Poul Anderson - The Sorrow of Odin the Goth

Despite his name—Wulfila, originally—he was short, thick-set, fleshy-nosed; for he took after Cappadocian grandparents, carried off in the Gothic raid of 264. In accordance with the treaty of 332, he had gone to Constantinople as both hostage and envoy. Eventually he returned to the Visigoths as missionary. The creed he preached was not that of the Nicean Council, but the austere doctrine of Arius, which it had rejected as heresy. Nonetheless he moved in the vanguard of Christendom, the morrow.

“—No, we should not merely trade stories of our farings,” he said. “How can those be sundered from our faiths?” His tone was soft and reasonable, but keen was the gaze he leveled at me. “You are no ordinary man, Carl. That I see plain upon you, and in the eyes of your followers. Let none take offense if I wonder whether you are entirely human.”

“I am no evil demon,” I said. Was it truly me looming over him, lean, gray, cloaked, doomed and resigned to foreknowledge—yon figure out of darkness and the wind? On this night, one and a half thousand years after that night, I felt as if it were somebody else, Wodan indeed, the forever homeless.

Ulfilas’ fervor burned at him: “Then you will not fear to debate.”

“What use, priest? You know well that the Goths are not a people of the Book. They would offer to Christ in his lands; they often do. But you never offer to Tiwaz in his.”

“No, for God has forbidden that we bow down to any save him. It is only God the Father who may be worshipped. To the Son, let men give due reverence, yes; but the nature of Christ—” And Ulfilas was off on a sermon.

It was not a rant. He knew better. He spoke calmly, sensibly, even good-humoredly. He did not hesitate to employ pagan imagery, nor did he try to lay more than a groundwork of ideas before he let conversation go elsewhere. I saw men of mine nodding thoughtfully. Arianism better fitted their traditions and temperament than did a Catholicism of which they had no knowledge anyway. It would be the form of Christianity that all Goths finally took; and from this would spring centuries of trouble.

I had not made a particularly good showing. But then, how could I in honesty have argued for a heathenism in which I had no belief and which I knew was going under? For that matter, how could I in honesty have argued for Christ?

My eyes, 1858, sought Tharasmund. Much lingered in his young countenance of Jorith’s dear features…

—“And how goes the literary research?” Ganz asked when my scene was done.

“Quite well.” I escaped into facts. “New poems; lines in them that definitely look ancestral to lines in Widsith and Walt here. To be specific, since the battle at Dnieper side—” That hurt, but I brought forth my notes and recordings, and plowed ahead.

In the same year that Tharasmund returned to Heorot and took up chieftainship over the Teurings, Geberic died in the hall of his fathers, on a peak of the High Tatra. His son Ermanaric became king of the Ostrogoths.

Late in the next year Ulrica, daughter of Visi-gothic Athanaric, came to her betrothed Tharasmund, at the head of a great and rich retinue. Their marriage was a feast long remembered, a week where food, drink, gifts, games, merriment, and brags went unstinted for hundreds of guests.

Because his grandson had asked him to, the Wanderer himself hallowed the pair, and by torchlight led the bride to the loft where the groom awaited her.

There were those, not of the Teuring tribe, who muttered that Tharasmund seemed overweening, as though he would fain be more than his king’s handfast man.

Shortly after the wedding he must hasten off. The Heruls were out and the marches aflame. To beat them back and lay waste some of their own country became a winter’s work. No sooner was it done but Ermanaric sent word that he wanted all heads of tribes to meet with him in the motherland.

This proved worthwhile. Plans got hammered out for conquests and other things that needed doing. Ermanaric shifted his court south to where the bulk of his people were. Besides many of his Greutungs, the tribal chiefs and their warriors went along. It was a splendid trek, on which bards lavished words that the Wanderer soon heard chanted.

Therefore Ulrica was late in becoming fruitful. However, after Tharasmund met her again, he soon filled her belly for her, and mightily well. She said to her women that of course it would be a man-child, and live to become as renowned as his forebears.

She gave him birth one winter night—some said easily, some said scornful of any pains. Heorot rejoiced. The father sent word around that he would hold a naming feast.

This was a welcome break in the season’s murk, added to the Yuletide gatherings. People flocked thither. Among them were men who thought it might be a chance to draw Tharasmund aside for a word or two. They bore grudges against King Ermanaric.

The hall was bedight with evergreen boughs, weavings, burnished metal, Roman glass. Though day reigned yet over snowfields outside, lamps brightened the long room. Clad in their best, the leading yeomen and wives among the Teurings ringed the high seat, where rested crib and babe. Lesser folk, children, hounds crowded along the walls. Sweetness of pine and mead filled air and heads.

Tharasmund stepped forth. In his hand was a holy ax, to hold above his son while he called down Donar’s blessing. From her side Ulrica bore water out of Frija’s well. None there had witnessed anything like this erenow, save for the firstborn of a royal house.

“We are met—” Tharasmund broke off. All eyes swung doorward, and breath went like a wave. “Oh, I hoped! Be welcome!”

Spear slowly thumping floor, the Wanderer neared. He bent his grayness over the child.

“Will you, lord, bestow his name?” Tharasmund asked.

“What shall it be?”

“From his mother’s kin, to bind us closer to the West Goths, Hathawulf.”

The Wanderer stood altogether still for a while that went on and on. At last he lifted his head. The hatbrim shadowed his face. “Hathawulf,” he said low, as if to himself. “Oh, yes. I understand now.” A little louder: “Weard will have it so. Well, then, so be it. I will give him his name.”

I came out of the New York base into the cold and early darkness of December, and went uptown afoot. Lights and window displays threw Christmas at me, but shoppers were not many. On street corners in the wind, Salvation Army musicians blatted or Santa Clauses rang bells at their kettles for charity, while sad vendors offered this or that. They didn’t have a Depression among the Goths, I thought. But the Goths had less to lose. Materially, anyway. Spiritually—who could tell? Not I, no matter how much history I had seen or would ever see.

Laurie heard my tread on the landing and flung our apartment door wide. We had set the date beforehand for my latest return, after she’d be back from Chicago, where she had a show. She embraced me hard.

As we went on inside, her joy dimmed. We stopped in the middle of the living room. She took both my hands in hers, regarded me for a mute spell, and asked low, “What stabbed you… this trip?”

“Nothing I shouldn’t have foreseen,” I answered, hearing my voice as dull as my soul. “Uh, how’d the exhibition go?”

“Fine,” she replied efficiently. “In fact, two pictures have already sold for a nice sum.” Concern welled forth: “With that out of the way, sit down. Let me bring you a drink. God, you look blackjacked.”

“I’m all right. No need to wait on me.”

“Maybe I feel a need to. Ever think of that?” Laurie hustled me into my usual armchair. I slumped down in it and stared out the window. Lights afar made a hectic glimmer along the sill, at the feet of night. The radio was tuned to a program of carols. “ O little town of Bethlehem—”