The Long Ships (50 page)

“He is too good a man to have to climb trees,” she said to Orm and the house-folk that evening as they were sitting at their meal, full of merriment at the manner in which the magister had ended his sojourn in the tree, “and he shall not be forced to do it any more.”

“I know little of his goodness,” said Orm, “but if you mean that he is too clumsy to do so, you have my agreement. What he is fitted for is more than I know; but the Smalanders will, no doubt, be able to hit upon something. Most of the cherries are ripe now and can be picked before the birds steal them, so that we shall lose little by this accident. But it is good that the time for the Thing is almost upon us.”

“Until that time arrives,” said Ylva firmly, “I myself will keep watch over him; for I do not want him to be mocked and fare miserably during the last days that he will spend among Christians.”

“Whatever he does, women swarm to his assistance,” said Orm. “But you may do as you think best in this matter.”

Everybody in the house laughed themselves crooked whenever any mention was made of the magister and his bee-swarm; but Asa said that this was a good omen, for she had often heard wise old people say that when bees settled on a man’s head it meant that he would have a long life and many children. Father Willibald said that in his younger days he had heard the same asserted by learned men at the Emperor’s court at Goslar; though, he added, he was not sure whether this was altogether applicable when the person in question was a priest.

Father Willibald could not find anything very wrong with the magister’s sore shoulder; none the less, the magister preferred to remain in bed for the next few days, and even when he felt well enough to get up, he continued to spend most of his time in his room. Ylva watched over him with care, preparing all his meals herself, and saw to it strictly that none of her servant-girls should be allowed to come near him. Orm chaffed her about this, saying that he wondered whether she, too, might not have gone crazy about the magister; besides which, he said, he could not but grudge all the good food that was taken daily into the weaving-room. But Ylva answered firmly that this was a matter for her to decide; the poor wretch, she said, needed good food to put a little flesh on his bones before he went to live among the heathens, and, as regards the servant-girls, she was merely anxious to preserve him from temptation and spiteful mockery.

So Ylva had her way in this matter; and things continued thus until the time arrived for the dwellers on both sides of the border to ride to the Thing at the Kraka Stone.

EVERY third summer, at the first full moon after the heather had begun to bloom, the border peoples of Skania and Smaland met, by ancient tradition, at the stone called the Kraka Stone, in order to take vows of peace, or of war, against one another until the time of their next meeting.

To this place came chieftains and chosen men from Finnveden and Värend and from all the districts of Göinge, and a Thing was held, which usually continued for several days. For even when peace prevailed along the border, there were always many problems to be settled; disputes regarding hunting and pasturing rights, murders resulting from these disputes, cattle-thefts, woman-thefts, and the extradition of slaves who had escaped across the border. All such matters were duly weighed and judged, by wise men from all the various tribes, sometimes in a manner satisfactory to everyone, as when, for example, murder could be repaid by murder, or rape by rape, and sometimes by an agreed fine. When, though, a difficult altercation had arisen between stubborn men, so that no agreement could be arrived at, the matter would be decided by single combat between the parties concerned, on the flat grass before the Stone. This was regarded as the best entertainment of all, and any Thing during which at least three corpses had not been carried from the combat ground would be thought a poor and unworthy session. Most often, however, the Thing sustained its reputation as an occasion of much sport and displaying of wisdom, and everyone left it well contented, with fine stories to tell their wives and house-folk on their return home.

Much buying and selling also took place there, of slaves, weapons, and oxen, forged iron, and cloth, skins, wax, and salt, so that sometimes traders came to it from as far afield as Hedeby and Gotland. In former times the King at Uppsala and the King of the Danes had been wont to send trusted men to the Thing, partly to safeguard their rights and partly to keep an eye for outlaws who had escaped their clutches; but the farmers had greeted these envoys by removing their heads, which they had then smoked over juniper fires and sent back to their masters, to signify to the kings that the border peoples preferred to manage their own affairs. But stewards and ships’ chieftains from the jarls of Skania and West Guteland still occasionally came there, to enlist the services of any good warrior who had a mind to go a-viking overseas.

Accordingly the Thing at the Kraka Stone had come to be regarded by the border peoples as a great occasion, so that they often reckoned time from Thing to Thing.

Men said that the Stone had been set up in ancient times by Rolf Krake, during a journey that he had made through these parts; and neither kings nor border-dwellers had dared to erase this mark which he had raised to show where the country of the Danes ended and that of the Swedes began. It was a tall and mighty stone, such as only heroes of ancient times could have had the strength to raise; it stood in open ground on a hill, and was shadowed by a hawthorn tree, which was held to be sacred and of equal age with the Stone. On the evening before each Thing, it was the custom of the Virds, the inhabitants of Värend, to sacrifice two goats at the Stone and perform strange rites; their blood was allowed to spread over the ground, and it was held that this blood, together with that which was spilled around the Stone during combats, gave much strength to the tree, so that it continued to flourish, despite its age, and always bloomed most richly in the year following a Thing. But few saw it bloom save the birds that nested in its branches, and eagles and kites and the wandering animals of the earth; for all around the Kraka Stone for many miles the land was desert and uninhabited.

As Orm was making ready to journey to the Thing, many farmers came to Gröning to accompany him thither—Gudmund of Uvaberg, Black Grim, and others. Orm left Rapp behind to guard the house and took with him both the priests and two of his men. All the women wept because the magister was now leaving them to become a slave, but he said that there was nothing else for it, and that it was to be so. Asa and Ylva had sewn new clothes for him, a tunic and shirt and skin breeches; Orm said that it was well that they had done this, for it would make it easier for them to negotiate the exchange if he had good clothes on his back, which his new employer would be able to make use of.

“For you must not suppose,” he said, “that he will be able to wear them for long himself.”

Torgunn brought the magister a basket of birch bark filled with good food for his journey, which she had herself prepared specially for him. Rapp scowled when he saw it, but she insisted that the magister should have it, saying that she was giving it to him as a thanks-gift for the prayers he had read over her knee; besides which, she said, she hoped to get a good blessing from him in return for it. The magister sat palely on his horse and blessed her and all the others with beautiful words, so that tears appeared in all the women’s eyes. Father Willibald, who was also seated high on a horse, then offered up a prayer for a lucky journey and protection against wild beasts, robbers, and all dangers that threaten men who travel. Then the company rode away to the Thing, strong in numbers and well armed.

They reached the Stone a short while before dusk and pitched camp, together with other groups of men, on the ground that the Göings had, by ancient custom, been used to occupy, on the bank of a brook that ran through birch trees and thickets on the southern side of the Stone. Traces could still be seen there of campfires around which they and their predecessors had sat at previous Things. On the other side of the brook the Finnvedings were encamped, and from them there came much noise and shouting. It was said to be a greater hardship for them than for other men to sit without ale around the Kraka Stone, and it was, accordingly, an ancient custom among them to arrive at the Thing already drunk. Both the Göings and the Finnvedings were encamped a short way from the brook, and only came to it to water their horses and fill their pots; for they had always thought it wisest not to crowd unnecessarily close to one another if the peace of the Thing was to be maintained between them.

The Virds were the last to arrive at the meeting-place. Any man looking at them could see at once that they were a race apart, without resemblance to other peoples. They were enormously tall men with silver rings in their ears, and their swords were longer and heavier than those of other men. They had shaven chins, long cheek-beards hanging down on either side of their mouths, and eyes like the eyes of dead men. They were, moreover, short of speech. Their neighbors said that the cause of this aloofness was that they were ruled by their womenfolk and were afraid lest, if they spoke, this might be discovered; but few dared to ask them directly how much truth there was in this report.

They were encamped in a grove east of the Stone, where the brook ran broadest; there they were apart from the other tribes, which was the way they liked it to be. They were the only men who had brought women with them to the Thing. For it was an old belief among the Virds that the best cure for a woman’s barrenness was to be found at the Kraka Stone, if a man did as the wise ancients had prescribed; and young married women who had borne no children to husbands of proved virility were accordingly always eager to accompany their menfolk to the Thing. What they had to do would be seen tonight, under the full moon; for the whole of this evening the Virds would be in possession of the Stone, and their concern that no stranger should see what their women did after the moon rose was well known among both the Göings and the Finnvedings. For it had happened on more than one occasion that those who to satisfy their curiosity had approached too near the Stone while the women were there had seen a winging spear or a hewing sword as their last sight on earth, and this before they had had the chance to witness that for which they had come. Nevertheless, inquisitive young men of the Göings, and such of the Finnvedings as had not drunk too deeply, nursed the prospect of a fine evening’s entertainment; and as soon as the moon’s glimmer could be discerned above the edge of the trees, some of them climbed up into the branches to good vantage points, while others crept forward through the thickets and undergrowth as near to the Stone as they dared.

Father Willibald was much displeased at all this, especially at the fact that young men of Orm’s following, who had received baptism at the great feast and had since paid several visits to his church, were as eager as the rest to see as much as they could of witchcraft at the Stone.

“All this is the Devil’s work,” he said. “I have heard tell that it is the custom of these women to run around the Stone in shameless nakedness. Every man who has received baptism should arm himself with strength from Christ against such abominations as this. You would be better employed in axing a cross for us to raise before our fire, to protect us this night from the powers of evil. I myself am too old for such work; besides which, I cannot see well in this dense wood.”

But they replied that all the crosses and all the holy water in the world would not prevent them from seeing the Vird women perform that evening.

Magister Rainald was seated beside Orm in the circle around the food-pot. He sat with his arms round his knees and his head bowed, rocking backwards and forwards; he had been given bread and smoked mutton like the rest, but showed little appetite. It was always so with him when he was contemplating his sins. But when he heard Father Willibald’s words, he stood up.

“Give me an ax,” he said, “and I will make you a cross.”

The men round the fire laughed and expressed doubt whether he was capable of performing this task. But Orm said: “It is right that you should try; and you may find it more profitable than climbing into the trees.”

They gave him an ax, and he went away to do the best he could.

Clouds now began to pass over the moon, so that at times it was quite dark; but in the intervals the curious among them were able to see what the Virds were doing up at the Stone. Many men were assembled there. Some of these had just finished cutting a strip of turf, long and broad, and were now raising it from the ground and placing stakes beneath to hold it up. Others were collecting brushwood, which they placed in four piles at equal distances from the Stone. When these preparations had been completed, they took their weapons and walked some distance toward the ground where the Göings and the Finnvedings were encamped. There they remained as sentries, with their backs to the Stone, some of them going down as far as the brook itself.

The noise of bleating was now heard; and from the direction of the Vird camp four old women appeared, leading two goats. With them came a small, bald man with a white beard, very old and bent, holding a long knife in his hand. After him followed a crowd of women, all wearing cloaks.

When they reached the Stone, the old women tied the legs of the goats together and fastened long ropes around their backs. Then all the women helped to heave the goats up over the top of the Stone and make the rope fast, so that the goats were left hanging down, one on either side of the Stone, head downwards. The little old man gesticulated and chattered petulantly until they had got them into the exact position in which he wanted them. When at last he was satisfied, he ordered them to lift him to the top of the Stone, which they succeeded, with difficulty, in doing. They pushed the knife up to him on a stick, and, taking it, he seated himself astride the Stone just above the goats. Then he raised his arms above his head and cried in a loud voice to the young women: “This is the first! Go ye through earth!”