by Griff Hosker
The two jarls approached. “It is a good thing that you sent Snorri to Jarl Erik or we would not have come. We saw the smoke from Duboglassio but when it suddenly stopped we thought there was no problem.” Rolf looked sad, “Snorri told us of Prince Butar. You are ruler now.”
“There will be a time for such things later on. First I need to get to my home and see what mischief Harald One Eye got up to.”
“We will accompany you. There may be other warriors in hiding and you and the Ulfheonar look to be dead on your feet.”
“We are but we are also fewer than we were. My warriors pay a high price for being the best.”
We had three weary miles to march. My wife and some of our people met us along the road. I saw that Bjorn the Blacksmith and the other men of the village were armed and were her protectors. Arturus also carried his sword and shield proudly. She threw her arms around me.
“I saw them going up the hill towards you and I saw how few you were. I was almost ready to sing your death song but then I heard your mother telling me you were safe.”
“Aye but Prince Butar is now dead. He is with my mother.”
That thought seemed to make my wife happy. “His signal fire saved us for our men in the tower saw the ships and we were able to get everyone in the fort before they came. We lost no one.”
“Then I owe Dargh and the men of the fort a reward.” We were almost at the settlement and I could see that Harald One Eye had damaged some of the buildings but not as many as he might have done. We had been fortunate.
Once at my hall I felt exhaustion setting in. I turned to my warriors. “Ulfheonar, we will rest now. We can do no more here. Jarl Erik, take charge until I am rested. See to the wounded and keep watch. Harald One Eye is a treacherous snake and he may try to return.” I turned to Erika and Arturus. “Come let us go inside. I have much to tell you for I have been to the underworld and back.”
Once inside my hall I suddenly felt awake again. I spoke to Erika but Arturus too in every word. I heard the sudden gasp when I spoke of being buried alive beneath the earth. When I spoke of the dream and my journey she smiled. “It is good that the spirits of your mother and the ancient ones watch over you. I feel happier.”
When I unwrapped the sword and laid it on the table Arturus looked mesmerised, “May I touch the blade?”
I knew that it would be dull after so many years immersed in water. It would be good for him to connect with his past. “Touch the hilt instead. The last man to hold this was a great warrior and was our ancestor. He threw the sword away when he was dying and had slain his enemies.”
As Arturus held the sword he asked, “If he threw the sword and then died would he still go to Valhalla?”
There is a saying amongst my people that out of the mouths of babes comes wisdom. “I know not if they followed our religion. I will have to ask the nuns about that. There is much I have to learn about our ancestors. But know this, my son, our destiny and that of the mainland are intertwined and, before we pass over, we have many more adventures ahead of us. Our journey is just beginning. When we have finished it then we will be different than we are now.”
“That is good, father.” He replaced the sword on the table. “But promise me that I will come with you on your next journey.”
He had touched the sword and I could not deny him. I nodded. “I promise.” I was grateful when I saw Erika nod. She was the wife of a warrior and she knew it was meant to be.
Epilogue
The next day I journeyed back to Duboglassio. It was time to send Prince Butar on his journey. I sent for the other jarls. Prince Butar had been our father and he deserved the honour. There was a lovely spot just above the town which had the finest view on this coast. I know that my step father had enjoyed looking east from the top. He told me that he could almost see to the land of his birth. After my mother had died it was a place where he would go and talk with her.
We had made him a smaller version of ‘Ran’ and my Ulfheonar carried that while the jarls carried his body. Even though he was in full armour he was not heavy for he had been old. We placed him in the bottom of the boat laid upon his finest furs. Then we laid his shield upon him. We killed his sword so that no one could dig up the grave and steal it. Finally we placed some pieces of my mother’s jewellery with him. We had not been able to do honour to her when she died and we were making up for it now.
Erika placed one of the rings with the blue stone upon his finger. She smiled at me, “He will have a present to give to your mother now and she will like it.”
Then we laid Ulf and Carl at the bow and the stern of the boat. They were carefully placed upon their wolf cloaks and their swords were killed. They would watch over my stepfather and journey with him to Valhalla.
As we piled the earth and then the sods on top I saw that Arturus was crying. “Why are you crying my son?”
“I am crying for grandfather. He is dead.”
“Then your tears are wasted for he is happy and he is with the grandmother you never knew. If you are crying because you will miss him then that is good for I shall miss him too. But remember this; when you close your eyes you will be able to see him and hear him. When you need help then he will be there, just as his father, Ragnar, is there for me.” He snuffled back the tears and nodded too filled with emotion to speak.
I turned to Eurwen who cuddled in with Erika. “And you, sister, shall live with us. I shall be as a father as well as a brother to you. I promised Prince Butar and I know it is what my mother would wish.”
She too nodded. This was all too much for my sister. It would take all the care that my wife and I could give her to bring her through. I knew that caring for Kara might be the best way.
Before we left the hill top I said to all who were there, “This hill of Tynwald is s sacred place now for our father lies here. This will be a place of judgement. Prince Butar named me as heir and I will rule in his place but we will be a fair land. We will be a just land. If there are disputes then they will be settled here,” to emphasise my point I stuck my sword in the turf, “in peace. We, as jarls, will pass judgement. We will not shed our fellow’s blood unless there is no way left to talk. This will be the place of law and of judgement.”
My jarls all knelt, Haaken said, “Hail Prince Dragon Heart.”
I shook my head, “No, we had one prince and that was Prince Butar. I am Jarl Garth the Dragon Heart and happy to be so. I do not need a title.”
Erik nodded, “But that means there are just three jarls. That is not enough.”
“I know and that is why the remaining Ulfheonar are all now to be made jarl. They have proved to me and the rest of the world that they are the most honourable of warriors and the most loyal of friends. We will remain Ulfheonar but now we share this land.”
There was a cheer from all for it was a popular decision. I had spoken of this with Erika and she had come up with the solution. She understood my men better than I ever could. She had said that they did not need to rule away from each other. We worked better as one entity. The Ulfheonar would be the backbone of the island. We would be the protectors of the law. I had already decided to make Rolf and Erik Ulfheonar too. We would be a council of wolves.
“We now go to celebrate the life of Prince Butar and then we will prepare to visit Harald One Eye and teach him the meaning of revenge. He will rue the day he ever came to Man!”
As we marched down to Prince Butar’s warrior hall every warrior began chanting, “Jarl Dragon Heart”.
The slave had become a warrior and now ruled. I hoped that I would live up to my ancestors both from Rheged and Norway. I saw my future and Man was just the beginning. I had a land to conquer. Northumbria now contained my two most implacable enemies: the Saxons and Harald One Eye. I feared neither but soon they would fear me.
The End
Glossary
Áed Oirdnide –King of Tara 797
Bebbanburgh- Bamburgh Castle, Northumbria
Byrnie- a mail shirt
reaching down to the knees
Caerlleon- Welsh for Chester
Chape- the tip of a scabbard
Cymri- Welsh
Cymru- Wales
Drekar- a Dragon ship (a Viking warship)
Duboglassio –Douglas, Isle of Man
Ein-mánuðr- middle of March to the middle of April
Fey- having second sight
Frankia- France and part of Germany
Garth- Dragon heart
Gaill- Irish for foreigners
Glaesum –amber
Gói- the end of February to the middle of March
Hel - Queen of Niflheim, the Norse underworld.
Hrams-a – Ramsey, Isle of Man
Jarl- Norse earl or lord
Joro-goddess of the earth
Lochlannach – Irish for Northerners (Vikings)
Legacaestir- Anglo Saxon for Chester
Manau – The Isle of Man (Saxon)
Midden- a place where they dumped human waste
Njoror- God of the sea
Nithing- A man without honour (Saxon)
Odin - The "All Father" God of war, also associated to wisdom, poetry, and magic (The Ruler of the gods).
Orkneyjar-Orkney
Ran- Goddess of the sea
Rinaz –The Rhine
St.Cybi- Holyhead
Seax – short sword
Skeggox – an axe with a shorter beard on one side
Sigismund- Frankish trader living in Cologne
Sif- Goddess of battle and the name of Harald’s ship
Tadgh- a former slave and renegade Viking
The Norns- Fate
Thor’s day- Thursday
Threttanessa- a drekar with 13 oars on each side.
Thrall- slave
Ullr-Norse God of Hunting
Ulfheonar-an elite warrior who wore a wolf skin over his armour
Volva- a witch or healing woman
Woden’s day- Wednesday
Wyrd- Fate
Maps
Courtesy of Wikipedia
Historical note
The Viking raids began, according to records left by the monks, in the 790s when Lindisfarne was pillaged. However there were many small settlements along the east coast and most were undefended. I have chosen a fictitious village on the Tees as the home of Garth who is enslaved and then, when he gains his freedom, becomes Dragon Heart. As buildings were all made of wood then any evidence would have long rotted save for a few post holes. My raiders represent the Norse warriors who wanted the plunder of the soft Saxon kingdom. There is a myth that the Vikings raided in large numbers but this is not so. It was only in the tenth and eleventh centuries that the numbers grew. They also did not have allegiances to kings. The Norse settlements were often isolated family groups. The term Viking was not used in what we now term the Viking age. Warriors went a-Viking which meant that they sailed for adventure or pirating. Their lives were hard. Slavery was commonplace. The Norse for slave is thrall and I have used both terms.
The poem used at the beginning was actually written in honour of King Harald Finehair. I have changed two words to make it fit my story but I did not make it up.
It was more dangerous to drink the water in those times and so most people, including children drank beer or ale. The process killed the bacteria which could hurt them. It might sound as though they were on a permanent pub crawl but in reality they were drinking the healthiest drink that was available to them.
I have recently used the British Museum book and research about the Vikings. Apparently, rather like punks and Goths, the men did wear eye makeup. It would make them appear more frightening. There is also evidence that they filed their teeth. The leaders of warriors built up a large retinue by paying them and giving them gifts such as the wolf arm ring. This was seen as a sort of bond between leader and warrior. There was no national identity. They operated in small bands of free booters loyal to their leader. The idea of sword killing was to render a weapon unusable by anyone else. On a simplistic level this could just be a bend but I have seen examples which are tightly curled like a spring.
The length of the swords in this period was not the same as in the later medieval period. By the year 850 they were only 76cm long and in the eighth century they were shorter still. The first sword Dragon Heart used, Ragnar’s, was probably only 60-65cm long. This would only have been slightly longer than a Roman gladius. At this time the sword, not the axe was the main weapon. The best swords came from Frankia, and were probably German in origin. A sword was considered a special weapon and a good one would be handed from father to son. A warrior with a famous blade would be sought out on the battlefield. There was little mail around at the time and warriors learned to be agile to avoid being struck. A skeggox was an axe with a shorter edge on one side. The use of an aventail (a chain mail extension of a helmet) began at about this time. The highly decorated scabbard also began at this time.
Honey was used as an antiseptic in both ancient and modern times.
Bangor was called Bangor is-y-coed by the Welsh but I assumed that the Vikings would just use the first part of the place name. From the seventeenth century the place was known as Bangor of the Monks (Bangor Monachorum). Dolgellau was mined for gold by people as far back as the Romans and deposits have been discovered as late as the twenty first century. Having found gold in a stream at Mungrisedale in the Lake District I know how exciting it is to see the golden flecks in the black sand. The siege of the fort is not in itself remarkable. When Harlech was besieged in the middle ages two knights and fifteen men at arms held off a large army.
Anglesey was considered the bread basket of Wales even as far back as the Roman Invasion; the combination of the Gulf Stream and the soil meant that it could provide grain for many people. In the eighth to tenth centuries, grain was more valuable than gold.
When writing about the raids I have tried to recreate those early days of the Viking raider. The Saxons had driven the native inhabitants to the extremes of Wales, Cornwall and Scotland. The Irish were always too busy fighting amongst themselves. It must have come as a real shock to be attacked in their own settlements. By the time of King Alfred almost sixty years later they were better prepared. This was also about the time that Saxon England converted completely to Christianity. The last place to do so was the Isle of Wight. There is no reason to believe that the Vikings would have had any sympathy for their religion and would, in fact, have taken advantage of their ceremonies and rituals not to mention their riches.
There was a warrior called Ragnar Hairy-Breeches. Although he lived a little later than my book is set I could not resist using the name of such an interesting sounding character. I also amended my names- I used Eric in the earlier books and it should have been Erik. I have now changed the later editions of the first two books in the series.
Eardwulf was king of Northumbria twice: first from 796-806 and from 808-810. The king who deposed him was Elfwald II. This period was a turbulent one for the kings of Northumbria and marked a decline in their fortunes until it was taken over by the Danes in 867.
Slavery was far more common in the ancient world. When the Normans finally made England their own they showed that they understood the power of words and propaganda by making the slaves into serfs. This was a brilliant strategy as it forced their former slaves to provide their own food whilst still working for their lords and masters for nothing. Manumission was possible as Garth showed in the first book in this series. Scanlan’s training is also a sign that not all of the slaves suffered. It was a hard and cruel time- it was ruled by the strong.
The Vikings did use trickery when besieging their enemies and would use any means possible. They did not have siege weapons and had to rely on guile and courage to prevail. The siege of Paris in 845 A.D. was one such example.
The Isle of Man is reputed to have the earliest surviving Parliament, the Tynwald although there is evidence that there were others amongst the Viking colonies on Orkney and in Iceland. I have used
this idea for Prince Butar’s meetings of Jarls.
The blue stone they seek is Aquamarine or beryl. It is found in granite. The rocks around the Mawddach are largely granite and although I have no evidence of beryl being found there. I have used the idea of a small deposit being found to tie the story together.
The early ninth century saw Britain converted to Christianity and there were many monasteries which flourished. These were often mixed. These were not the huge stone edifices such as Whitby and Fountain’s Abbey; these were wooden structures. As such their remains have disappeared, along with the bones of those early Christian priests. Hexham was a major monastery in the early Saxon period. I do not know it they had warriors to protect the priests but having given them a treasure to watch over I thought that some warriors might be useful too.
I used the British Museum Book- ‘Vikings- Life and Legends’, the Osprey book ‘Saxon, Norman and Viking’ by Terence Wise as well as the Ian Heath book- ‘The Vikings’.
Griff Hosker May 2014
Other books
by
Griff Hosker
If you enjoyed reading this book then why not read another one by the author?
The Sword of Cartimandua Series (Germania and Britannia 50A.D. – 128 A.D.)
Ulpius Felix- Roman Warrior
Book 1 The Sword of Cartimandua
Book 2 The Horse Warriors
Book 3 Invasion Caledonia
Book 4 Roman Retreat
Book 5 Revolt of the Red Witch
Book 6 Druid’s Gold
Book 7 Trajan’s Hunters
Book 8 The Last Frontier
Book 9 Hero of Rome
Book 10 Roman Hawk
Book 11Roman Treachery
They are all available in the Kindle format.
The Aelfraed Series (Britain and Byzantium 1050 A.D. - 1085 A.D.
Book 1 Housecarl
Book 2 Outlaw
Book 3 Varangian