Tim Severin - Sworn Brother

Someone hammered on the table with his sword hilt, calling for silence. A hush fell over the assembled company, and into that silence came a sound I had last heard in Ireland three years before, at the feast of a minor Irish king. It was an eerie wailing. At first it seemed to be unearthly, without rhythm or tune until you listened closely. It was a sound that could make the hairs stand up on the back of your neck — a single bagpipe, hauntingly played. I listened carefully, trying to locate the sound. It seemed to be coming from the side room where the cooks had worked. As I looked in that direction, through the doorway stepped a figure that made the blood rush to my head. It was a man and his head was completely invisible inside a terrifying mask made from gilded basketwork. It covered the wearer down to his shoulders, leaving only eye holes for him to see his way from as he advanced into the room. He man was wearing the head of a giant bird.

And there was no doubt that he was a man because, except for the mask, he was stark naked.

I knew at once who was represented. The man held in each hand a long spear, the symbol of Odinn, his ash spear Gungnir, the 'swaying one'.

As the bagpipe continued to play, the naked man began to dance. Deliberately at first, lifting each spear in turn and bringing its butt end down with a thump on the ground in time with the music. As the music quickened, so too did the dancing figure, turning and cavorting, leaping in sidelong jumps down one side of the table, then up the other. As the cadence of his dance became familiar, the huscarls took up the rhythm, beating gently at the start and then with increasing fervour on the table with their hands, their dagger handles, and chanting, Odinn! Odinn! Odinn!' The figure whirled, holding out the two spears so they whistled through the air, and he leaped and leaped again. I saw several of the older huscarls reach out and dip their hands in the bloody juices of the horse carcass and mark their own foreheads with a bloody stripe, dedicating themselves to the All-Father.

Then, as unexpectedly as he had arrived, the masked figure darted out of sight back into the room he had come from.

Again the bagpipe began to play, and this time the musician emerged from his hiding place. He was a young man and he was playing a smaller pipe than those I knew from Ireland. He took up his station behind Earl Eirikr and I guessed that the Northumbrian earl had brought the piper with him for our entertainment.

He had also hired a professional mimer, for the next person to appear from the side room with a dramatic leap was dressed in the costume of a hero, with helmet, armour and a light sword. It took only moments for the audience to recognise he was playing the role of Sigurd in the lay of Fafnir. They roared their approval as he mimed the ambush from the trench in which the hidden Sigurd stabs upwards into Fafnir's slithering belly and the gold-guarding dragon dies. Then, in a sinuous movement the actor changed character and became Regin, Sigurd's evil foster-father, who arrives upon the scene and asks Sigurd to cook the dragon's heart so he may eat it. Another leap sideways and the mimer became Sigurd, licking his burned thumb as he cooks the meat, and from that taste learns the language of birds, who tell him that the treacherous Regin intends to murder him. A sham sword fight, and Sigurd killed the evil foster-father, ending his display by dragging away two imaginary chests of dragon's gold. And not entirely imaginary gold either, for several of the huscarls threw gold and silver coins on the floor as a mark of their appreciation.

At this point Thorkel and several of the more senior huscarls left the hall. They must have known that the gemot could last far into the night, and into the next day as well, and that the celebrations would soon grow even more ribald and disorderly. But Kjartan made no move to go, so I kept to my cup-bearer's duties as the evening grew more and more raucous. Prodigious quantities of mead and ale were consumed, and the liquor loosened tongues. I had not anticipated the strength of dislike that the traditional huscarls showed towards the White Christ faction at court. They talked of the Christians as devious, smug and crafty. The special targets for their odium were the queen, Emma of Normandy, and the king's chief lawmaker, Archbishop Wulfstan. A very drunk huscarl pulled out a long white shirt - he must have brought it with him for that purpose - and waved it in the air to attract the attention of his drinking companions. Unsteadily he got to his feet, pulled it on over his own head and mimicked the act of Christian prayer, shouting, 'I've been prepared for baptism three times, and each time the priests paid me a month's wages and gave me a fine white shirt.'

'Easy money,' yelled a companion drunkenly. 'I collected four payments; it's a new version of the Danegeld'.

This drew a roar of drunken laughter. Then the assembly began to chant a name. 'Thyrmr! Thyrmr! Remember Thyrmr!' and the huscarl took off his white shirt and threw it into the corner of the room. 'Thyrmr! Thyrmr!' chanted the men, now completely intoxicated, and they began picking up the remnants of the meal, and throwing the chewed bones and discarded gristle in the direction of the crumpled cloth.

'I thought they were going to throw the bones at the disgraced huscarl,' I muttered to Gisli's cup-bearer.

'He's in luck tonight,' he answered. 'Instead they're celebrating the day that one of the Saxon high priests, an archbishop, I think his name was Alfheah, got himself killed. A man named Thyrmr did it, smacked the archbishop on the back of his head with the flat of his battleaxe at the end of a particularly boisterous feast after everyone had pelted the priest with ox bones.'

This drunken boasting was infantile and pointless, I thought to myself as I watched the stumbling drunkards. It was the response of men who felt outmanouevred by their rivals. This hollow mummery was not the way to protect the future veneration of the Old Gods.

I grew more and more depressed as the evening degenerated into brutishness. The only moment I raised a smile was when the company began to chant a lewd little ditty about Queen Emma and her priestly entourage. The words were clever and I found myself joining in the refrain, 'Bakrauf! Bakrauf!' I realised I was thick tongued and slurring my words, even though I had been trying to stay sober. So when Kjartan slumped from his seat, completely drunk, I beckoned to Gisli's cup-bearer to help me, and together we carried the one-armed huscarl back to his barracks bed. Then I started out on the long walk back through London to reach my own room, hoping that the chilly winter air and the exercise would clear my head.

I scratched quietly at the heavy door of the mint. It was long past the time that Thurulf and I normally returned from tavern, but I had bribed the door keeper, who was by now quite accustomed to my drinking excursions. He must have been waiting by the door, for he opened it almost at once, and I went in, walking as quietly and as straight as my drunkenness would allow. I was just sober enough to realise that it would be foolish to use the stairs to the upper floor that went past Brithmaer's chambers. A creaking floorboard or falling up the stairs would attract attention. I decided to go to my room by the far stair, which led directly from the workshop floor to the balcony. I removed my smart yellow shoes, and holding them in my hand, walked quietly along the length of the workshop, trying to keep in a straight line. In a pool of lantern light at the far end of the workshop, the two elderly men were still at the coining bench. I could see them bent over, tapping out the little coins. Neither of them was aware of my approach — one because eye disease had damaged his sight, the other because he was concentrating hard on his work and, being deaf, would not have heard me even if I had not been barefoot. I was more drunk than I thought and I swayed and swerved in my walk enough to brush against the deaf man. It gave him such a shock that he started upright and fumbled his work. The striking iron dropped to the floor, as he turned to see what was behind him. In tipsy embarrassment I put my finger to my lips, entreating silence. Then, concentrating ferociously as only a drunkard can, I managed to bend over without tumbling headlong, picked up his striking iron from the ground, and returned it to him. A glint of silver caught my eye. It was the coin he had just struck. It too had fallen to the floor. Risking another attack of sot's vertigo, I picked up the coin and put it in his hands. Then with an exaggerated salute, I turned and wove my way to the staircase, then climbed it hand over hand like a novice sailor, and eventually toppled into my manger bed.