Viking Tales by Jennie Hall (books to read now txt) π
"'There, stand so!' I said, 'and glare and hiss at my foes.'
"In the stern I curved the tail up almost as high as the head. There I put the pilot's seat and a strong tiller for the rudder. On the breast and sides I carved the dragon's scales. Then I painted it all black and on the tip of every scale I put gold. I called her 'Waverunner.' There she sat on the rollers, as fair a ship as I ever saw.
"The night that it was finished I went to my father's feast. After the meats were eaten and the mead-horns came round, I stood up from my bench and raised my drinking-horn[3] high and spoke with a great voice:
"'This is my vow: I will sail to Norway and I will harry the coast and fill my boat with riches. Then I will get me a farm and will winter in that land. Now who will follow me?'
"'He is but a boy,' the men said. 'He has opened his mouth wider than he can do.'
"But others jumped to their feet with the
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"Give this message to your King Harald for me: I will not be his wife unless he puts all of Norway under him for my sake."
So Guthorm and his men rode homeward across the country. They did not talk. They were all thinking. At last one said:
"How shall we give this message to the king?"
"I have been thinking of that," Guthorm said; "his anger is no little thing."
It was late when they rode into the king's yard; for they had ridden slowly, trying to make some plan for softening the message, but they had thought of none.
"I see light through the wind's-eyes of the feast hall," one said.
"Yes, the king keeps feast," Guthorm said. "We must give our message before all his guests."
So they went in with very heavy hearts. There sat King Harald in the high seat. The benches on both sides were full of men. The tables had been taken out, and the mead-horns were going round.
"Oh, ho!" cried King Harald. "Our messengers! What news?"
Then Guthorm said:
"This Gyda is a bold and saucy girl, King Harald. My tongue refuses to give her message."
The king stamped his foot.
"Out with it!" he cried. "What does she say?"
"She says that she will not marry so little a king," Guthorm answered.
Harald jumped to his feet. His face flushed red. Guthorm stretched out his hand.
"They are not my words, O King; they are the words of a silly girl."
"Is there any more?" the king shouted. "Go on!"
"She said: 'There is one king in Denmark and one king in Sweden. Is there no man brave enough to make himself king of all Norway? Tell King Harald that I will not marry him unless he puts all of Norway under him for my sake.'"
The guests sat speechless, staring at Guthorm. All at once the king broke into a roar of laughter.
"By the hammer of Thor!" he cried, "that is a good message. I thank you, Gyda. Did you hear it, friends? King of all Norway! Why, we are all stupids. Why did we not think of that?"
Then he raised his horn high.
"Now hear my vow. I say that I will not cut my hair or comb it until I am king of all Norway. That I will be or I will die."
Then he drank off the horn of mead, and while he drank it, all the men in the hall stood up and waved their swords and shouted and shouted. That old hall in all its two hundred years of feasts had not heard such a noise before.
"Ah, Harald!" Guthorm cried, "surely Thor in Valhalla smiled when he heard that vow."
The men sat all night talking of that wonderful vow.
On the very next day King Harald sent out his war-arrows. Soon a great army was gathered. They marched through the country north and south and east and west, burning houses and fighting battles as they went. People fled before them, some to their own kings, some inland to the deep woods and hid there. But some went to King Harald and said:
"We will be your men."
"Then take the oath, and I will be friends with you," he said.
The men took off their swords and laid them down and came one by one and knelt before the king. They put their heads between his knees and said:
"From this day, Harald Halfdanson, I am your man. I will serve you in war. For my land I will pay you taxes. I will be faithful to you as my king."
Then Harald said:
"I am your king, and I will be faithful to you."
Many kings took that oath and thousands of common men. Of all the battles that Harald fought, he did not lose one.
Now for a long time the king's hair and beard had not been combed or cut. They stood out around his head in a great bushy mat of yellow. At a feast one day when the jokes were going round, Harald's uncle said:
"Harald, I will give you a new name. After this you shall be called Harald Shockhead. As my naming gift I give you this drinking-horn."
"It is a good name," laughed all the men.
After that all people called him Harald Shockhead.
During these wars, whenever King Harald got a country for his own, this is what he did. He said:
"All the marshland and the woodland where no people live is mine. For his farm every man shall pay me taxes."
Over every country he put some brave, wise man and called him Earl. He said to the earls:
"You shall collect the taxes and pay them to me. But some you shall keep for yourselves. You shall punish any man who steals or murders or does any wicked thing. When your people are in trouble they shall come to you, and you shall set the thing right. You must keep peace in the land. I will not have my people troubled with robber vikings."
The earls did all these things as best they could; for they were good strong men. The farmers were happy. They said:
"We can work on our farms with peace now. Before King Harald came, something was always wrong. The vikings would come and steal our gold and our grain and burn our houses, or the king would call us to war. Those little kings are always fighting. It is better under King Harald."
But the chiefs, who liked to fight and go a-viking, hated King Harald and his new ways. One of these chiefs was Solfi. He was a king's son. Harald had killed his father in battle. Solfi had been in that battle. At the end of it he fled away with two hundred men and got into ships.
"We will make that Shockhead smart," he said.
So they harried the coast of King Harald's country. They filled their ships with gold. They ate other men's meals. They burned farmhouses behind them. The people cried out to the earls for help. So the earls had out their ships all the time trying to catch Solfi, but he was too clever for them.
In the spring he went to a certain king, Audbiorn, and said to him:
"Now, there are two things that we can do. We can become this Shockhead Harald's thralls, we can kneel before him and put our heads between his knees. Or else we can fight. My father thought it better to die in battle than to be any man's thrall. How is it? Will you join with my cousin Arnvid and me against this young Shockhead?"
"Yes, I will do it," said the king.
[8] See note about foster-father on page 197.
Many men felt as Solfi did. So when King Audbiorn and King Arnvid sent out their war arrows, a great host gathered. All men came by sea. Two hundred ships lay at anchor in the fiord, looking like strange swimming animals because of their high carved prows and bright paint. There were red and gold dragons with long necks and curved tails. Sea-horses reared out of the water. Green and gold snakes coiled up. Sea-hawks sat with spread wings ready to fly. And among all these curved necks stood up the tall, straight masts with the long yardarms swinging across them holding the looped-up sails.
When the starting horn blew, and their sails were let down, it was like the spreading of hundreds of curious flags. Some were striped black and yellow or blue and gold. Some were white with a black raven or a brown bear embroidered on them, or blue with a white sea-hawk, or black with a gold sun. Some were edged with fur. As the wind filled the gaudy sails, and the ships moved off, the men waved their hands to the women on shore and sang:
The wind in our sail,
The sea in our face,
And the smell of the fight.
After ship meets ship,
In the quarrel of swords
King Harald shall lie
In the caves under sea
And Norsemen shall laugh."
In the prow stood men leaning forward and sniffing the salt air with joy. Some were talking of King Harald.
"Yesterday he had a hard fight," they said. "To-day he will be lying still, dressing his wounds and mending his ships. We shall take him by surprise."
They sailed near the coast. Solfi in his "Sea-hawk" was ahead leading the way. Suddenly men saw his sail veer and his oars flash out. He had quickly turned his boat and was rowing back. He came close to King Arnvid and called:
"He is there, ahead. His boats are ready in line of battle. The fox has not been asleep."
King Arnvid blew his horn. Slowly his boats came into line with his "Sea-stag" in the middle. Again he blew his horn. Cables were thrown across from one prow to the next, and all the ships were tied together so that their sides touched. Then the men set their sails again and they went past a tongue of land into a broad fiord. There lay the long line of King Harald's ships with their fierce heads grinning and mocking at the newcomers. Back of those prows was what looked like a long wall with spots of green and red and blue and yellow and shining gold. It was the locked shields of the men in the bows, and over every shield looked fierce blue eyes. Higher up and farther back was another wall of shields; for on the half deck in the stern of every ship stood the captain with his shield-guard of a dozen men.
Arnvid's people had furled their sails and were taking down the masts, but the ships were still drifting on with the wind. The horn blew, and quickly every man sprang to his place in bow and stern. All were leaning forward with clenched teeth and widespread nostrils. They were clutching their naked swords in their hands. Their flashing eyes looked over their shields.
Soon King Arnvid's ships crashed into Harald's line, and immediately the men in the bows began to swing their swords at one another. The soldiers of the shield-guard on the high decks began to throw darts and stones and to shoot arrows into the ships opposite them.
So in every ship showers of stones and arrows were falling, and many men died under them or got broken arms or legs. Spears were hurled from deck to deck and many of them bit deep into men's bodies. In every bow men slashed with their swords at the foes in the opposite ship. Some jumped upon the gunwale to get nearer or hung from the prow-head. Some even leaped into the enemy's boat.
King Harald's ship lay prow to prow with King Arnvid's. The battle had been going on for an hour. King Harald was still in the stern on the deck. There was a dent in his helmet where a great stone had struck. There was a gash in his shoulder where a spear had cut. But he was still fighting and laughed as he worked.
"Wolf meets wolf to-day," he said. "But things are going badly in the prow," he cried. "Ivar fallen, Thorstein wounded, a dozen men lying in the bottom of the boat!"
He leaped down from the deck and ran along the gunwale, shouting as he went:
"Harald and victory!"
So he came to the bow and stood swinging his sword as fast as he breathed. Every time it hit a man of Arnvid's men. Harald's own warriors cheered, seeing him.
"Harald and victory!" they shouted, and went to work again with good heart.
Slowly King
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