As for Eirik the Red, he was unproven at this time, being not much above fourteen years of age. Of course, as the Queen never tired of reminding everybody at court, her husband had won both her and much plunder besides when he was only twelve, but then Bloody-Axe had had a fairhaired King-Father to give him ships, whereas Red Eirik's father Thorvald had little left to him excepting his honor and a few house-carles, a fact which gleamed ever balefully in the young man's mind like a lake of ice that must be crossed. When he heard a carline say that Bloody-Axe had once been given a bear's heart cooked in a certain way by the Lappish witches of the court, then Eirik was joyous, for he thought that while he might not have multitudes of men-at-arms, yet this should be easy enough to match! - so in the spring he went into the forest and killed himself a young bear, whose heart he roasted and ate; yet he felt no appreciation in his strength, and after this he resolved not to listen to fairytales. But he stood still for a long time, hoping; his eyes were cast down, and at last his shoulders shook.
"Red-Hair, you wdll surely do great deeds before long," said his grandfather Asvald, who lay dying on a bed of sickness, but Thorvald, who heard this, said, "If there are deeds to be done, no doubt our Eirik will do them, but he is rash and poor of understanding. I would rather he lived his life a deedless coward. Then at least I could be certain he would oudive me." - And Eirik scowled and thought this a very ill saying. Old Asvald saw the expression on the stripling's face and laughed his weak laugh that sounded like the creaking of marsh-reeds in the wind, and Eirik went out and Asvald said, "My son, why do you humiHate the boy?" and Thorvald said, "He is no coward and never will be, but I want him to be prudent, as all must be in these bad times."
When Asvald had died and been laid in howe, Thorvald called the young
man in to him and said, "Look you, Eirik, these carven bench-boards by my high-seat have been in our family for many generations, and I believe there is luck in them. Your grandfather once told me that every one of our men who has been or will ever be is carven here. Do you see these grape-vines traced at the border of the wood? There is a hand plucking them, and a man stands behind him. Asvald told me that you are that man."
"He was /ey,* then, on his deathbed?"
"No, no. This is knowledge that my father always had. Where he got it from I cannot say."
"That's as may be," said Eirik. "But I fancy there are no wild grapes here in Norway."
"I have told you all that I know," said Thorvald shortly.
Eirik thanked his father and left the room. Thorvald had expected him to pore over his likeness in the bench-boards, as he himself had done at a like time, but it seemed that the boy took little interest in what he had been told. Thorvald sighed, and traced his forefinger through the grooves that outlined a wolf's shape ...
In those days men believed that power lay in the things carved and dedicated to families. ODIN had learned the art of rune-carving at great cost; sacrifice to Himself He had hung on the Tree of Yggdrasil, suffering all the agonies of the gallows until Something beyond Him let Him see and understand all the arts which He later bequeathed to us. So, although rune-carving was most magical, yet carving itself had still some sacredness, as on Thorvald's bench-boards, where the wood-rings and ring-spirals met each other in splendid confusion upon a plain of wooden darkness, so that each bench-board seemed to depict a night-lit boneyard: - the unsprung wood-bones of Eirik's grandfathers, frozen in their clatter even though snakes and hoops and vertebrae pierced each other through; and these bones were loam for the new, as figures of birds and warriors sprouted fi-om the wood. Thorvald could never run his eyes over the bench-boards without a feeling of satisfaction; they were bound up with the family luck.
As for the son, he went into the fields and ploughed, and the house-carles who helped him said to one another, "It is going as usual, that none can do half as much as Eirik," but as the day went on they saw that their master was setting a much harder pace than ever before, and as the sweat-rain flew from their heaving shoulders and their breath began to come short they thought to plead, but looking into Eirik's face they saw a hardness about his mouth
* Experiencing a revelation of an ominous and inevitable future.
that they had never seen. - "Has someone done him an injury?" they asked each other when the day was done. But no one could find explanation for his behavior. The next morning he was up long before Rising-Hour, and the thralls saw him ploughing in the dark. But when Thorvald came in among them in his nightshirt, blinking and holding his candle high, diey held their peace.
"So he is working, is he?" he said.
"Yes, Lord," said a thrall girl, spooning out some porridge.
"Has he eaten?"
"No, Lord."
"I suppose he is preparing his mind for something," said Thorvald at last. Then he said no more, for while he wished to know his son's intentions, he was growing old, and no longer felt that he had first place.
Among the teeming figures (each no larger than a single finger-joint) fixed so hopelessly on the bench-boards, until the gracious woodworms should fi-ee them at last from their shapes, there was one that pictured Thorvald himself - or that his father had said pictured him. It was a man shielding his face with his hands. This had always shamed him, which was why he never spoke of the matter to Eirik. Thorvald knew full well that the tale of his life told litde of honor, for he had never resisted Greycloak, nor Bloody-Axe before him; but now that he was old he remembered as the one great failure that devoured other failures the moment when he came of age and his father first showed him the figure with the hands over its eyes, and said grimly, "You see, in all your years you will effect nothing" - but what could he have done at that moment? Should he have taken up a chisel and gouged out a bald spot on the wood where Hiding-Eyes had been? Should he have carved in the shape of a grinning bear, and said, "No, father, this is I!" and then done whatever the bear would have him do? - No, there had never been anything to do. Once his father's finger had come down on that place, Thorvald saw his fate before him. - And yet his silence had disconcerted his father. Had this in fact been a challenge which Thorvald had failed, as he believed increasingly in the dark-moon years of his age? - But then perhaps the look of strange emotion that had appeared so fleetingly upon Asvald's face before the eye-doors were shut had been a different thing entirely. - So ever he wondered whether his coward-likeness truly was his likeness through the seeing of that uncanny craftsman, or whether it was only the likeness of his father's malice; if so, Asvald had certainly prepared it as carefully as a snake nursing its venom, for he gave his son very plausible answers concerning various other line-men, including the ones at the bottom that were neither
bears nor men (Asvald said he believed that these were the ancient bearsark Kings of greatest dignity, who were so brave and ferocious in batde that the carver sought to pay them tribute in this way); in any event, Thorvald often puzzled over the bench-boards when his father was not there, seeking to know if by any possible chance he might feel a sudden leap of kinship with some other - that crowned one, for instance, who was offering up nine boys to be hanged, or that man who listened as a sparrow whispered in his ear; or that wolf-man who danced in a meadow of flames; but only when he pored over the man v^th the hands over his eyes did the heart of recognition leap up in him; so at last he said to himself: "Such must be my fate."
How Hod Fared; or^ The Lappish Gold
It was Grjotgaard Brother-Burner who came one day to visit Thorvald, and invite him to join the men behind Erling. - "I suppose you know that he will be King someday," said Grjotgaard. "He is not the eldest, but eldest sons seldom fare well."
"Oh, so now you plot against Greycloak, do you?" said Thorvald. "One murder wasn't enough for you, I see. Well, I want no part of it. And my advice to you is to leave the country before they turn on you as you turned on Earl Sigurd - may ODIN cherish his shade! Go to Iceland. You wdll be far away from us there, and perhaps they will even kill you; Greycloak is popular wit
h the Icelanders."*
At this, Grjotgaard stood up and left the house. They never saw him again. But it was not long after that they heard that he had been killed by Earl Hakon in a battle fought by order of Gunhild's sons; as is written in the Flateyjarbok, "There was great friendship between Hacon the Jarl and Gunnhilde, but sometimes they laid sly traps for each other."
"That was nicely done," said Thorvald at the news. "And now who will cut Queen Witch-Bitch down?"
* King Harald Greycloak got his name in the following wise: The captain of a certain merchant-ship from Iceland, having long exerted himself in vain to interest the Norwegians in his cargo of grey woolen cloaks, appealed at last to King Harald in his despair. - "Will you make me a present of one?" the King asked genially. - "With all my heart!" replied the captain. He knew enough to make presents to Kings! - As for Harald, he pulled the cloak around him smiling, and whirled round on his heels to show himself to his fawners and serving-men. At once a murmur of admiration arose to Heaven like incense, and men rushed to buy grey cloaks. (So it had been with the Bear-Cloak; so it would be with the Cloak of Ice.) But Thorvald and his son Eirik bought none, and this was remembered against them.
"Earl Hakon has the arms and men, I hear," said Eirik. "I tell you now that when I see my chance I will go to him."
"You are unproven for such manly talk," said the father. "But we shall see."
Now, among the thralls and cupbearers at Thorvald's house was a man named Hall, who was greedy for gold. Hearing what had been said, he waited until nightfall, and slipped into the forest where King Harald Greycloak lay uneasy in his tent. Though a most politic man, Harald was never as free of spirit as it was his habit to appear to others, so he was often troubled by nightmares. Presently he heard a noise in the darkness. - "Father, is that you scratching at the door?" he whispered. "Is there so little strength in your fingernails now? Is it hard to be buried in English ground?" - Thus he spoke to appease Bloody-Axe's ghost, for he feared him dead as he had feared him living, being now King in his place.
"It's no ghost you hear. Sire, but a mere tale-bearer." - So Hall replied through the tent-wall. - "I bring tidings of treasonous talk at Thorvald Asvaldsson's. Both Thorvald and that redhaired whelp of his spoke ill of you this very day, and the whelp good as threatened to take up arms against you."
"Then bum them out," said Greycloak softly. "Bum them out, and I'll give you thirty pieces of gold."
"Oh, no. Sire!" cried Hall. "I am not man enough to dare such a deed. If I were, would I be talking to you like this, huddled against your tent in the forest at night, so that none may see? To bum them would be a cowardly deed, but still too brave for me! I am a coward, and want but the wages of cowards."
"So I thought," said Greycloak. "Then remm you home, fiiend Hall, wdthout your gold."
Wearing tfte Grey Shirt
The next day, nonetheless, Greyskin reported the words of Hall to his mother Gunhild. She listened wdth attention, and in her ovm good time sent spies to see how things stood v^th Thorvald and his son. When they remmed, they told her that those two showed themselves to be no more oath-fast to the King than before.
"Well," said the King-Mother, "let us try that young lad Eirik's temper. Harald, do you send him a grey cloak by way of one of your toy Earls, with
a request that he come to serve you as your house-man. If he accepts, then
he is our creature; if not, then I well imagine there may be some convenient
manslaughter." When Earl Torbrand came knocking at the door, his errand was all too
clear. Eirik asked his father for advice. "Do as you see fit," said Thorvald. "You are a man now; advise yourself" "Very well," said Eirik. He stepped out, and ran the Earl through with
his spear.
The First Outiawry ca, 963
And so Eirik and his father Thorvald were outlawed.* - I once read in the Heimskringla about Eyvind Kellda, the Norwegian sorcerer, who came on the night of Easter Saturday to Kormt Island, where King Olaf was feasting; and every man on Eyvind's long-ship was a dealer in evil spirits. He clothed his crew wdth caps of darkness, so that King Olaf could not see them, but when they neared the feast-house the darkness suddenly fell upon their ovm eyes, and lifted from the eyes of the King's men, so that they were easily seized in their blind wanderings and bound to a skerry which fell underwater at the high tide. So Eyvind Kellda perished, but why the darkness turned against him I cannot say. As to whether the darkness of GREENLAND later turned against Eirik, I leave that for you to judge.
* How happy must Gunhild and Greycloak have been in their triumph! - for they could not see the fumre. It was the King's destiny soon to be killed by another Harald, called Gold Harald, his name signifying his purpose. Of Gunhild's grief it is impossible to have any conception. She called together an army to avenge him, but few came. So she went west to the Orkneys with Ragnfrod and Gudrod (Erling having been slain by his own men, and Sigurd Sleva already sword-pierced for the rape of a noble's wife), and once again she took up her game of harrying what she could not have, for the sake of those two sons remaining. - But Queen Gunhild outlived them, too. Then she sat rocking herself and singing wind-songs. In her young-ripe days the Lapps had killed each other to kiss her mouth and her long hair spread itself wide on her shoulders like a blue cloak and shrouded her pale face when she cast her gaze so steadily downward; but once she was King-Mother she had kept it hidden under a shawl as was becoming to an older woman, knowing that when she squeezed her fist and crooked her arm at her sons they still saw that blue-black color in her eyes that glowed and raged at them to inspire them as they leaned together over their mead-cups, and at night they all took turns combing out her magic hair; but later still, when Ragnfrod and Gudrod were separately destroyed by their predestined spears, there was no one left to be defeated by her, and her hair became the color of ashes. - To the throne of Norway now came King Olaf Trygvesson, whom she had spied upon and persecuted; as we will learn, he proved more relendess than she.
Wearing the BCue Shirt
ca. 981 - ca. 1500
It is their lot that follow Kings that they enjoy great honours, and are more respected than other men, but stand often in danger of dieir lives: and they must understand how to bear both parts of their lot.
Snorri Sturlusson, Heimskringla {ca. 1235)
B
anished, banished, banished, Eirik set sail forever. His father was already ailing. Beneath the cloud-sea was the ocean-sea, which seemed blue through the clouds but was actually blue-grey, a coldly lovely color; wrinkled like gooseflesh, vdth comet-like whitecaps which decayed Uke shooting stars. The end of this sea could not be seen. Iceland was all alone in it, with the exception of a single tall narrow iceberg, itself an island or lost column. In the south, Iceland was flat, and brown-green, with long tongues of white wave-froth lapping at it; and sea-birds screamed, and to the north rose reddish-brown volcanoes. The plains were banded of many different-hued earths. Sometimes they were grassy, but pierced by upward-pointed stones; ahead lay a long low knife of mountains. This land had already been settled, so Eirik sailed on as the plain rolled on, its flatness strevm now with little black piles of lava, upon which a thin layer of whitish vegetation grew, like mold on dried meat. - Where was he to live? Being an outlawed man, he took note of the little hiding-gulleys, some richly greened, others white-lined as if by mildew, while the country undulated northwards, a true paradise for ambush and treachery. It was not his intention to be outlawed again in Iceland, but having been thrown down already, he owned nothing but a quickness not only of strength but also of anxiety in his blood, anxiety hammering endlessly in his neck-veins, so that for cool survival's sake he
must sometimes stop and press upon his throat. When he left Norway he had swoni never to end his self-defense against any proud villain who might in future lay claim to his head and land. - But though he had the first, he had not the second as yet, for there were other men's farms everywhere. He sailed north. - Ahead w
ere snow-spotted buttes. When the tide was low, white gulls waded in the mud of the broad firths. They crowded upon the little mossy islets just offshore; when his ship sailed by they shrieked. In the best places, where the land was flat and green by the sea, there were always farms. There did not seem to be any place for him.
RedandBixic
Oh, what shirt could he wear? It is impossible that he could have known then the significance of the Blue-Shirt which he was to put on for all time, although had he known it then, he must have taken it to him just the same. - A more interesting question is whether he knew of the Skrcelings, for that world-wise chronicle the Landndmabok does not hesitate to describe certain "Cave-Men" in Iceland whom the settlers killed. Most likely these were anchorites of Irish origin, though there is also mention of trolls. I conclude that of the Skraelings he did not know, either. And again, had he known, how could he have acted differently? There were few opportunities for choice in Eirik's life.
Between Fjord and Ocean
His father was silent, and traced the carved grooves in the bench-boards with his fingers. Eirik sailed north and west, ducking in and out of firths bounded by dirt buttes and lava knife-ridges. Ahead lay grey mountains crowned with snow. There now rose rolling green hill-shoulders, then lava scarps whose banding resembled terracing (but these were steps that only a Frost-Giant might easily climb). Here were three snowy peaks, all in a row above a single sheep-farm - which seeing, Eirik went his way with a bitter smile - and here were grey-dusted walls of volcanic ash, mockingly green-swept at their bases; and then suddenly came many more sharp snowy mountains. Wide shallow streams made their rushing rapids down lava stairs. The steep hillsides, green and pebble-grey, bore deep landslide-tracks. Caves gazed out beneath their ragged cliff-foreheads. - Here there were no settlements, because fanning
The Ice-Shirt Page 6