Jomsvikings to a feast. As the ale flowed, King Sven swore an oath to invade England and kill Ethelred the Unready, or else drive him into exile. The Jomsviking chieftain, Sigvalde, swore in his turn to sail to Norway and kill the rebel Jarl Haakon, or else drive him into exile. All the other Jomsvikings, including the two Skanian chieftains, Bue Digre and Vagn Akesson, swore to follow him. They sailed to Norway with sixty ships, but Haakon got wind of their approach and, when at last they turned into Jörundfjord, they found him waiting for them with a fleet of no less than 180 ships. At first, despite being thus outnumbered, the Jomsvikings looked likely to prevail; but the weather turned against them and, after a bitter struggle, they were routed and slaughtered almost to a man.
This was in 989. In the following spring, another vital battle was fought in Sweden, on Fyris Plain before Uppsala, when the dreaded Styrbjörn, the exiled nephew of King Erik of Sweden, sought to win his uncle’s kingdom, but was killed by a chance spear in the first moments of the fight. It is to the echoes of these two battles that The Long Ships opens.
M.M.
PROLOGUE (#ulink_e46dbf8c-1534-5436-9a21-bfb1a4380f85)
How the shaven men fared in Skania in King Harald Bluetooth’s time (#ulink_e46dbf8c-1534-5436-9a21-bfb1a4380f85)
Many restless men rowed north from Skania with Blue and Vagn, and found ill fortune at Jörundfjord; others marched with Styrbjörn to Uppsala and died there with him. When the news reached their homeland that few of them could be expected to return, elegies were declaimed and memorial stones set up; whereupon, all sensible men agreed that what had happened was for the best, since they could now hope to have a more peaceful time than before, and less parcelling out of land by the axe and sword. There followed a time of plenty, with fine rye harvests and great herring catches, so that most people were well contented; but there were some who thought that the crops were tardy, and they went a-viking in Ireland and England, where fortune smiled on their wars; and many of them stayed there.
About this time the shaven men had begun to arrive in Skania both from the Saxons’ land and from England, to preach the Christian faith. They had many strange tales to relate, and at first people were curious and listened to them eagerly, and women found it pleasant to be baptized by these foreigners, and to be presented with a white shift. Before long, however, the foreigners began to run short of shifts, and people wearied of their sermons, finding them tedious and their matter doubtful; besides which, they spoke a rough-sounding dialect that they had learned in Hedeby or in the western islands, which gave their speech a foolish air.
So then there was something of a decline in conversions, and the shaven men, who talked incessantly of peace and were above all very violent in their denunciation of the gods, were one by one seized by devout persons and were hung up on sacred ash-trees and shot at with arrows, and offered to the birds of Odin. Others went northwards to the forests of the Göings, where men were less religiously inclined; there, they were welcomed warmly, and were tied up and led to the markets in Smaland, where they were bartered for oxen and for beaver skins. Some of them, upon finding themselves slaves of the Smalanders, let their hair grow and waxed discontented with their God Jehovah, and gave good service to their masters; but the majority continued to denounce the gods and to spend their time baptizing women and children instead of breaking stones and grinding corn, and made such annoyance of themselves that soon it became impossible for the Göings to obtain, as hitherto, a yoke of three-year-old oxen for a sturdy priest without giving a measure of salt or cloth into the bargain. So feeling increased against the shaven men in the border country.
One summer, the word went round the whole of the Danish kingdom that King Harald Bluetooth had embraced the new religion. In his youth, he had done so tentatively, but had soon regretted his decision and recanted; this time, however, he had adopted it seriously. For King Harald was by now an old man, and had for some years been tormented by terrible pains in his back, so that he had almost lost his pleasure in ale and women; but wise bishops, sent by the Emperor himself, had rubbed him with bear’s-grease, blessed and made potent with the names of apostles, and had wrapped him in sheepskins and given him holy herbal water to drink instead of ale, and had made the sign of the cross between his shoulders and exorcised many devils out of him, until at last his aches and pains had departed; and so the King became a Christian.
Thereupon, the holy men had assured him that still worse torments would come to plague him if he should ever again offer sacrifice, or show himself in any way unzealous in the new religion. So King Harald (as soon as he had become active again, and found himself capable of fulfilling his obligations towards a young Moroccan slave-girl, whom Olof of the Precious Stones, the King of Cork, had sent him as a goodwill present), issued a proclamation that all his subjects should get themselves christened without delay; and, although such an order sounded strangely from the lips of one who was himself descended from Odin, still many obeyed his command, for he had ruled long and prosperously, so that his word counted for much in the land. He meted out especially severe punishments to anyone who had been guilty of violence against any priest; so that the number of priests in Skania now began to multiply greatly, and churches rose upon the plain, and the old gods fell into disuse, except in times of peril at sea or of cattle-plague.
In Göinge, however, the King’s proclamation was the occasion of much merriment. The people of the border forests were blessed with a readier sense of fun than the sober dwellers of the plain, and nothing made them laugh so much as a royal proclamation. For in the border country, few men’s authority extended beyond the limit of their right arm, and from Jellinge to Göinge was a long march even for the mightiest of kings to undertake. In the old days, in the time of Harald Hildetand and Ivar of the Broad Embrace, and even before that, kings had been wont to come to Göinge to hunt the wild ox in the great forests there, but seldom on any other errand. But since those times, the wild ox had died out, and the king’s visits had ceased; so that nowadays, if any king was bold enough to murmur a complaint that the people of those parts were turbulent or that they paid insufficient taxes, and threatened to journey thither himself to remedy matters, the answer would be sent to him that there were, unfortunately, no wild oxen to be seen in the district nowadays, but that as soon as any should appear he would at once be informed, and a royal welcome would be prepared for him. Accordingly, it had for long been a saying among the border people that no king would be seen in their country until the wild oxen returned.
So in Göinge, things remained as they had always been, and Christianity made no headway there. Such priests as did venture into those parts were sold over the border as in the old days; though some of the Göings were of the opinion that it would be better to kill them on the spot, and start a good war against the skinflints of Sunnerbo and Allbo, for the Smalanders gave such poor prices for priests nowadays that it was hardly worth a man’s trouble to lead them to market.
PART ONE (#ulink_36dc95ee-0f4a-5e0f-9c97-8938f6631b96)
CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_062973bc-b8e0-50ab-bed3-c3999d88e706)
Concerning Thane Toste and his household (#ulink_062973bc-b8e0-50ab-bed3-c3999d88e706)
Along the coast the people lived together in villages, partly to be sure of food, that they might not depend entirely on the luck of their own catch, and partly for greater security; for ships rounding the Skanian peninsula often sent marauding parties ashore, both in the spring, to replenish cheaply their stock of fresh meat for the westward voyage, and in the winter, if they were returning empty-handed from unsuccessful wars. Horns would be blown during the night when raiders were thought to have landed, so that the neighbours might come to the assistance of those attacked; and the stay-at-homes of a good village would occasionally even capture a ship or two for themselves, from strangers who had not been sufficiently prudent, and so have fine prizes to show the wanderers of the village when the long ships came home for their winter rest.
But men who were wealthy and proud, and who owned their own ships, often found it irksome to have neighbours on their doorstep, and preferred to live apart; for, even when they were at sea, they could keep their homes defended by good warriors whom they paid to stay in their houses and guard them. In the region of the Mound, there were many such great lords, and the rich thanes of that district had the reputation of being the proudest in all the Danish kingdom. When they were at home, they readily picked quarrels with one another, although their homesteads lay well spaced apart; but often they were abroad, for they had been used from their childhood to look out over the sea and to regard it as their own private pasture, where any whom they found trespassing would have to answer for it.
In these parts there lived a thane called Toste, a worthy man and a great sailor who, although he was advanced in years, still commanded his ship and set out each summer for foreign shores. He had kinsmen in Limerick in Ireland, among the Vikings who had settled there, and he sailed west each year to trade with them and to help their chieftain, a descendant of Ragnar of the Hairy Breeks, to collect tribute from the Irish and from their monasteries and churches. Of late, however, things had begun to go less well for the Vikings in Ireland, ever since Muirkjartach of the Leathern Coats, the King of Connaught, had marched round the island with his shield-arm towards the sea as a sign of defiance. For the natives now defended themselves better than before and followed their kings more willingly, so that it had become a difficult business to extort tribute from them; and even the monasteries and churches, that had previously been easy to plunder, had now built high stone towers to which the priests betook themselves, and from which they could not be driven by fire or by force of arms. In view of all this, many of Toste’s followers were now of the opinion that it might be more profitable to go a-viking in England or France, where times were good and more might be won with less effort; but Toste preferred to do as he had been used to do, thinking himself too old to start journeying to countries where he might not feel so well at home.
His wife was called Asa. She came from the border forest and had a ready tongue, besides being somewhat smart of temper, so that Toste was sometimes heard to remark that he could not see much evidence of time having smoothed out the wrinkles in her nature, as it was said to do. But she was a skilful housewife, and took good care of the farm when Toste was away. She had borne him five sons and three daughters; but their sons had not met with the best of luck. The eldest of them had come to grief at a wedding, when, merry with ale, he had attempted to prove that he could ride bareback on a bull; and the next one had been washed overboard on his first voyage. But the unluckiest of all had been their fourth son, who was called Are; for, one summer, when he was nineteen years old, he had got two of their neighbours’ wives with child while their husbands were abroad, which had been the instance of much trouble and sly jibing, and had put Toste to considerable expense when the husbands returned home. This dejected Are’s spirits and made him shy; then he killed a man who had chaffed him overlong for his dexterity, and had to flee the country. It was rumoured that he had sold himself to Swedish merchants and had sailed with them to the east, so that he might meet no more people who knew of his misfortune, but nothing had been heard of him since. Asa, however, had dreamed of a black horse with blood on its shoulders, and knew by this that he was dead.
So after that, Asa and Toste had only two sons left. The elder of these was called Odd. He was a short youth, coarsely built and bow-legged, but strong and horny-handed, and of a reflective temper; he was soon accompanying Toste on his voyages, and showed himself to be a skilful shipman, as well as a hard fighter. At home, though, he was often contrary in his behaviour, for he found the long winters tedious, and Asa and he bickered continually. He was sometimes heard to say that he would rather be eating rancid salt-meat on board ship than Yuletide joints at home; but Asa remarked that he never seemed to take less than anyone else of the food she set before them. He dozed so much every day that he would often complain that he had slept poorly during the night; it did not even seem to help, he would say, when he took one of the servant-girls into the bed-straw with him. Asa did not like his sleeping with her servants; she said it might give them too high an opinion of themselves and make them impudent towards their mistress; she observed that it would be more satisfactory if Odd acquired a wife. But Odd replied that there was no hurry about that; in any case, the women that suited his taste best were the ones in Ireland, and he could not very well bring any of them home with him for, if he did, Asa and they would soon be going for one another tooth and nail. At this, Asa became angry and asked whether this could be her own son who addressed her thus, and expressed the wish that she might shortly die; to which Odd retorted that she might live or die as she chose, and he would not presume to advise her which state to choose, but would endure with resignation whatever might befall.
Although he was slow of speech, Asa did not always succeed in having the last word, and she used to say that it was in truth a hard thing for her to have lost three good sons and to have been left with the one whom she could most easily have spared.
Odd got on better with his father, however, and, as soon as the spring came, and the smell of tar began to drift across from the boat-house to the jetty, his humour would improve, and sometimes he would even try, though he had little talent for the craft, to compose a verse or two – of how the auk’s meadow was now ripe for ploughing; or how the horses of the sea would shortly waft him to the summer land.
But he never won himself any great name as a bard, least of all among those daughters of neighbouring thanes who were of marriageable age; and he was seldom observed to turn his head as he sailed away.
His brother was the youngest of all Toste’s children, and the jewel of his mother’s eye. His name was Orm. He grew quickly, becoming long and scatter-limbed, and distressing Asa by his lack of flesh; so that whenever he failed to eat a good deal more than any of the grown men, she would become convinced that she would soon lose him, and often said that his poor appetite would assuredly be his downfall. Orm was, in fact, fond of food, and did not grudge his mother her anxiety regarding his appetite; but Toste and Odd were sometimes driven to protest that she reserved all the tit-bits for him. In his childhood, Orm had once or twice fallen sick, ever since when Asa had been convinced that his health was fragile, so that she was continually fussing over him with solicitous admonitions, making him believe that he was racked with dangerous cramps and in urgent need of sacred onions, witches’ incantations and hot clay platters, when the only real trouble was that he had overeaten himself on corn porridge and pork.
As he grew up, Asa’s worries increased. It was her hope that he would, in time, become a famous man and a chieftain; and she expressed to Toste her delight that Orm was shaping into a big, strong lad, wise in his discourse, in every respect a worthy scion of his mother’s line. She was, though, very fearful of all the perils that he might encounter on the highway of manhood, and reminded him often of the disasters that had overtaken his brothers, making him promise always to beware of bulls, to be careful on board ship, and never to lie with other men’s wives; but, apart from these dangers, there was so much else that might befall him that she hardly knew where to begin to counsel him. When he reached the age of sixteen, and was ready to sail with the others, Asa forbade him to go, on the ground that he was still too young and too fragile of health; and, when Toste asked her whether she had it in her mind to bring him up to be a chieftain of the kitchen and a hero of old women, she exploded into such a rage that Toste himself became frightened, and let her have her way, and was glad to be allowed to take his own leave, and, indeed, lost little time in doing so. That autumn, Toste and Odd returned late from their voyage, and had lost so many of their crew that they scarcely had enough left to man the oars; nevertheless, they were well contented with the results of their expedition, and had much to relate. In Limerick, they had met with small success, for the Irish kings in Munster had by now become so powerful that the Vikings who lived there had their work cut out to hold on to what they had. Then, however, some friends of Toste (who had anchored his ship off the coast) had asked whether he might feel inclined to accompany them on a secret visit to a great midsummer fair which was held each year at Merioneth, in Wales, a district to which the Vikings had not previously penetrated, but which could be reached with the assistance of two experienced guides whom Toste’s friends had discovered. Their followers being enthusiastic, Odd had persuaded Toste to fall in with this suggestion; so seven shiploads of them had landed near Merioneth and, after following a difficult route inland, had managed to arrive at the fair without giving wind of their approach. There had been fierce fighting, and a good many men had been killed, but in the end the Vikings had prevailed and had captured a great quantity of booty, as well as many prisoners. These they had sold in Cork, making a special voyage thither for the purpose, for it had long been the custom for slave-traders to gather in Cork from all the corners of the world to bid for the captives whom the Vikings brought there; and the king of those parts, Olof of the Precious Stones, who was a Christian and very old and wise, would himself purchase any that caught his fancy, so that he might give their kinsmen the opportunity to ransom them, on which transaction he could be sure of making a pretty profit. From Cork, they had set out for home, in company with a number of other Viking ships in case of pirates, for they had little appetite for further fighting, weakly manned as they now were, besides having much treasure aboard. So they had succeeded in coming unscathed round the Skaw, where the men of the Vik and of Westfold lurked in ambush to surprise richly laden ships returning homewards from the south and west.
After the survivors of the crew had been allotted their share of the booty, a great quantity remained for Toste; who, when he had weighed it and locked it into his treasure-chest, announced that an expedition such as this would serve as a fitting conclusion to his wanderings, and that henceforth he would remain at home, the more willingly since he was beginning to grow somewhat stiff of limb; Odd was by now capable of managing the affairs of the expeditions fully as well as he, and would, besides, have Orm to help him. Odd thought that this was a good idea; but Asa was of a very different opinion, observing that, whilst a fair amount of silver had been won, it could hardly be expected to last for long, considering how many mouths she had to feed each winter; besides which, how could they be sure that Odd would not spend all the prize-money he won in future expeditions on his Irish women, or indeed whether, left to himself, he would ever bother to come home to them at all? As regards the stiffness which Toste complained of in his back, he ought by now to know that this was not the result of his voyages but of the months that he spent idling in front of the fire throughout each winter; and to be falling over his sprawling legs for six months in every year was quite sufficient for her. She could not understand (she continued) what men were coming to nowadays; her own great-uncle, Sven Rat-Nose, a mighty man among the Göings, had fallen like a hero fighting the Smalanders three years after drinking the whole company under the table at his eldest grandson’s wedding; whereas, now, you heard talk of cramps from men in the prime of life who were apparently quite willing to die, unashamedly, on their backs in straw, like cows. However, she concluded, all this could be settled in good time, and meanwhile Toste and Odd and the others who had come home with them were to drown their worries in good ale, of a brew that would please their palates; and Toste was to put these nonsensical ideas out of his head and drink to an equally profitable expedition next year; and then they would all enjoy a comfortable winter together, so long as nobody invented any more of such stupid notions to provoke her, which she trusted they would not.
When she had left them to prepare the ale, Odd remarked that, if all her female ancestors had had tongues like her, Sven Rat-Nose had probably fixed on the Smalanders as the lesser evil. Toste demurred, saying that he agreed up to a point, but that she was in many respects a good wife, and ought, perhaps, not to be provoked unnecessarily, and that Odd should do his best to humour her.
That winter, they all noticed that Asa went about her household duties with less than her usual ardour and bustle, and that her tongue ran less freely than it was wont to do. She was more than ever solicitous towards Orm, and would sometimes stand and gaze at him, as though contemplating a vision. Orm had by now grown big, and could compete in matters of strength with all those of his age, as well as with many older youths. He was red-haired and fair-skinned, broad between the eyes, snub-nosed and wide-mouthed, with long arms and rather rounded shoulders: he was quick and agile, and surer than most with a spear or with a bow. He was fiery of tongue, and would rush blindly on any man that roused him, so that even Odd, who had previously enjoyed teasing him to a white fury, had now begun to treat him with caution; for Orm’s strength made him a dangerous opponent. But in general, except when he was angry, he was quiet and tractable, and always ready to do whatever Asa asked of him, though he occasionally had words with her when her fussing irked him.
Toste now gave him a man’s weapons – a sword and a broad axe and a good helmet – and Orm made himself a shield; but he found difficulty in obtaining a chain-shirt, for nobody in the household was of his size, and there was, at that time, a shortage of good mail-smiths in the land, most of them having migrated to England or to the Jarl at Rouen, where their work was better paid. Toste said that, for the time being, Orm would have to be content with a leather tunic, until such time as he could get himself a good shirt in Ireland; for there, dead men’s armour was always to be had cheaply in any harbour.
They were talking on this subject at table one day, when of a sudden Asa buried her face in her arms and began to weep. They all fell silent and stared at her, for it was not often that tears were seen on her cheeks; and Odd asked her if she had the toothache. Asa dried her face, and turned towards Toste. She said that all this talk of dead men’s armour seemed to her to be a bad omen, and that she was already certain that disaster would overtake Orm as soon as he accompanied them to sea, for thrice in her dreams she had seen him lying bleeding on a ship’s bench, and they all knew that her dreams could be relied upon to come true. She begged Toste, therefore, to listen to her earnest prayer and not to expose their son’s life to unnecessary peril, but to allow him to remain at home with her for this one summer; for she believed that danger threatened him in the very near future and that, if he could only survive this immediate hazard, the risk would subsequently decrease.
Orm asked her whether she could see in her dream in which part of his body he was wounded. Asa replied that, each time she dreamed this dream, the sight of him lying thus had awakened her in a cold terror; but she had seen his hair bloody and his face pale, and the vision had weighed heavily upon her, the more so each time that it returned, although she had not previously wished to speak of it.
Toste sat silent for a while, pondering over what she had said; then he remarked that he knew little about dreams, and had never himself paid much attention to them.
‘For the Ancients used to observe,’ he said, ‘that, as the Spinstress spinneth, so shall it be. If, though, you, Asa, have dreamed the same dream thrice, then it may be that this is intended to serve as a warning to us; and, in truth, we have already lost our share of sons. Therefore, I shall not oppose your will in this matter, and Orm shall remain at home this summer, if it is also his wish. For my own part, I begin to feel that I should not mind sailing once more to the west; so, perhaps, after all, your suggestion may turn out to be the best solution for us all.’
Odd concurred with Toste, for he had several times noticed that Asa’s dreams foretold the future correctly. Orm was not overjoyed at their decision, but he was accustomed to obey Asa’s will in important matters; so nothing more was said.
When spring came, and sufficient men had been hired from the hinterland to fill the gaps in their crew, Toste and Odd sailed away as usual, while Orm remained at home. He behaved somewhat sulkily towards his mother, and sometimes pretended to be sick in order to frighten her, but, as soon as she began to fuss over him and dose him with medicines, he would find himself believing that he was in fact ill, so that he gained but little pleasure from his game. Asa could not bring herself to forget her dream and, despite all the worry he caused her, it comforted her to have him safe with her at home.
Nevertheless, and in spite of his mother, he sailed forth that summer on his first voyage.
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_189c9273-5e1e-5627-b72b-5c428624805a)
Concerning Krok’s expedition: and how Orm set forth on his first voyage (#ulink_189c9273-5e1e-5627-b72b-5c428624805a)
In the fortieth year of King Harald Bluetooth’s reign, six summers before the Jomsvikings’ expedition to Norway, three ships, fitted with new sails and boldly manned, set sail from the Listerland and headed southwards to plunder the country of the Wends. They were commanded by a chieftain called Krok. He was a dark-complexioned man, tall and loose-limbed and very strong; and he had a great name in his part of the country, for he possessed a talent for evolving audacious plans, and enjoyed deriding men whose enterprises had gone astray and telling them what he would have done if he had been in their shoes. He had never in fact achieved anything of note, for he preferred to talk of the feats he intended to perform in the near future; but at length, he had so fired the young men of the district with his talk of the booty that brave warriors might win in the course of a properly conducted expedition against the Wends, that they had got together and fitted out ships and had chosen him to be their chieftain. There was, he had told them, much treasure to be found in Wendland; above all, one could be certain of a fine haul of silver, amber and slaves.
Krok and his men reached the Wendish coast and discovered the mouth of a river, up which they rowed against a strong current until they came to a wooden fortress, with piles forming a boom across the river. Here they went ashore in a grey dawn twilight, and attacked the Wends, having first slipped through their outlying defences. But the fortress was strongly manned, and its defenders shot arrows at them cunningly, and Krok’s men were tired with their heavy rowing, so there was a bitter struggle before the Wends were finally put to flight. In the course of it, Krok lost many good men; and, when the booty was examined, it was found to consist of a few iron kettles and some sheepskin coats. They rowed back down the river, and made an attempt on another village farther to the west, but it, too, was well defended and, after another sharp struggle, in which they sustained further losses, they won a few sides of smoked pork, a torn chain-shirt and a necklace of small, worn silver coins.
They buried their dead on the shore, and held counsel, and Krok had some difficulty in explaining to them why the expedition had not turned out as he had foretold. But he succeeded in calming their temper with well-chosen words, reminding them that no man could insure against bad luck or the whims of circumstance, and that no true Viking allowed himself to become dispirited by a little adversity. The Wends, he explained, were becoming redoubtable adversaries; and he had a good plan to put to them which would certainly redound to the advantage of them all. This was that they should make an attempt against Bornholm, for the richness of that island’s inhabitants was well known to them all, and it would be weakly defended, many of its warriors having recently gone to England. A shore-thrust here would meet with little opposition, and would be sure to yield a rich harvest of gold, brocades and fine weapons.
They found this well spoken, and their spirits rose again; so they set sail and headed for Bornholm, which they reached early one morning. They rowed along the eastern coast of the island in a calm sea and a rising haze, searching for a good landing-place, pulling briskly and keeping well together, for they were in high good humour; but they kept silence, for they hoped to land unobserved. Suddenly, they heard ahead of them the clank of rowlocks and the plash of oar-blades dipping evenly, and out of the haze appeared a single long ship approaching round a headland. It made towards them, without slackening its stroke, and they all stared at it, for it was large and splendid to behold, with a red dragon-head at its prow, and twenty-four pairs of oars; and they were glad that it was unaccompanied. Krok ordered all his men who were not engaged at the oars to take up their weapons and stand ready for boarding; for here there was plainly much to be won. But the lone ship headed straight towards them, as though its helmsman had not observed their presence; and a stoutly built man, standing in the prow, with a broad beard visible beneath his bossed helmet, cupped his hand to his mouth as they approached and roared in a harsh voice: ‘Get out of our way, unless you want to fight!’
Krok laughed, and his men laughed with him; and he shouted back: ‘Have you ever seen three ships give way to one?’
‘Ay, and more than three!’ roared the fat man impatiently. ‘For most men give way to Styrbjörn. But be quick about it and make your choice. Get out of our way or fight!’
When Krok heard the fat man’s words, he made no reply, but silently turned his ship aside; and his men rested their oars while the lone ship rowed past them, nor did any of them unsheath his sword. They saw a tall young man in a blue cloak, with fair down lining his jaw, rise from his resting-place beside the helmsman and stand surveying them with sleepy eyes, grasping a spear in his hand. He yawned broadly, dropped his spear and laid himself again to rest; and Krok’s men realized that this was Björn Olofsson, commonly called Styrbjörn, the banished nephew of King Erik of Uppsala, who seldom sought refuge from storm and never from battle, and whom few men willingly encountered at sea. His ship proceeded on its course, its long oars sweeping evenly, and disappeared southwards into the haze. But Krok and his men found their previous high spirits difficult to recover.
They rowed to the eastern skerries, which were uninhabited, and there they landed and cooked a meal, and held long counsel. Many of them thought that they would do best to turn for home, seeing that bad luck had followed them even to Bornholm. For, if Styrbjörn was in these waters, the island was sure to be swarming with Jomsvikings, in which case there would be nothing left for any other raiders. Some of them said that there was little use in going to sea with the sort of chieftain who gave way to a single ship.
Krok was at first less eloquent than usual; but he had ale brought ashore for them all and, after they had drunk, he delivered a speech of encouragement. In one sense, he was ready to admit, it might be considered unfortunate that they had encountered Styrbjörn in this manner; but, if you looked at it another way, it was extremely fortunate that they had encountered him when they did, for if they had come ashore and met them or other Jomsvikings there, they would have had to pay dearly for it. All Jomsvikings, and none more so than Styrbjörn’s men, were half berserk, sometimes being even proof against iron, and able to lay about them with both hands full as well as the best warriors from Lister. That he had been reluctant to order an assault on Styrbjörn’s ship might, at first sight, appear odd to idle-thinking men, nevertheless, he regarded his reluctance as fully justified, and considered it fortunate that he had made his decision so promptly. For a homeless and exiled pirate would hardly be likely to have sufficient treasure stored away in any one place to be worth a bloody battle; and he would remind them that they had not come to sea to win empty honour, but to secure hard booty. In view of all this, he had thought it more proper to consider the general good than his own reputation as a warrior, and, if they would reflect, he felt sure that they would agree that he had acted in this affair in a manner befitting a chieftain.
As he thus cunningly dispersed the fog of dejection which had settled on his men’s spirits, Krok began to feel his own courage rising anew; and he proceeded to exhort them strongly against making for home. For the people of Lister, he said, were inclined to be uncharitable, and the women in particular would ply them with painful queries regarding their exploits and the prizes they had won, and why they had returned so soon. No man proud of his good name would thus willingly lay himself open to the shafts of their mockery; therefore, he suggested, it would be better if they could postpone their return until they had won something worth bringing home. The important thing now, he concluded, was that they should remain together, face their adversities with courage and resolution, and determine on some worthy goal to which to proceed; on which matter, before he spoke any further, he would like to hear the views of his wise comrades.
One of the men then proposed that they should go to the land of the Livonians and the Kures
where there was a rich harvest to be reaped; but this suggestion won little support, for men of greater experience knew that large shiploads of Swedes descended annually on those regions, and it was not to be reckoned that they would proffer a warm welcome to any strangers who arrived on the same errand. Another man had heard that the greatest single hoard of silver in the world was to be found in Gotland, and he thought that they should try their hand there; but others of his companions, who knew better, said that nowadays, since the Gotlanders had become rich, they lived in large villages, which could only be successfully attacked by a powerful army.
A third man then rose to address them, a warrior called Berse, who was a wise speaker and prized by all for his sound judgment. He said that the Eastern Sea was becoming a crowded and unrewarding pasture, for far too many men were plundering its coasts and islands, so that even such peoples as the Wends were learning how to defend themselves. It would be a poor thing to turn meekly for home – on that point, he was of the same opinion as Krok – but it was, he thought, worth considering whether they might not sail out to the lands in the west. He had never himself travelled to those parts, but certain men from Skania, whom he had met at a fair during the previous summer, had been in England and Brittany with Toke Gormsson and Sigvalde Jarl, and had had much to say in praise of those countries. They wore gold rings and costly garments, and according to their report certain companies of Vikings had anchored their ships in Frankish estuaries for months on end while they plundered the hinterland, and these men had frequently had burgomasters and abbots to wait on them at table and the daughters of counts to make them merry in bed. How strictly his informants had kept to the truth he could not, of course, say, but, as a general rule, you could believe about half of what Skanians told you; and these men had made an impression on him of considerable prosperity, for they had invited him, a stranger from Blekinge, to join them in a grand drinking-bout and had not attempted to steal his belongings while he slept, so that their story could not be altogether false; besides which, it was more or less confirmed by reports he had heard from other quarters. Now, where Skanians had prospered, men of Blekinge ought to fare at least as well; therefore, he concluded, he, for his part, would suggest that they should sail to the lands of the west, if a majority among his comrades were of the same mind.
Many of them applauded his proposal and cried assent; but others doubted whether they were sufficiently provisioned to carry them through until they came to their goal.
Then Krok spoke again. He said that Berse had made exactly the suggestion that he himself thought of putting forward. Berse had spoken of the daughters of counts and of wealthy abbots, for the return of whose persons they would receive large ransoms; and he would like to add that in Ireland, there were, as was well known, no less than a hundred and sixty kings, some great, some small, but all of whom possessed much gold and many fine women, and whose soldiers fought wearing only linen garments, so that they could not be difficult to overcome. The most difficult part of their voyage would be passing through the Sound, where they might find themselves attacked by the natives of those parts; but three strongly manned ships, which Styrbjörn himself had not dared to challenge, would be likely to command respect even in the Sound; besides which, most of the Vikings of that region would, at this time of the year, already have sailed westwards; and in any case, there would be no moon during the next few nights. As regards food, any that they needed they could easily obtain as soon as they had successfully negotiated the Sound.
By this time they had all recovered their former high spirits. They said the plan was a good one, and that Krok was the wisest and cleverest of all chieftains; and they were all proud to discover how little trepidation they felt at the prospect of a voyage to the lands of the west, for no ship from their district had attempted such a journey within living memory. They set sail and came to Möen, and rested there for a day and a night, keeping a good look-out and waiting for a favourable wind. Then they headed up through the Sound in stormy weather, and came that evening to its neck without meeting any enemies. Later, during the night, they anchored in the lee of the Mound and decided to go ashore in search of provisions. Three companies landed secretly, each in a different place. Krok’s company was lucky, for they came at once on a sheep-fold near a large house, and managed to kill the shepherd and his dog before they could give the alarm. Then they caught the sheep and cut the throats of as many as they could take with them, but this caused the animals to bleat loudly, so that Krok bade his men make haste with the work.
They returned to the ship by the way they had come, making as much speed as they could, each man bearing a sheep over his shoulder. They heard behind them the clamour of people who had awoken in the house, and soon there arose the harsh yowling of dogs that had been unleashed on their scent. Then they heard from farther off a woman’s voice, which piercing through the noise of the dogs and men cried: ‘Wait! Stay with me!’ and screamed: ‘Orm!’ several times, and then again cried: ‘Wait!’ very shrilly and despairingly. Krok’s men had difficulty in moving quickly with their loads, for the path was stony and steep, and the night was cloudy and still almost pitch-dark. Krok himself went last in the line, carrying his sheep over his shoulder and holding an axe in his other hand. He was anxious, if possible, to avoid becoming involved in a fight for the sake of a sheep, for it was not worthwhile to risk life and limbs for so little; so he drove his men forward with harsh words of rebuke when they stumbled or slackened speed.
The ship lay hard by some flat rocks, being held away from them by the oars. They were ready to pull out as soon as Krok returned, for the other landing-parties had already returned empty-handed; some of them were waiting on the beach in case Krok should need any assistance. They were only a few paces from the ship when two great dogs came bounding down the path. One of them leaped at Krok, but he jumped aside and struck it with his axe; the other flashed past him with a huge leap at the man just in front of him, knocked him over by its impetus and buried its teeth in his throat. Two of the others hastened forward and killed the dog, and when they and Krok bent over the man who had been bitten they saw that his throat was badly torn and that he was rapidly bleeding to death.
In the same instant a spear hissed past Krok’s head, and two men came running down the slope and out on to the flat rocks; they had run so fast that they had outstripped all their companions. The foremost of them, who was bareheaded and bore no shield, but carried a short sword in his hand, tripped and fell headlong on the rocks; two spears flew over him and hit his companion, who crumpled to the ground. But the bareheaded man was at once on his feet again; baying like a wolf, he hewed at one man who had leaped forward with his sword raised when he had fallen, and felled him with a blow on the temples. Then he sprang at Krok, who stood just behind him; all this happened very quickly. He aimed savagely at Krok, but Krok was still carrying his sheep, and he slipped it round to meet the blow, in the same instant striking his adversary with the reverse edge of his axe on the forehead, so that he fell to the ground senseless. Krok bent over him, and saw that he was no more than a youth, red-haired and snub-nosed and pale-complexioned. He felt with his fingers the place where the axe-head had landed and found that the skull was unfractured.
‘I shall take the calf with me as well as the sheep,’ he said. ‘He can row in the place of the man he killed.’
So they picked him up and carried him on to the ship, and threw him beneath an oar-bench; then, when they had all come aboard, except the two men whom they had left dead behind them, they pulled out to sea just as a large crowd of pursuers appeared on the beach. The sky had now begun to lighten, and some spears were thrown at the ship; but they did no damage. The men pulled strongly at their oars, happy in the knowledge that they had fresh meat on board; and they had already gone a good way from land when the figures on the beach were joined by a woman in a long blue shift with her hair streaming behind her, who ran to the edge of the rocks and stretched out her arms towards the ship, crying something. Her cry reached them as a thin sound across the water, but she stood there long after they had ceased to hear her.
In this wise, Orm, the son of Toste, who later came to be known as Red Orm or Orm the Far-Travelled, set forth on his first voyage.
CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_3f52945b-3a97-5bcc-a29e-d159d4e619b0)
How they sailed southwards, and how they found themselves a good guide (#ulink_3f52945b-3a97-5bcc-a29e-d159d4e619b0)
Krok’s men were very hungry when they reached Weather Island, for they had had to row the whole way there. They lay to and went ashore to gather fuel and cook themselves a good dinner; they found there only a few old fishermen, who on account of their poverty were not afraid of plunderers. When they came to cut up the sheep, they praised their fatness, and the evident excellence of the spring pasturing on the Mound. They stuck the joints on their spears and held them in the fire, and their mouths watered as the fat began to crackle, for it was a long time since their nostrils had known such a cheering smell. Many of them exchanged stories of the last occasions on which they had been present at so tasty a meal, and they all agreed that their voyage to the lands of the west had begun promisingly. Then they began to eat so that the juice of the meat ran over their beards.
By this time, Orm had regained his senses, but he was still sick and dizzy, and when he came ashore with the others, it was all he could do to keep on his legs. He sat down and held his head between his hands, and made no reply to the words that were addressed to him. But after a while, when he had vomited and drunk water, he felt better, and when he smelt the odour of the frying meat, he raised his head like a man who has just woken up, and looked at the men around him. The man who was sitting nearest to him grinned in a friendly way, and cut off a bit of his meat and offered it to him.
‘Take this and eat it,’ he said. ‘You never tasted better in your life.’
‘I know its quality,’ replied Orm. ‘I provided it.’
He took the meat and held it between his fingers without eating it. He looked thoughtfully round the circle, at each man in turn, and then said: ‘Where is the man I hit? Is he dead?’
‘He is dead,’ replied his neighbour, ‘but no one here stands to avenge him, and you are to row in his stead. His oar lies in front of mine, so it will be well that you and I should be friends. My name is Toke; what is yours?’
Orm told him his name, and asked him: ‘The man I killed. Was he a good fighter?’
