Michael Meyer - The Long Ships - A Saga of the Viking Age

‘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?’

‘He was, as you observed, somewhat slow of movement,’ replied Toke, ‘and he was not so handy with a sword as I am myself. But that would be asking a lot of a man, for I am one of the finest swordsmen in our company. Still, he was a strong man, and steadfast and of a good name; he was called Ale, and his father sows twelve bushels of rye, and he had been called to sea twice already. If you can row as well as he did, you are no mean oarsman.’

When Orm heard this, it seemed to cheer his spirits, and he began to eat. But after a few minutes, he asked: ‘Who was it who struck me down?’

Krok was sitting a short way from him and heard his question. He laughed and raised his axe, finished his mouthful and said: ‘This is the maid who kissed you. Had she bitten you, you would not have asked her name.’

Orm gazed at Krok with rounded eyes, that looked as though they had never blinked, and then said with a sigh: ‘I had no helmet and was breathless from running; otherwise, it might have gone differently.’

‘You are a conceited puppy, Skanian,’ said Krok, ‘and fancy yourself a soldier. But you are yet young and lack a soldier’s prudence. For prudent men do not forget their helmets when they run out after sheep; nay, not even when their own wives are stolen from them. But you seem to be a man whom Fortune smiles on, and it may be that you will bring us all into her good favour. We have already seen three manifestations of her love for you. Firstly, you slipped on the rocks as two spears were flying towards you; then Ale, whom you slew, has no kinsman or close comrade among us who is bound to avenge him; and thirdly, I did not kill you, because I wished to have an oarsman to replace him. Therefore I believe you to be a man of great good luck, who can thereby be of use to us; wherefore I now give you the freedom of our company, provided only that you agree to take Ale’s oar.’

They all thought that Krok had spoken well. Orm munched his meat reflectively; then he said: ‘I accept the freedom you offer me; nor do I think I need feel ashamed to do so, although you stole my sheep. But I will not row as a slave, for I am of noble blood; and, though I am young, yet I hold myself to be a good soldier, for I slew Ale, and he was one. I therefore claim back my sword.’

This provoked a long and complicated discussion. Some of them regarded Orm’s demand as altogether unreasonable, and said that he ought to think himself lucky to have been granted his life; but others remarked that self-esteem was no great fault in a young man, and that the claims of those whom Fortune smiled on should not be lightly ignored. Toke laughed and said he was amazed that so many men, three full ships’ companies, could be anxious about whether or not one boy was to be allowed to carry a sword. A man called Calf, who had spoken against granting Orm’s request, wanted to fight Toke for saying this, and Toke said that he would be glad to oblige him as soon as he had finished the good kidney that he was just then occupied with; but Krok forbade them to fight over such a matter. The end of it all was that Orm got his sword back, but that his future behaviour would determine whether he was to be treated as a slave or as a comrade. But Orm was to pay Krok for his sword, which was a fine weapon, as soon as he won anything on the voyage.

By this time a light breeze had sprung up, and Krok said that it was time for them to avail themselves of it and set sail. So they all went aboard and the ship made its way up through the Kattegat with its sails filled with the wind. Orm stared back across the sea and said that it was lucky for Krok that they had few ships left at home in these parts at this time of year; for, if he knew his mother, she would else by now have been on their tails with half the people of the Mound assisting her.

Then he washed the wound in his head and rinsed the clotted blood from his hair; and Krok said that the scar on his forehead would be a fine thing to show womenfolk. Then Toke produced an old leather helmet with iron bands. He said it was not much of a helmet for these times, but that he had found it among the Wends and that he had nothing better that he could spare. It would, he said, not be of much use against an axe, but still, it would be better than nothing. Orm tried it on and found that it would fit him when the swelling had gone down. Orm thanked Toke; and they both knew now that they would be friends.

They rounded the Skaw with a good following wind, and there, after ancient custom, they sacrificed to Agir and all his kin, offering sheep’s flesh and pork and ale, and were followed for a long while afterwards by shrieking gulls, which they took to be a good omen. They rowed down the Jutland coast, where the country was deserted and the ribs of wrecked ships were often to be seen in the sand; further south, they went ashore on two small islands, where they found water and food but little else. They proceeded down the coast, for the most part with favourable winds helping them, so that the men became good-humoured through being relieved of the tiresome labour of constant rowing. Toke said that Orm was, perhaps, weather-lucky, as well as being ordinarily fortunate; and weather-luck was one of the best kinds of luck that a man could have, so that if this were in fact so, Orm could indeed hope for a prosperous future. Orm thought that Toke might be right; but Krok was unwilling to agree with them on this point.

‘It is I who bring us this good weather,’ he said. ‘For we have had good weather and winds from the very beginning, long before Orm joined us; indeed, if I had not known my weather-luck to be reliable, I should not have ventured on this expedition. But Orm’s luck is good, if not of the same quality as my own; and the more lucky men we have aboard, the better it will be for us all.’

Berse the Wise agreed, and said that men without luck had the hardest burden of all to bear.

‘For man can triumph over man, and weapon over weapon; against the Gods, we can pit sacrifice, and against witchcraft, contrary magic; but against bad luck, no man has anything to oppose.’

Toke said that, for his part, he did not know whether he had great good luck, except that his luck in fishing had always been good. He had always done well enough against men whom he had quarrelled with; but that might be the result of his strength and skill rather than of his luck.

‘But what worries me,’ he said, ‘is whether on this expedition we shall have gold-luck and woman-luck: for I have heard great tales of all the fine things that are to be found here in the west, and it is beginning to seem a long time since I felt a gold ring or a woman. Even if we only find silver instead of gold, and no princesses, such as Berse has spoken of, but simple Frankish housewives, I shall not complain; for I am not a fussy man.’

Krok said that Toke would have to be patient for a little longer, however strong his desire for either commodity; and Toke agreed that it certainly seemed likely that he would have to wait for a while; for it did not look as though either gold or women grew on trees in these parts.

They sailed along flat coasts, where nothing was to be seen except sand and marshlands, and an occasional fishing-hut. Then they passed promontories on which tall crosses stood, and knew they had come to the Christians’ land and to the Frankish coasts. For the wise men among them knew that these crosses had first been set up by the great Emperor Charles, the father of all emperors, to keep Nordic seafarers away from his land; but the gods of the north had proved stronger than his. They put into creeks to take refuge from threatening squalls, and to rest overnight, and saw waters more salt and green than any they had seen before, rising and falling with the ebb and the flood tides. There were no ships to be seen, and no people; only here and there the traces of some old building. Many villages had flourished in these parts, before the first Northmen came, but everything had long since been plundered and laid waste, so that nowadays men had to travel far to the south before they could find any prizes worth the taking.