Tim Severin - Sworn Brother

He was kneeling on the ground with his back to me. In front of him was a square of white cloth spread on the earth. Lying on the cloth where he had just dropped them lay a scatter of half a dozen flat lathes. Edgar, who had been looking down at them intently, swung round in surprise.

'What do they say?' I asked, hoping to forestall the outburst of anger.

He regarded me with suspicion. 'None of your business,' he retorted. I began to walk away when, unexpectedly from behind me, I heard him say, 'Can you read the wands?'

I turned back and replied cautiously, 'In my country we prefer to throw dice or a tafl. And we bind our wands together like a book.'

'What's a tafl?'

'A board which has markers. With practice one can read the signs.'

'But you do use wands?'

'Some of the older people still do, or knuckle bones of animals.'

'Then tell me what you think these wands say.'

I walked over to where the white cloth lay on the ground, and counted six of the wooden lathes scattered on it. Edgar was holding a seventh in his hand. One of the lathes on the ground was painted with a red band. I knew it must be the master. Three of the wands on the ground were slightly shorter than the others.

'What do you read?' Edgar asked. There was a pleading note in his voice.

I looked down. 'The answer is confused,' I said. I bent down and picked up one of the lathes. It was slightly askew, lying across another wand. I turned it over, and read the sign marked on it. 'Tyr,' I said, 'the God of death and war.'

Edgar looked puzzled for an instant and then the blood drained from his face, leaving the ruddy spots on his cheekbones even brighter. 'Tiw? You know how to read the marks? Are you sure?'

'Yes, of course,' I replied, showing him the marked face of the wand. The symbol on it was the shape of an arrow. 'I'm a devotee of Odinn and it was Odinn who learned the secret of the runes and taught them to mankind. Also he invented fortune dice.. It's very plain. That rune is Tyr's own sign. Nothing else.'

Edgar's voice was unsteady as he said, 'That must mean that she is dead.'

'Who?'

'My daughter. Four years ago a gang of your Danish bandits took her away during the troubles. They couldn't attack the burh — the palisade was too strong for them - so they made a quick sweep around the perimeter, beat my youngest son so badly that he lost an eye and dragged off the girl. She was just twelve. We've not heard a word from her since.'

'Is that what you wanted to know when you cast the wands? What had become of her.'

'Yes,' he replied.

'Then don't give up hope,' I said. 'The wand of Tyr was lying across another wand, and that signifies the meaning is unclear or reversed. So your daughter may be alive. Would you like me to cast the sticks again for you?'

The huntsman shook his head. 'No,' he said. 'Three casts at a time is enough. Any more would be an affront to the Gods and, besides, the sun has set and now the hour is no longer propitious.'

Then his suspicions came back with a rush. 'How do I know you're not lying to me about the runes, like you lied about the gyrfalcon.'

'There's no reason for me to lie,' I answered, and began picking up the wands, the master rod first and then the three shorter, calling out their names, 'rainbow, warrior queen, firm belief.' Then, collecting the longer ones, I announced, 'The key-holder, joy,' and taking the last one from Edgar's fingers I said, 'festivity.'

To establish my credentials even more clearly, I asked innocenctly, 'You don't use the wand of darkness, the snake wand?'

Edgar looked dumbfounded. He was, as I later found out, a countryman at heart, and he believed implicitly in the Saxon wands, as they are called in England where they are much used in divination and prophecy. But only the most skilled employ the eighth wand, the snake wand. It has a baleful influence which affects all the other wands and most people, being only human, prefer a happy outcome to the shoot, as the Saxons call the casting of the rods. Frankly I thought the Saxon wands were elementary. In Iceland my rune master Thrand had taught me to read much more sophisticated versions. There the wands are fastened to a leather cord, fanned out and used like an almanac, the meanings read from runes cut on both sides. These runes — like most seidr or magic - reverse the normal forms. The runes are written backwards, as if seen in a mirror.

'Tell my wife what you just said about our daughter,' Edgar announced. 'It may comfort her. She has been grieving for the girl these four years past.' He ushered me into the cottage — it was no more than a large single room, divided across the middle into a living area and a bedroom. There was an open fire at the gable wall, a plain table and two benches. At Edgar's prompting I repeated my reading of the wands to Edgar's wife, Judith. The poor woman looked pitifully trustful of my interpretation and timidly asked if I would like some proper food. I suspected that she thought that her husband had been treating me very unfairly. But Edgar's loathing was understandable if he thought I was a Dane, like the raiders who had kidnapped his daughter and maimed his son.

Edgar was obviously weighing me up. 'Where did you say you come from?' he asked suddenly.

'From Iceland and before that from Greenland.'

'But you speak like a Dane.'

'Same words, yes,' I said, 'but I say them differently, and I use some words that are only used in Iceland. A bit like your Saxon. I'm sure you've noticed how foreigners from other parts of England speak it differently and have words that you don't understand.'

'Prove to me that you come from this other place, this Greenland or whatever you call it.'

'I'm afraid I don't know how to.'

Edgar thought for a moment, and then said suddenly, 'Gyrfalcon. You said you come from a place where the bird builds its nests and raises its young. And I know that it does not do so in the Danes' country, but somewhere further away. So if you are really from that place, then you know all about the bird and its habits.'

'What can I tell you?' I asked.

He looked cunning, then said, 'Answer me this: is the gyrfalcon a hawk of the tower, or a hawk of the hand?'

I had no idea what he was talking about and when I looked baffled he was triumphant. 'Just as I thought. You don't know anything about them.'

'No,' I said 'It's just that I don't understand your question. But I could recognise a gyrfalcon if I saw it hunting.'

'So tell me how.'

'When I watched the wild spear falcons in Greenland, they would fly down from the cliffs and perch on some vantage point on the moors, like a high rock or hill crest. There the bird sat, watching out for its prey. It was looking for its food, another bird we call rjupa, like your partridge. When the spear falcon sees a rjupa, it launches from its perch and flies low at tremendous speed, faster and faster, and then strikes the rjupa, knocking it to the ground, dead.'

'And what does it do at the last moment before it strikes?' Edgar asked.

'The spear falcon suddenly rises, to gain height, and then come smashing down on its prey.'

'Right,' announced Edgar, finally persuaded. 'That's what the gyr does and that's why it can be a hawk of the tower and also a hawk of the fist, and very few hunting birds can be both.'

'I still don't know what you mean,' I said. 'What's a bird of the tower?'

'A bird that towers or waits on, as we say. Hovers in the sky above the master, waiting for the right moment, then drops down on its prey. Peregrine falcons do that naturally and, with patience, gyrfalcons can be taught to hunt that way. A hawk of the fist is one that is carried on the hand or wrist while hunting, and thrown off the hand to chase down the quarry.'

Thus my knowledge of the habits of the wild gyrfalcon and the art of divination rescued me from the ordeal of those noxious dog kennels, though Edgar confessed some weeks later that he would not have kept me living in the kennels indefinitely because he had recognised that I did not have the makings of a kennelman. 'Mind you, I can't understand anyone who doesn't get along with dogs,' he added. 'Seems unnatural.'