Erling the Bold Part 7

"The young blades are ever ready to huzza over their drink at the thought of fighting; but methinks it will not strengthen thy cause much, friend Ulf, thus to frighten the women and spill the ale."

Ulf turned round with a momentary look of anger at this speech. The man who uttered it was a splendid specimen of a veteran warrior. His forehead was quite bald, but from the sides and back of his head flowed a ma.s.s of luxuriant silky hair which was white as the driven snow. His features were eminently firm and masculine, and there was a hearty good-humoured expression about the mouth, and a genial twinkle in his eyes, especially in the wrinkled corners thereof, that rendered the stout old man irresistibly attractive. His voice was particularly rich, deep, and mellow, like that of a youth, and although his bulky frame stooped a little from age, there was enough of his youthful vigour left to render him a formidable foe, as many a poor fellow had learned to his cost even in days but recently gone by. He was an uncle of Ulf, and on a visit to the stede at that time. The frown fled from Ulf's brow as he looked in the old man's ruddy and jovial countenance.

"Thanks, Guttorm," said he, seizing his tankard, "thanks for reminding me that grey hairs are beginning to sprinkle my beard; come, let us drink success to the right, confusion to the wrong! thou canst not refuse that, Haldor."

"Nay," said Haldor, laughing; "nor will I refuse to fight in thy cause and by thy side, be it right or wrong, when the Thing decides for war."

"Well said, friend! but come, drink deeper. Why, I have taken thee down three pegs already!" said Ulf, glancing into Haldor's tankard. "Ho!

Hilda; fetch hither more ale, la.s.s, and fill--fill to the brim." The toast was drunk with right good will by all--from Ulf down to the youngest house-carle at the lowest end of the great hall.

"And now, Guttorm," continued Ulf, turning to the bluff old warrior, "since thou hast shown thy readiness to rebuke, let us see thy willingness to entertain. Sing us a stave or tell us a saga, kinsman, as well thou knowest how, being gifted with more than a fair share of the scald's craft."

The applause with which this proposal was received by the guests and house-carles who crowded the hall from end to end proved that they were aware of Guttorm's gifts, and would gladly hear him. Like a sensible man he complied at once, without affecting that air of false diffidence which is so common among modern songsters and story-tellers.

"I will tell you," said the old man--having previously wet his lips at a silver tankard, which was as bluff and genuine as himself--"of King Gundalf's wooing. Many years have gone by since I followed him on viking cruise, and Gundalf himself has long been feasting in Odin's hall. I was a beardless youth when I joined him. King Gundalf of Orkedal was a goodly man, stout and brisk, and very strong. He could leap on his horse without touching stirrup with all his war gear on; he could fight as well with his left hand as with his right, and his battle-axe bit so deep that none who once felt its edge lived to tell of its weight. He might well be called a Sea-king, for he seldom slept under a sooty roof timber. Withal he was very affable to his men, open-hearted, and an extremely handsome man.

"One summer he ordered us to get ready to go on viking cruise. When we were all a-boun we set sail with five longships and about four hundred men, and fared away to Denmark, where we forayed and fought a great battle with the inhabitants. King Gundalf gained the victory, plundered, wasted, and burned far and wide in the land, and made enormous booty. He returned with this to Orkedal. Here he found his wife at the point of death, and soon after she died. Gundalf felt his loss so much that he had no pleasure in Raumsdal after that. He therefore took to his ships and went again a-plundering. We herried first in Friesland, next in Saxland, and then all the way to Flanders; so sings Halfred the scald:--

"`Gundalf's axe of shining steel For the sly wolf left many a meal.

The ill-shaped Saxon corpses lay Heap'd up--the witch-wife's horses' prey.

She rides by night, at pools of blood, Where Friesland men in daylight stood, Her horses slake their thirst, and fly On to the field where Flemings lie.'"

[Note. Ravens were the witch-wife's horses.]

The old warrior half recited half sang these lines in a rich full voice, and then paused a few seconds, while a slight murmur arose from the earnest listeners around him.

"Thereafter," resumed Guttorm, "we sailed to England, and ravaged far and wide in the land. We sailed all the way north to Northumberland, where we plundered, and thence to Scotland, where we marauded far and wide. Then we went to the Hebrides and fought some battles, and after that south to Man, which we herried. We ravaged far around in Ireland, and steered thence to Bretland, which we laid waste with fire and sword--also the district of c.u.mberland. Then we went to Valland, [the west coast of France] from which we fared away for the south coast of England, but missed it and made the Scilly Isles. After that we went to Ireland again, and came to a harbour, into which we ran--but in a friendly way, for we had as much plunder as our ships could carry.

"Now, while we were there, a summons to a Thing went through the country, and when the Thing was a.s.sembled, a queen called Gyda came to it. She was a sister of Olaf Quarram, who was King of Dublin. Gyda was very wealthy, and her husband had died that year. In the territory there was a man called Alfin, who was a great champion and single-combat man. He had paid his addresses to Gyda, but she gave for answer that she would choose a husband for herself; and on that account the Thing was a.s.sembled, that she might choose a husband. Alfin came there dressed out in his best clothes, and there were many well-dressed men at the meeting. Gundalf and some of his men had gone there also, out of curiosity, but we had on our bad-weather clothes, and Gundalf wore a coa.r.s.e over-garment. We stood apart from the rest of the crowd, Gyda went round and looked at each, to see if any appeared to her a suitable man. Now when she came to where we were standing, she pa.s.sed most of us by with a glance; but when she pa.s.sed me, I noticed that she turned half round and gave me another look, which I have always held was a proof of her good judgment. However, Gyda pa.s.sed on, and when she came to King Gundalf she stopped, looked at him straight in the face, and asked what sort of a man he was.

"He said, `I am called Gundalf, and am a stranger here!'

"Gyda replies, `Wilt thou have me if I choose thee?' He answered, `I will not say No to that;' then he asked her what her name was, and her family and descent.

"`I am called Gyda,' said she, `and am daughter of the King of Ireland, and was married in this country to an earl who ruled over this district.

Since his death I have ruled over it, and many have courted me, but none to whom I would choose to be married.'

"She was a young and handsome woman. They afterwards talked over the matter together and agreed, and so Gundalf and Gyda were betrothed.

"Alfin was very ill pleased with this. It was the custom there, as it is sometimes here, if two strove for anything, to settle the matter by holm-gang. [Note: or single combat: so called because the combatants in Norway went to a holm, or uninhabited isle, to fight.] And now Alfin challenged Gundalf to fight about this business. The time and place of combat were settled, and it was fixed that each should have twelve men.

I was one of the twelve on our side. When we met, Gundalf told us to do exactly as we saw him do. He had a large axe, and went in advance of us, and when Alfin made a desperate cut at him with his sword, he hewed away the sword out of his hand, and with the next blow hit Alfin on the crown with the flat of his axe and felled him. We all met next moment, and each man did his best; but it was hard work, for the Irishmen fought well, and two of them cut down two of our men, but one of these I knocked down, and Gundalf felled the other. Then we bound them all fast, and carried them to Gundalf's lodging. But Gundalf did not wish to take Alfin's life. He ordered him to quit the country and never again to appear in it, and he took all his property. In this way Gundalf got Gyda in marriage, and he lived sometimes in England and sometimes in Ireland. Thikskul the scald says in regard to this:--

"`King Gundalf woo'd Queen Gyda fair, With whom no woman could compare, And won her, too, with all her lands, By force of looks and might of hands From Ireland's green and lovely isle He carried off the Queen in style.

He made proud Alfin's weapon dull, And flattened down his stupid skull-- This did the bold King Gundalf do When he went o'er the sea to woo.'"

The wholesale robbery and murder which was thus related by the old Norse viking appeared quite a natural and proper state of things in the eyes of all save two of those a.s.sembled in the hall, and the saga was consequently concluded amid resounding applause. It is to be presumed that, never having seen or heard of any other course of life, and having always been taught that such doings were quite in accordance with the laws of the land, the consciences of the Northmen did not trouble them.

At all events, while we do not for a moment pretend to justify their doings, we think it right to point out that there must necessarily have been a wide difference between their spirits and feelings, and the spirits and feelings of modern pirates, who know that they are deliberately setting at defiance the laws of both G.o.d and man.

It has been said there were two in the hall at Ulfstede who did not sympathise with the tale of the old warrior. The reader will scarce require to be told that one of these was Hilda the Sunbeam. The other was Christian the hermit. The old man, although an occasional visitor at the stede, never made his appearance at meal-times, much less at the nightly revels which were held there; but on that day he had arrived with important news, just as Guttorm began his story, and would have unceremoniously interrupted it had not one of the young house-carles, who did not wish to lose the treat, detained him forcibly at the lower end of the hall until it was ended. The moment he was released the hermit advanced hastily, and told Ulf that from the door of his hut on the cliff he had observed bands of men hastening in all directions down the dale.

"Thy news, old man, is no news," said Ulf; "the token for a Thing has been sent out, and it is natural that the bonders should obey the summons. We expect them. But come, it is not often thou favourest us with thy company. Sit down by me, and take a horn of mead."

The hermit shook his head.

"I never taste strong liquor. Its tendency is to make wise men foolish," he said.

"Nay, then, thou wilt not refuse to eat. Here, Hilda, fetch thy friend a platter."

"I thank thee, but, having already supped, I need no more food. I came but to bring what I deemed news."

"Thou art churlish, old man," exclaimed Ulf angrily; "sit down and drink, else--"

"Come, come," interrupted Haldor, laying his hand on Ulf's arm, "Let the old man be; he seems to think that he has something worth hearing to tell of; let him have his say out in peace."

"Go on," said Ulf gruffly.

"Was the token sent out a baton or a split arrow?" asked the hermit.

"A baton," said Ulf.

"Then why," rejoined the other, "do men come to a peaceful Thing with all their war gear on?"

"What say ye? are they armed?" exclaimed Ulf, starting up. "This must be looked to. Ho! my carles all, to arms--"

At that moment there was a bustle at the lower end of the hall, and Alric was seen forcing his way towards Ulf's high seat.

"Father," he said eagerly, addressing Haldor, "short is the hour for acting, and long the hour for feasting."

Haldor cast his eyes upon his son and said--

"What now is in the way?"

"The Danes," said Alric, "are on the fiord--more than six hundred men.

Skarpedin leads them. One of them pitched me into the sea, but I marked his neck to keep myself in his memory! They have plundered and burnt at the Springs, and Erling has gone away to attack them all by himself, with only sixty house-carles. You will have to be quick, father."

"Quick, truly," said Haldor, with a grim smile, as he drew tight the buckle of his sword-belt.

"Aye," said Ulf, "with six hundred Danes on the fiord, and armed men descending the vale, methinks--"

"Oh! I can explain that" cried Alric, with an arch smile; "Erling made me change the baton for the split arrow when I was sent round with the token."

"That is good luck," said Haldor, while Ulf's brow cleared a little as he busked himself for the fight; "we shall need all our force."

"Aye, and all our time too," said Guttorm Stoutheart, as he put on his armour with the cheerful air of a man who dons his wedding dress.

"Come, my merry men all. Lucky it is that my longships are at hand just now ready loaded with stones:--

"`O! a gallant sight it is to me, The warships darting o'er the sea, A pleasant sound it is to hear The war trump ringing loud and clear.'"