Tim Severin - Odinn's Child

Earl Sigurd knew at once who they were when the Burners arrived. Most of the Norse world was talking of the Burning of Njal. The earl was renowned for his violent temper and, as the Burners had feared, his initial reaction was to fly into a rage and order the visitors to be arrested. But Flosi courageously spoke up, admitting his guilt for Helgi Njalsson's death. Then, invoking an old Norse tradition, he offered to serve in Helgi's place in the earl's retinue. After some grumbling, Earl Sigurd agreed. The Burners had then pledged obedience to the earl and now were under his protection.

'Sigurd the Stout', as he was popularly known, was a pagan Norseman of the old school and proud of it. He always attracted fighting men. It was said that his two favourite seasons of the year were spring and autumn because at the first sign of spring he would launch his warships and go raiding his neighbours. He then came home for the summer to gather the harvest, and as soon as that was done he promptly put to sea again for a second round of viking. His most celebrated possession was the battle banner that his mother, a celebrated volva, had stitched for him. Its insignia was Odinn's emblem, the black raven. It was claimed that whoever flew the banner in battle would be victorious. However, in keeping with Odinn's perverse character, the person who carried the banner in battle would die while winning the victory. Given this warning, it was hardly surprising, that only the most loyal of Earl Sigurd's retainers was prepared to be his standard-bearer.

This was the man, then, in whose long hall at Birsay my mother had conducted her affair with my father Leif the Lucky, and the woman who had stitched the raven banner was my mother's confidante, Eithne the earl mother. According to the fisherman who brought us the news about the Burners, the earl mother was well advanced in years but still very much alive.

Kari decided that the most prudent time for us to cross to Mainland and arrive at Sigurd's great hall was during the Jol festival, when there should be several days of feasting and oath-taking. Sigurd still followed the old-fashioned tradition of having a large boar — an animal sacred to the fertility God Frey — led down his great hall so that the assembled company could lay hands on the bristly animal and swear their solemn oaths for the coming year. Then that evening the oath boar would be served up roast at a great banquet, at which the earl displayed his bounty by distributing vast quantities of mead and beer for his retainers and guests. For Sigurd the festival was a proper celebration in honour of Jolnir, another of Odinn's names, but he had no objection if the Christians chose to combine the earthy celebration of Jol with one of their holy days, provided they did not interfere with the priorities of eating, drinking, story-telling and carousing. Indeed, it occurred to me that it might have been under similar circumstances, fifteen years earlier, that I was conceived.

Kolbein's boat had a favourable tide under her and carried us across the strait between Fair Isle and Mainland in less than ten hours. Kolbein knew of a quiet sandy beach for our landing place, and he, Kari and I went ashore in the boat's tender, leaving a few men aboard at anchor watch. It was less than a half-hour walk over the rolling sand dunes to reach the earl's long hall, and there was still enough daylight left for me to have my first glimpse of an earl's residence. After hearing so much about the wealth and power of an earl, for which there is no equivalent rank in Iceland, I was frankly rather disappointed. I had expected to see a grand building, something with towers and turrets and stone walls. What I saw was nothing more than an enlarged version of the longhouses that I already knew from Iceland to Vinland. The only difference was that Earl Sigurd's long hall was considerably bigger. In fact it was almost three times larger than the largest home I had yet seen, with side walls that were over four feet thick. But the rest of it, the stone and turf walls, the wooden supports and the grassy roof, were identical to the domestic structures I had known all my life. The interior of this huge building was just as gloomy, smoky and poorly illuminated as its more humble cousins, so Kari, Kolbein and I were able to slip quietly in through the main doors without being noticed in the crowd of guests. We took up our positions just a few paces inside. There we could see down the length of the great hall, yet we were far enough from the central hearth, where Sigurd, his entourage and chief guests were seated. In the half-light and surrounded by a jostle of visitors, there was little chance that Kari would be recognised.

I had forgotten about Kari's exalted sense of self-honour. We arrived in the interval between the parading of the oath boar and the time when it would be served up with an apple in its mouth. This long intermission lasts at least three hours, and the assembled company is normally entertained with a programme of juggling, tumbling and music. It is also a tradition for the host of the Jol banquet to call on each of his chief guests to contribute a tale from his own experience. Scarcely had the three of us found our places in the audience than Earl Sigurd called on one of the Burners, a tall, gangling man by the name of Gunnar Lambason, to recount the story of Njal's death and the events leading up to it. Clearly Earl Sigurd thought that a first-hand account of this famous and recent event, told by one of the chief participants, would impress his guests.

From the moment Gunnar Lambason started speaking, I knew he was a poor choice for a saga teller. The Icelanders can be somewhat long-winded when it comes to narration, but Gunnar made particularly heavy going. He had a nasal voice that grated on the ear, and he often lost the thread of his tale. He also skewed the story so that it showed the deeds of the Burners in the most favourable light. As Gunnar Lambason recounted it, the Njalssons had brought their fate on themselves and thoroughly deserved to die in the flames and smoke of their home. When Gunnar finished his recitation, Sigurd's most important guest, a sumptuously dressed chieftain with a splendidly lustrous beard, asked how the Njalsson family had endured their final hours. Gunnar answered dismis-sively. They had fought well at first but then begun to cry out, begging for quarter, he said. His reply was more than Kari could stomach. Standing next to him, I had heard his deep, angry breathing as Gunnar's dreary tale proceeded. Now Kari gave a roar of fury, broke out from the little knot of bystanders and raced half the length of the hall. Like everyone else, I stood and gaped as Kari jumped over the outstretched legs of the men seated at the side benches until he was level with Gunnar Lambason, who had just seated himself and turned to see what was the commotion was.

Everyone was so startled that there was no time to react. Kari had his famous sword Leg Biter in his hand. With a single sweep of the blade Kari cut Gunnar Lambason's head from his shoulders.

Sigurd, the veteran warrior, was the first to react. 'Seize that man!' he shouted, pointing at Kari, who stood there confronting the crowd, with a pool of Gunnar Lambason's blood seeping around his feet. There was a shocked murmuring, followed by an uncomfortable silence. No one got up from their seats. At banquets it is customary for weapons to be hung up on the walls as a precaution against drunken brawling leading to bloodshed. Kari had only managed to bring Leg Biter into the hall because we arrived so late that the gatekeepers were already drunk and had failed to search him. The only other people with any weapons were Sigurd's bodyguard, and they were men who had previously served with Kari and were wary of his prowess as a fighter. Kari looked straight at Sigurd and announced loudly, 'Some people would say that I have just rendered you a service by killing the murderer of your former servant, Helgi Njalsson.' There was a mutter of approval from the onlookers and Flosi, the leader of the Burners, rose to his feet. He too turned towards Sigurd and said, 'I can speak on behalf of the Burners. Kari has done no wrong. He never accepted any settlement or compensation we offered for the deaths of his family, and he has always made it public that he intends to seek blood revenge. He only did what is his duty.'