Tim Severin - Odinn's Child

The next four days, as it happened, were bright and sunny. There was a perfect drying wind and we gathered and stacked the hay. Whether or not this was because we had performed our nature-spell I have no idea, but every farmer in the Westfjords managed to save his hay for the winter, and I am sure that each man's faith in Thor increased. Later, at a discreet moment, I dared to ask Snorri whether he thought the fine weather was the result of our incantations, and he was non-committal. 'I had a feeling in my bones that we were finally due for a dry spell,' he said. 'There was a change in the air, the moon was entering a new phase and the birds began to fly higher. Maybe the dry weather was already on its way and our appeal to Thor only meant that we were not disappointed.'

'What was the language you used when we were dancing in a circle?' I asked him.

He looked at me pensively. 'Under other circumstances you would know it already,' he said. 'It is the language of many spells and incantations, though I only know a few words of it. It is the native language of your mother, the language of the Irish.'

Four days later a messenger arrived from Karstad to ask Snorri to officiate at a burial. Farmer Thorodd was dead. During the haymaking on his farm, the young bull Glaesir had been kept confined to a stall as he was troublesome, and the labourers needed to mow the home meadows without being disturbed by the aggressive young bull. As soon as the hay was put up in haycocks, they had let Glaesir out on the stubble. First they took the precaution of tying a heavy block of wood over his horns to restrain and tire him. Glad to be free, the animal had charged up and down the largest of the home meadows. Within moments he had shaken off the block of wood and, something he had never done before, he began assaulting the carefully stacked haycocks. Ramming his horns into the stacks, he shook his head and scattered the hay in all directions. The farm workers were angry to see their work destroyed, but too fearful of the young bull to interfere. Instead they had sent word to Thorodd at the main house. He arrived, took one look at the situation and seized a stout wooden pole. Then he vaulted the low wall into the paddock and advanced on Glaesir.

Previously Glaesir had shown a unique respect for Thorodd. Alone of all the people on the farm, Thorodd was able to handle the young bull. But this time Glaesir had dropped his head and charged the farmer. Thorodd stood his ground and, as the bull closed with him, brought the heavy wooden pole down with a massive thump, striking Glaesir on the crown of the head right between the horns. The blow stopped Glaesir in his tracks and the animal stood there shaking his head in a daze. The force of the blow had broken the wooden pole in half, so Thorodd - confident of his mastery over the bull — strode forward and grasped Glaesir by the head, seeking to twist the horns and bring the animal to his knees. For a few moments the tussle went on. Then Thorodd's foot slipped on the short cut grass, and he lost his purchase. Glaesir jerked backwards and gave his head a shake which partially broke Thorodd's grip. Thorodd managed to keep one hand on the left horn and, stepping behind the bull, boldly vaulted onto Glaesir's back, putting his body right forward on the animal's neck, intending that his weight - for Thorodd was a big, heavy man - would eventually subdue the young bull. Glaesir bolted down the field, swerving and twisting from side to side in an attempt to dislodge the burden on his back. The bull was quick and agile and stronger than Thorodd had anticipated. An unlucky leap, a change of direction in mid-air, unseated Thorodd and he began to slip to one side. Glaesir must have sensed the change, for he turned his head, placed a horn under Thorodd and got enough leverage to throw the farmer up into the air. As Thorodd fell back down towards the animal, Glaesir raised his head and the farmer fell straight onto one of the horns, which pierced his gut on the left side, low down. The horn drove deep. Thorodd fell off the bull and lay in a heap, as Glaesir, suddenly quiet, trotted off and began grazing. The farmhands ran into the field and picked up their master. They placed Thorodd on a hurdle and carried him up to the farmhouse. As they reached the door, Thorodd insisted on getting off the hurdle and walking into his own house upright. He lurched into the hall, the right side of his shirt drenched in blood. That night he died.

When the messenger finished his story, Snorri dismissed him, and waved away the small crowd who had gathered to hear the gruesome tale. Then he beckoned to me to follow him and led me to the small sleeping closet at the side of the hall. It was unoccupied and the only place where he could speak to me privately.

'Thorgils,' he asked, 'how many people did you tell about your vision of Thorodd in his blood-stained shirt?'

'No one apart from yourself.' I replied. 'I am sure that Thorodd's mother saw the blood too, but we were the only people to see it.'

'Let me give you some advice,' Snorri went on. 'Don't ever tell anyone else that you saw Thorodd's blood-stained shirt before his accident happened. In fact, I advise you not to talk to people whenever your second sight foretells anything that can be interpreted in a sinister way, particularly if there is any hint of death in it. People become fearful and nervous. Sometimes they think that a seer can cause an event to happen, and that once a seer has seen a vision, he or she shapes the future to make the vision come true, and they do this to enhance their reputations as visionaries. When ordinary people start to think like this, and some tragedy does occur, things can get very ugly. Fear leads to violence. People take revenge or try to remove the source of their fear by hurting the seer.'

'But aren't seers and volva and seidrmanna respected?' I asked, 'I thought that it was forbidden to spill their blood.'

'So it is. The last time that the people of this area mistrusted a magician, it was a man named Kolmek. He was another half-Irish like yourself, just a small farmer, who could see portents and make forecasts. A gang of his neighbours grabbed him one evening, pulled a sack over his head and bound it so tight that he choked to death. That didn't spill a drop of his blood. Nor did the way they dealt with Kolmek's wife. They accused her of black witchcraft. They carried her to a bog, tied a heavy stone round her feet and dropped her in.'

Already reticent about my dreams and second sight, I made a silent promise to myself that only in the most extreme circumstances would I disclose what my second sight revealed to me and not to others. Also I began to suspect that my flashes of second sight came from Odinn himself and, like all of Odinn's gifts, they could cause both help and harm.

TWELVE

HALLBERA WAS SNORRI'S fourth daughter. She had light freckles on healthy pale skin, rounded arms with a light fuzz of golden down, blue-grey eyes, blonde hair worn long and a face that was perfectly symmetrical. In short, she was the epitome of a normal, wholesome, good-looking Norse maiden. She adored her brothers, of whom she had eight, and she got on well with her sisters, of whom she also had eight. Indeed, if any proof is needed that Snorri Godi was more pagan than Christian, it is the fact that he had one official wife, and a second wife, whom he never married but made clear was his second consort. And he treated all their children equally. Hallbera's background in such a large and well-to-do family could scarcely have been more different from mine as an impoverished newcomer living on the fringes of her father's household. There were many times when I felt overawed by the energy and self-confidence of the Snorrissons and Snorradottirs. But I was smitten. I did everything I could to stay in her father's favour so that I could be close to this honey-gold girl. For the first time in my life I was in love.