The Long Ships (5 page)

Many of them applauded his proposal and cried assent; but others doubted whether they were sufficiently provisioned to carry them through until they came to their goal.

Then Krok spoke again. He said that Berse had made exactly the suggestion that he himself had thought of putting forward. Berse had spoken of the daughters of counts and of wealthy abbots, for the return of whose persons they would receive large ransoms; and he would like to add that in Ireland, there were, as was well known, no less than a hundred and sixty kings, some great, some small, but all of whom possessed much gold and many fine women, and whose soldiers fought wearing only linen garments, so that they could not be difficult to overcome. The most difficult part of their voyage would be passing through the Sound, where they might find themselves attacked by the natives of those parts; but three strongly manned ships, which Styrbjörn himself had not dared to challenge, would be likely to command respect even in the Sound; besides which, most of the Vikings of that region would, at this time of the year, already have sailed westwards; and in any case there would be no moon during the next few nights. As regards food, any that they needed they could easily obtain as soon as they had successfully negotiated the Sound.

By this time they had all recovered their former high spirits. They said that the plan was a good one and that Krok was the wisest and cleverest of all chieftains; and they were all proud to discover how little trepidation they felt at the prospect of a voyage to the lands of the west, for no ship from their district had attempted such a journey within living memory.

They set sail and came to Möen and rested there for a day and a night, keeping a good lookout and waiting for a favorable wind. Then they headed up through the Sound in stormy weather and came that evening to its neck without meeting any enemies. Later, during the night, they anchored in the lee of the Mound and decided to go ashore in search of provisions. Three companies landed secretly, each in a different place. Krok’s company was lucky, for they came at once on a sheepfold near a large house and managed to kill the shepherd and his dog before they could give the alarm. Then they caught the sheep and cut the throats of as many as they could take with them; but this caused the animals to bleat loudly, so that Krok bade his men make haste with the work.

They returned to the ship by the way they had come, making as much speed as they could, each man bearing a sheep over his shoulder. They heard behind them the clamor of people who had awaked in the house, and soon there arose the harsh yowling of dogs that had been unleashed on their scent. Then they heard from farther off a woman’s voice, which, piercing through the noise of the dogs and men, cried: “Wait! Stay with me!” and screamed: “Orm!” several times, and then again cried: “Wait!” very shrilly and despairingly. Krok’s men had difficulty in moving quickly with their loads, for the path was stony and steep, and the night was cloudy and still almost pitch-dark. Krok himself went last in the line, carrying his sheep over his shoulder and holding an ax in his other hand. He was anxious, if possible, to avoid becoming involved in a fight for the sake of a sheep, for it was not worth while to risk life and limbs for so little; so he drove his men forward with harsh words of rebuke when they stumbled or slackened speed.

The ship lay hard by some flat rocks, being held away from them by the oars. They were ready to pull out as soon as Krok returned, for the other landing-parties had already returned empty-handed; some of them were waiting on the beach in case Krok should need any assistance. They were only a few paces from the ship when two great dogs came bounding down the path. One of them leaped at Krok, but he jumped aside and struck it with his ax; the other flashed past him with a huge leap at the man just in front of him, knocked him over by its impetus, and buried its teeth in his throat. Two of the others hastened forward and killed the dog, but when they and Krok bent over the man who had been bitten, they saw that his throat was badly torn and that he was rapidly bleeding to death.

In the same instant a spear hissed past Krok’s head, and two men came running down the slope and out on the flat rocks; they had run so fast that they had outstripped all their companions. The foremost of them, who was bareheaded and bore no shield, but carried a short sword in his hand, tripped and fell headlong on the rocks; two spears flew over him and hit his companion, who crumpled to the ground. But the bareheaded man was at once on his feet again; baying like a wolf, he hewed at one man who had leaped forward with his sword raised when he had fallen, and felled him with a blow on the temples. Then he sprang at Krok, who stood just behind him; all this happened very quickly. He aimed savagely at Krok, but Krok was still carrying his sheep, and he slipped it round to meet the blow, in the same instant striking his adversary with the reverse edge of his ax on the forehead, so that he fell to the ground senseless. Krok bent over him and saw that he was no more than a youth, red-haired and snub-nosed and pale-complexioned. He felt with his fingers the place where the axhead had landed and found that the skull was unfractured.

“I shall take the calf with me as well as the sheep,” he said. “He can row in the place of the man he killed.”

So they picked him up and carried him on to the ship and threw him beneath an oar-bench; then, when they had all come aboard, except the two men whom they had left dead behind them, they pulled out to sea just as a large crowd of pursuers appeared on the beach. The sky had now begun to lighten, and some spears were thrown at the ship; but they did no damage. The men pulled strongly at their oars, happy in the knowledge that they had fresh meat on board; and they had already gone a good way from land when the figures on the beach were joined by a woman in a long blue shift with her hair streaming behind her, who ran to the edge of the rocks and stretched out her arms toward the ship, crying something. Her cry reached them as a thin sound across the water, but she stood there long after they had ceased to hear her.

In this wise Orm, the son of Toste, who later came to be known as Red Orm or Orm the Far-Traveled, set forth on his first voyage.

1.
Modern Lithuania and Latvia.

KROK’S men were very hungry when they reached Weather Island, for they had had to row the whole way there. They lay to and went ashore to gather fuel and cook themselves a good dinner; they found there only a few old fishermen, who on account of their poverty were not afraid of plunderers. When they came to cut up the sheep, they praised their fatness and the evident excellence of the spring pasturing on the Mound. They stuck the joints on their spears and held them in the fire, and their mouths watered as the fat began to crackle, for it was a long time since their nostrils had known such a cheering smell. Many of them exchanged stories of the last occasions on which they had been present at so tasty a meal, and they all agreed that their voyage to the lands of the west had begun promisingly. Then they began to eat so that the juice of the meat ran over their beards.

By this time Orm had regained his senses, but he was still sick and dizzy, and when he came ashore with the others, it was all he could do to keep on his legs. He sat down and held his head between his hands and made no reply to the words that were addressed to him. But after a while, when he had vomited and drunk water, he felt better, and when he smelt the odor of the frying meat, he raised his head like a man who has just waked up, and looked at the men around him. The man who was sitting nearest to him grinned in a friendly way and cut off a bit of his meat and offered it to him.

“Take this and eat it,” he said. “You never tasted better in your life.”

“I know its quality,” replied Orm. “I provided it.”

He took the meat and held it between his fingers without eating it. He looked thoughtfully round the circle, at each man in turn, and then said: “Where is the man I hit? Is he dead?”

“He is dead,” replied his neighbor, “but no one here stands to avenge him, and you are to row in his stead. His oar lies in front of mine, so it will be well that you and I should be friends. My name is Toke; what is yours?”

Orm told him his name and asked him: “The man I killed— was he a good fighter?”

“He was, as you observed, somewhat slow of movement,” replied Toke, “and he was not so handy with a sword as I am myself. But that would be asking a lot of a man, for I am one of the finest swordsmen in our company. Still, he was a strong man, and steadfast and of a good name; he was called Ale, and his father sows twelve bushels of rye, and he had been to sea twice already. If you can row as well as he did, you are no mean oarsman.”

When Orm heard this, it seemed to cheer his spirits, and he began to eat. But after a few minutes he asked: “Who was it who struck me down?”

Krok was sitting a short way from him and heard his question. He laughed and raised his ax, finished his mouthful, and said: “This is the maid who kissed you. Had she bitten you, you would not have asked her name.”

Orm gazed at Krok with rounded eyes that looked as though they had never blinked, and then said with a sigh: “I had no helmet and was breathless from running; otherwise it might have gone differently.”

“You are a conceited puppy, Skanian,” said Krok, “and fancy yourself a soldier. But you are yet young and lack a soldier’s prudence. For prudent men do not forget their helmets when they run out after sheep; nay, not even when their own wives are stolen from them. But you seem to be a man whom Fortune smiles on, and it may be that you will bring us all into her good favor. We have already seen three manifestations of her love for you. Firstly, you slipped on the rocks as two spears were flying toward you; then Ale, whom you slew, has no kinsman or close comrade among us who is bound to avenge him; and thirdly, I did not kill you, because I wished to have an oarsman to replace him. Therefore I believe you to be a man of great good luck, who can thereby be of use to us; wherefore I now give you the freedom of our company, provided only that you agree to take Ale’s oar.”

They all thought that Krok had spoken well. Orm munched his meat reflectively; then he said: “I accept the freedom you offer me; nor do I think I need feel ashamed to do so, though you stole my sheep. But I will not row as a slave, for I am of noble blood; and though I am young, yet I hold myself to be a good soldier, for I slew Ale, and he was one. I therefore claim back my sword.”

This provoked a long and complicated discussion. Some of them regarded Orm’s demand as altogether unreasonable and said that he ought to think himself lucky to have been granted his life; but others remarked that self-esteem was no great fault in a young man, and that the claims of those whom Fortune smiled on should not be lightly ignored. Toke laughed and said he was amazed that so many men, three full ships' companies, could be anxious about whether or not one boy was to be allowed to carry a sword. A man called Calf, who had spoken against granting Orm’s request, wanted to fight Toke for saying this, and Toke said that he would be glad to oblige him as soon as he had finished the good kidney that he was just then occupied with; but Krok forbade them to fight over such a matter. The end of it all was that Orm got his sword back, but that his future behavior would determine whether he was to be treated as a slave or as a comrade. But Orm was to pay Krok for his sword, which was a fine weapon, as soon as he won anything on the voyage.

By this time a light breeze had sprung up, and Krok said that it was time for them to avail themselves of it and set sail. So they all went aboard and the ship made its way up through the Kattegat with its sails filled with the wind. Orm stared back across the sea and said that it was lucky for Krok that they had few ships left at home in these parts at this time of year; for if he knew his mother, she would else by now have been on their tails with half the people of the Mound assisting her.

Then he washed the wound in his head and rinsed the clotted blood from his hair; and Krok said that the scar on his forehead would be a fine thing to show womenfolk. Then Toke produced an old leather helmet with iron bands. He said it was not much of a helmet for these times, but that he had found it among the Wends and that he had nothing better that he could spare. It would, he said, not be of much use against an ax, but still it would be better than nothing. Orm tried it on and found that it would fit him when the swelling had gone down. Orm thanked Toke; and they both knew now that they would be friends.

They rounded the Skaw with a good following wind, and there, after ancient custom, they sacrificed to Agir and all his kin, offering sheep’s flesh and pork and ale, and were followed for a long while afterwards by shrieking gulls, which they took to be a good omen. They rowed down the Jutland coast, where the country was deserted and the ribs of wrecked ships were often to be seen in the sand; farther south they went ashore on two small islands, where they found water and food but little else. They proceeded down the coast, for the most part with favorable winds helping them, so that the men became good-humored through being relieved of the tiresome labor of constant rowing. Toke said that Orm was perhaps weather-lucky, as well as being ordinarily fortunate; and weather-luck was one of the best kinds of luck that a man could have, so that, if this were in fact so, Orm could indeed hope for a prosperous future. Orm thought that Toke might be right; but Krok was unwilling to agree with them on this point.

“It is I who bring us this good weather,” he said, “for we have had good weather and winds from the very beginning, long before Orm joined us; indeed, if I had not known my weather-luck to be reliable, I should not have ventured on this expedition. But Orm’s luck is good, if not of the same quality as my own; and the more lucky men we have aboard, the better it will be for us all.”

Berse the Wise agreed, and said that men without luck had the hardest burden of all to bear. “For man can triumph over man, and weapon over weapon; against the gods we can pit sacrifice, and against witchcraft, contrary magic; but against bad luck no man has anything to oppose.”