V
Yule in Denmark
Now was another year come and gone, and the third winter come of Styrbiorn’s being abroad. He was held now for so great a man of war amongst them, and for so wise and foresighted a man for all his youth and his sometimes heat and rashness, and withal he was so well loved of every man of them, that none thought it ill that Styrbiorn should be called captain in Jomsburg whensoever Palnatoki was away out of the burg about his own affairs whether in Fion or otherwhere.
There was in those days in Jomsburg Biorn Asbrandson of Coombe, a man of Iceland that was come to Jomsburg a little afore Styrbiorn himself came thither. Biorn was now in the twenty-ninth year of his age, and this by-name he had that men called him Biorn the Broadwickers’ Champion. Of most goodly countenance he was, and pleasant of speech, and (by the talk of folk) as big a champion in wooing of women as in holding of his own against men; in both which games there were few might match him. There was good liking betwixt him and Styrbiorn, well nigh from that day when Styrbiorn was first taken into Jomsburg; and now Styrbiorn had bounden Biorn to him with oaths of brotherhood, and had they been brothers born there could scarce closer love and friendship have been betwixt them.
It was the wont of those lords of Jomsburg, when all the booty was brought home at summer’s end and safely bestowed, to go every one to his own place, leaving force to hold the burg through winter. Only one of their chiefest men must bide there as captain in Jomsburg the winter through. They determined by lot year by year who should have that duty, nor was any eager to have it, but they took it turn and turn about. This year was the lot fallen on Heming, the second son of Strut-Harald the Earl, to be captain in Jomsburg and abide there until the spring of the year, when they should all gather thither again against their summer harryings.
And now were the more part of them ready for their homeward faring, but Styrbiorn yet debated whither he should go, for it was not till spring should be well begun that his due time should come when he might come home again to Sweden and take up kingdom there, according to the word of Eric the King.
Now many would have had Styrbiorn go home with them and spend Yuletide as their guest, in so much that there was like to be very mischief amongst them out of argument which of them should have him. Until in the end, Biorn said in his ear, “There is good guesting, Styrbiorn, with King Harald Gormson in Denmark. For thither fared I when first I came east out of Iceland, and King Harald was good to me and welcomed me well. There is this too, that he hath a daughter young and meet for wedlock. And this thou hast told me many a time, that thou was minded to take a wife, so as thou shouldst be not an heirless man when thou shalt be set in kingdom in Upsala.”
Styrbiorn laughed. Taking Biorn by the arm, he spake and said among them, “Here be we two, fosterlings unfostered for the while. Were it not just if the Dane-King should foster me and thee, Biorn, this Yuletide, sith Palnatoki fostereth his brat?”
So those two with their following, when they had bid farewell to Palnatoki and the rest, sailed west along the land and so up into the Dane-realm, and there asked tidings and found that King Harald sat that winter in Sealand in his great house at Roiskeld. So they sailed to Sealand and up the firth into the land till they were come to the head of the firth where it opens as it were into a great mere or inland sea. As soon as King Harald heard that the Jomsburgers were come thither, he sent messengers to bring them greetings and bid them come to him in his hall which stood up not far from the seaside on a little eminence overlooking the gray land and the gray sea. So they came, and greeted well the King, and he gave them good welcome, and bade them be with him over Yuletide.
King Harald was a man of the greatest largesse, and he set good fare before his guests and good drink and of the strongest. That night, ere they went to bed, were all the Dane-folk swine-drunken, so that they lay where they slid and snouked and snored till morning; but Styrbiorn and his folk kept their wits, albeit not a man of them but drank cup and cup against the Danes. And King Harald outdrank his folk, yet was overcome at length with his quaffings and lay drunk in his chair. He was burly of build and quack-bellied and thick and short of neck and with great chuff cheeks, and his mouth was ugly, and a monstrous dead tooth lay out of it over his lip of one side, that had been there these many years; and it was thence came that by-name by which men called him through all the Northlands, of Harald Blue-tooth. Many a night the while they guested with King Harald he made them the like good cheer, and always it ended in the same way, that the Jomsburgers showed themselves the sturdier drinkers.
Now it was King Harald’s wont that every night when they were set at meat, ere they fell to, the King let hallow the board by a priest of his that went in a long-coloured gown like as women use to wear, and had the top of his head shaven bald and smooth. And the King had a house nigh to his own house that he called his kirk, and here must this priest say his mass at proper seasons, and the King went to mass and all his folk. But the Jomsburgers went not so. Styrbiorn asked Biorn how came it about that the Dane-King and his folk would not do worship and trowed no more in the Gods. “So it is said,” answered he, “that in years gone by Keisar Otto came up against the Dane-work and bade the Danes take christening. King Harald said nay to that and all his folk, and held the Dane-work against the Keisar and there was long war betwixt them. The King sent for Earl Hakon out of Norway, and the Earl came to help him. But in the end the Keisar won the Dane-work, and let do christen the King willy-nilly, him and all his men. And thereafter the King and the Keisar let christen the Earl too, and his men. But as soon as Earl Hakon was gotten with his ships out of the land, men say that he went ashore on an isle that is there and made blood-offering unto the Gods and so went again ashipboard and so home to Hladir. And ruleth Norway from that day forth as he were very King, and never no more payeth no scat, and counteth not a flea’s worth neither christen-faith nor the King of the Danes, whose Earl he was aforetime.”
“That was well done,” said Styrbiorn.
Styrbiorn and his folk were there with King Harald Gormson in Roiskeld all winter till Yule. There was not a man of the King’s men could stand with Styrbiorn in feats of strength and skill, nor durst any quarrel with him nor cross him. At first the King wished to have him to be his man, and offered him both goods and land thereto and an Earl’s name, if he would leave Jomsburg and come to him, but Styrbiorn would not. The King bade him take christening, but Styrbiorn would have naught of that. And now their friendship, which had begun hopefully, seemed to grow no more, but bide where it was, like a thorn set in poor soil on a windy headland. But with the lads and young men that were with King Harald that winter in Roiskeld Styrbiorn was so blithe and gamesome that they loved him well, and it was easy to see that they took joy to follow him and back him, and what thing soever seemed good to him that thing they praised and cried down the thing that he misliked or cared not for. King Harald, seeing and considering these things, now began to change his mind into another tune, and became exceeding glum when Styrbiorn was by, and short-spoken. Styrbiorn thought it good game to jest with the King when he was in a dump and make sport with him. And he would say now and then to the King in his sport that he knew not for sure if Harald were a good King for the Dane-folk, what with his kirk and his priest, and he would say he was minded sometimes to put some other king there in Harald’s stead and send him packing. King Harald made as if to take these jests in good part, giving him back flyting answers and making game of it. But within himself these things rankled, and that more and more as time went by.
King Harald had but one son, Svein, that was now at fostering with Palnatoki as is aforesaid. Svein was as now nine winters old. Thyri was King Harald’s daughter. She was now fourteen winters old, of few words but with a merry eye. Her hair was black and of a dainty curling growth, her mouth sweetly shaped but somewhat large. Folk found it hard to say if she were exceeding fair to look on or not fair at all, for she seemed both the one and the other by turns. She was not tall of stature, yet of a sweet and noble carriage.
Oft would Styrbiorn and Thyri be a-talking together. Biorn marked how those two, that were wont to be short of speech with other folk, were between themselves full of all talk and merriment; and their talk was easy, as if each knew easily the other’s mind, as a man knows the countryside he was bred up in and finds all things there of kin with him. So it went for a time. And now Thyri seemed silenter of speech again, and it was as if the morning freshness of her mood became shadowed a little. Biorn, marking these things, asked Styrbiorn on a day if it were not his mind to open this matter with King Harald, “Sith thou art minded to take a wife; and I can see things sail for thee here both with wind and tide.”
“There is time enough yet,” said Styrbiorn.
“I had thought, to look on thee, that thy mind was set,” said Biorn.
Styrbiorn said, “For friends, that is one thing. But for a wife, I know not.”
“But thou lookest for a wife?” said Biorn. “And here to thy hand is a maid the fairest that may be, and like-minded with thee, and of as mighty kindred as thou couldest desire.”
Styrbiorn laughed. “May be I like not black women. Or may be I like not little women. And yet I like her. And yet, I will not.”
So now Biorn let that sleep, and left talking of these things.
Now was Yuletide come, and King Harald had a great bidding of his mighty men up and down the land to come and keep festival with him, and let sing mass in his kirk. And again he would have had Styrbiorn and his folk take christening, but none of them were minded thereto and the King could not get his way. At night was the King’s great Yule-drinking holden. There was much tale-telling there and man-matching.
The King asked Biorn to tell him somewhat about Iceland. Biorn told him.
“Is there no kings in that land?” asked King Harald.
“Not one,” said Biorn.
“Then who ruleth there?”
“The priests,” said Biorn.
“What, such as this one?” asked the King, pointing with his finger.
Biorn fell a-laughing. “Not so, Lord. Rather, such as I,” he said.
“Wast thou a priest then in Iceland, Biorn?” asked the King.
“Nay,” said Biorn.
“Why wast thou not a priest?” asked the King.
“ ’Tis not for every man,” answered he, “to hold that greatness. In my countryside, where I was born and waxed to manhood, was Snorri Thorgrimson priest in my time; and he had the priesthood from his father before him, Thorgrim the Priest of Frey, and it was in their kin and line since the time of Thorolf Most-beard that came first of them out to Iceland and took land at Thorsness.”
“Your priests are very like kings?” said King Harald.
“They have much the power of kings,” said Biorn, “save that no man need follow and obey them but of his own free choice. And they have not the name of a king nor the state of a king.”
“What wast thou in Iceland, Biorn,” asked the King, “since thou wast not a priest?”
“I was mine own man,” answered he.
“And what couldst thou do?” asked the King.
“I was a pretty man with mine hands,” said Biorn.
“Thou wast a pretty fighter?”
“Somewhat of that,” said he.
“I have heard tell,” said the King, “that there be good skalds in Iceland. What hast thou to say to that, Biorn?”
“There shall never be better skalds found than in Iceland,” answered Biorn, “though dale meet knoll.”
“Ha!” said the King, “I think thou must be a skald, Biorn. And that would please me more than aught else, if thou wouldst sing a stave or speak forth some ditty or song of thine.”
“I have made a drapa on you, King,” said Biorn, “of twenty stanzas long. If you will give me leave I will say it forth.”
“That pleaseth me well,” said the King.
So Biorn stood forth and spake his drapa that he had made in praise of Harald the King, and when it was done all thought Biorn was as good a skald as had been known in the Dane-realm these many years as far back as men might remember. And King Harald was pleased with Biorn’s song, and gave him a gold ring weighed twelve ounces.
The King asked Biorn if he knew more songs. Biorn answered and said he had store of songs of many kinds. The King bade him choose whichsoever of his songs he had liefest give them.
Styrbiorn said to Biorn apart, “This is somewhat unholy, this Yule-drinking, with neither blood-sacrifice nor praise of the Gods. Canst thou not speak somewhat in praise of the Gods, Biorn, so that they be not angry with us? and shame these Danes which regard ’em not?”
“I will do that willingly,” answered he. “And the willinger, because ’tis thou that askest it.”
So now stood forth Biorn a second time before Harald the King. Biorn was pleasant to look on, a big man and a strong, with fair and open countenance and crisp curling hair clipped short to the head and a short beard curly like sheep’s wool and growing tight and close. Thralls had piled fuel fresh on the fires, and the tongues of fire licked upward, and the reek hung about the black roof-beams and the lofty pillars of the hall; and the faces of men were red with ale and feasting and the fires’ heat and glare, and the bright light of the fires sparkled back from their eyes and from their rings and collars of gold and from the weapons that hung behind them down the long hall’s wainscotting of either hand. And this was the beginning of the lay that Biorn the Broadwickers’ Champion spake in King Harald’s hall: not his own, but the old holy Spae-Wife’s Lay which telleth of the beginning of all that is, foretelling also the end thereof, and the ways of the Gods with men. —
“Hearing I crave of all Holy Beings,
Of high and low, Heimdall’s children.
Wilt thou, Father of the Slain, that forth I tell thee
Outworn things, the oldest I mind me of old?
Of Giants I mind me, gender’d of yore,
Of them which in far days foster’d and fed me.
Nine worlds I mind me of: nine first Mothers:
And a mighty Judge under the mould below.
In the beginning, of yore, Nothing was:
Nor sand there was nor sea nor the surges cold:
Earth was not at all, neither upper Heaven:
Only a Gap was there Gaping: of grass not any.
Or ever the sons of Bor bare up the land,
They that did mighty Middle-earth fashion,
The Sun shone out of the south on the dwelling-stones;
Then was the ground grown with green leafage.
The Sun wheel’d from the south with her brother Moon,
And cast her right hand athwart heaven’s border:
The Sun wist not where her seat should be:
The Moon wist not where his main should be:
The Stars wist not where their stead must be.”
Stone still sat every man of them while Biorn spake the Spae-Wife’s Lay. Only as the song went on men seemed to draw nearer together with a gradual motion not to be seen (as hard it is to see the moving onward of stars), as though there were in that song something houseless, that made them huggle together for warmth and light and right flesh and blood. And it was as if the murk and sable night huddled and stirred on the smoky confines of the firelight behind and round and above the feasters; as if in the murk of it were a myriad watchers, unbeholden yet close, waiting and watching, while Biorn stood forth in the brightness and spoke his Lay. Harald the King sat back in his high seat hunched up in his beard. With one great hairy fist before him on the table he grasped the drinking horn, stock still. His eyes were cast down for the first while; then he raised them and fixed a dark and troubled stare on Styrbiorn, that was set over against the King in the high seat on the lower bench. But Styrbiorn, sitting erect there, seemed to be thinking of nought but of the song. His two hands grasped the pillars of the high seat a little above his head on either side; the polished links of his ring-byrny glinted and slept with his mighty chest’s quiet rise and fall; his nostrils widened, as if in the surging wash and rhythm of the great Lay he heard the sea surge beneath his keel, his surf-deer, sweeping him on to where surf and cliff break together on some unimagined shore.
And now was Biorn come to that part of the song that speaketh of the fostering of that Wolf who—
“Feedeth on the lives of fey men death-doom’d,
He redeemeth the Gods’ heaven red with gore.
Dark is on the sunshine: no summer after:
All weathers ill weathers.—Wist ye yet, or what?”
And now he sang of the latter things: of Ragnarok and the Twilight of the Gods—
“Sate on the howe there and strake harp-string
The Grim Wife’s herdsman, glad Eggthér.
Crow’d mid the cocks in Cackle-spinney
A fair-red cock who Fialar hight.
Crowed in Asgarth Comb-o’-Gold,
Fighters to wake for the Father of Hosts.
But another croweth to Earth from under:
A soot-red cock from the courts of Hell. —
Garm bayeth ghastful at Gnipa’s cave:
The fast must be loos’d and the Wolf fare free.
Things forgot know I, yea, and far things to come:
The Twilight of the Gods; the grave of Them that conquer’d.
Brother shall fight with brother, and to bane be turned:
Sisters’ offspring shall spill the bands of kin.
Hard ’tis with the world: of whoredom mickle:
An axe age, a sword age: shields shall be cloven;
A wind age, a wolf age, ere the world’s age founder.
Mimir’s children are astir, the Judge up standeth,
Even with the roar of the Horn of Roaring.
High bloweth Heimdall: the Horn is aloft;
And Odin muttereth with Mimir’s head.
Shuddereth Yggdrasill’s Ash on high,
The old Tree groaneth, and the Titans are unchain’d—
Garm bayeth ghastful at Gnipa’s cave:
The fast must be loos’d and the Wolf fare free.
What aileth the Æsir? What aileth the Elves?
Thundereth all Jotunheim: the Æsir go to Thing.
The Dwarf-kind wail afore their doors of stone,
The rock-walls’ warders.—Wist ye yet, or what?
Hrym driveth from the east, holdeth shield on high.
Jormungand twisteth in Titan fury.
The Worm heaveth up the seas: screameth the Eagle:
Slitteth corpses Neb-pale: Nail-fare saileth.
A Keel fareth from the west: come must Muspell’s
Legions aboard of her, and Loki steereth.
Fare the evil wights with the Wolf all;
Amidst them is Byleist’s brother in their faring,
Surt from the south cometh, switch-bane in hand;
Blazeth the sun from the sword of the Death-God:
The granite cliffs clash, and the great gulfs sunder;
The Hell-dead walk the way of Hell, and the Heavens are riven—
Garm bayeth ghastful at Gnipa’s cave:
The fast must be loos’d and the Wolf fare free.”
For a minute after Biorn had ended there was dead quiet. Then that priest leapt up, proffering from his lips, higgledy-piggledy like water guggling out of a bottleneck, all manner of foul speech and blasphemy; out of which this much was apparent, that he would have the Danes do some mischief to Biorn. Till in the end one of the King’s men that was set beside the priest stood up and laid hold of him, strongly yet not to hurt him, and put him forth of the door. But the rest sat silent all, shamefaced, ill at ease, and after a little fell a-drinking again, yet with little jollity. But the King, with his great flat face corpse-livid even in the friendly firelight, gazed yet on Styrbiorn as if he beheld in him the very presence of Surt with flaming Sword, captaining the fiends in their onset on Valhalla.