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

Translated by Michael Meyer

Harper

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

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London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by Collins 1954

Copyright © Frans G. Bengtsson 1954

Cover layout design © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2014-02-10

Cover images © PA Archive/Press Association (main ship); David Lomax/ Robert Harding (small ships); Dan Barnes/Getty Images (waves); F. Verheist/Getty Images (background).

Frans G. Bengtsson asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780007560707

Ebook Edition © 2014 ISBN: 9780007560714

Version: 2016-11-29

From the reviews of The Long Ships :

‘A novel with the potential to please every literate human being in the entire world – something for everyone. Bengtsson recreates the world of 1000 AD with telling detail and persuasive historiography, with a keen grasp of the eternal bits that pebble the record of human vanity, and with the unflagging verve of a born storyteller – but above all, and this is the most remarkable of the book’s many virtues, with an intimate detachment, a neighbourly distance, a sincere irony, that feels at once ancient and postmodern. It is this astringent tone, undeceived, versed in human folly, at once charitable and cruel, that is the source of the novel’s unique flavor, the poker-faced humor that is most beloved by those who love this book’

MICHAEL CHABON

‘[A] wonderful adventure novel’

Observer

‘This extraordinary saga of epic adventure on land and sea … is a masterpiece of historical fiction … Not least of the rewards of reading Mr Bengtsson’s gorgeous romance is the sly humor that is sprinkled through it’

New York Times

‘A boldly illuminated picture of the Northmen … confidently recommended’

The Times

‘A remarkable panorama of a vanished way of life’

TLS

‘Offers lusty Vikings lusting and looting, bedding and battling across Europe from the Ebro to the Dneiper’

Time

‘The author and his excellent translator bring that old, warrior world alive with such vigorous enjoyment and simplicity that the deeds of those men roving about the world in their dragon ships seem as marvellous as those of our atomic age’

Daily Telegraph

‘[Bengtsson] keeps his readers eager for the next chapter. He has a sharp eye for the picturesque and the comic in daily living, and though his style is sophisticated he often writes with a kind of festive abandon’

New York Herald Tribune

‘The literary equivalent of an action- and intrigue-filled adventure movie that won’t insult your intelligence … Orm is a charismatic character, and Bengtsson is an infectiously enthusiastic and surprisingly funny writer – even readers with zero interest in the Europe of a millennium ago will want to keep turning the pages. All novels should be so lucky as to age this well’

NPR

‘A banquet of adventure by sea and land, with man-size helpings of battle and murder, robbery and rape’

New Statesman

‘Still the king of books about Vikings … the Vikings liked to row and sail and fight. That’s what they do in this action-packed epic’

Bookmarks Magazine

HARP SONG OF THE DANE WOMEN

What is a woman that you forsake her,

And the hearth-fire and the home-acre,

To go with the old grey Widow-maker?

She has no house to lay a guest in—

But one chill bed for all to rest in,

That the pale suns and the stray bergs nest in.

She has no strong white arms to fold you,

But the ten-times-fingering weed to hold you—

Out on the rocks where the tide has rolled you.

Yet, when the signs of summer thicken,

And the ice breaks, and the birch-buds quicken,

Yearly you turn from our side, and sicken—

Sicken again for the shouts and the slaughters.

You steal away to the lapping waters,

And look at your ship in her winter-quarters.

You forget our mirth, and talk at the tables,

The kine in the shed and the horse in the stables—

To pitch her sides and go over her cables.

Then you drive out where the storm-clouds swallow,

And the sound of your oar-blades, falling hollow,

Is all we have left through the months to follow.

Ah, what is Woman that you forsake her,

And the hearth-fire and the home-acre,

To go with the old grey Widow-maker?

RUDYARD KIPLING

CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Praise

Maps

TRANSLATOR’S NOTE

PROLOGUE: How the shaven men fared in Skania in King Harald Bluetooth’s time

PART ONE: THE LONG VOYAGE

I: Concerning Thane Toste and his household

II: Concerning Krok’s expedition: and how Orm set forth on his first voyage

III: How they sailed southwards, and how they found themselves a good guide

IV: How Krok’s men came to Ramiro’s kingdom, and how they paid a rewarding visit

V: How Krok’s luck changed twice, and how Orm became left-handed

VI: Concerning the Jew Solomon and the Lady Subaida, and how Orm got his sword Blue-Tongue

VII: How Orm served Almansur, and how he sailed with St James’s bell

VIII: Concerning Orm’s sojourn among the monks of St Finnian, and how a great miracle occurred at Jellinge

IX: How King Harald Bluetooth celebrated Yule

X: How Orm lost his necklace

XI: Concerning the wrath of Brother Willibald, and how Orm tried his hand at wooing

XII: How Orm came home from his long voyage

PART TWO: IN KING ETHELRED’S KINGDOM

I: Concerning the battle that was fought at Maldon, and what came after it

II: Concerning spiritual things

III: Concerning marriage and baptism, and King Ethelred’s silver

IV: How Brother Willibald taught King Sven a maxim from the scriptures

PART THREE: IN THE BORDER COUNTRY

I: How Orm built his house and church, and how they named his red-haired daughters