When Þormóður ventures to converse with the Norwegians or to entertain them with good lays or tales, they give him but poor reception. It was an age in Norway when folk prized southerly fashions, and they preferred hearing stories of the miracles of holy men and godly women and the sacred chants of monks and priests to fixing in their memories the tales of the men of Hrafnista, King Hálfur’s champions, the Völsungar, or other excellent men of yore. The Norwegians feel quite strongly that they can do without any long, complicated poems croaked out ad infinitum by a beggarman from Iceland. When the skald goes to meet the high-born men and wealthy shipowners in Nidaros and offers his services as their minstrel, these magnates choose instead to hire southern dwarves to perform magic tricks for them. When he offers to recite them the Greenlandic Lay of King Olaf and his Champions, they all declare that Olaf is the one king they would choose least to hear praised.
Not one man of distinction in Norway could be found who did not consider it an advantage or an honor to serve the king of England. When Cnut landed in Norway with an English army aboard fourteen hundred and forty ships, their sails striped blue and red, most of the Norwegian elite enthusiastically praised his fleet. They told Þormóður that no savvy, silver-tongued skald composed praise-poems for royal absconders, and that any man who did not follow a king who commanded an invincible army was tying his luck to a foxtail, even if noble men were in the habit of scratching the ears of fugitive kings during the brief time they hung onto their thrones. Þormóður’s only option now was to go from door to door and earn his living in such labor as tends to extend one’s days rather than one’s fame, for instance, mucking out peasants’ pigsties and leading their goats to and from pasture. Wherever Þormóður Kolbrúnarskáld dragged himself throughout the villages of Norway, folk inferred from the poor fellow’s tattered clothing and carriage, which was typical of those scarred by sickness and decrepitude, that he was a mere derelict. Boors and vagabonds laughed at him and called him mad, and young lads shouted insults at him. Having been a skald and sportsman in Reykjahólar and Vatnsfjörður and the darling of women in the Vestfirðir, a Viking on Hornstrandir and a prosperous husbandman in Djúp, he found it strange to pass his frostbite-damaged hand over his bald, earless head or damaged nose, or to pull a white wisp from his beard.
It was paramount in Þormóður Kolbrúnarskáld’s lore that all powers and authorities with jurisdiction over any matter in Heaven or on Earth should be noble and praiseworthy – in particular, the men who rule empires, as the gods rule over the world and the celestial bodies. He was thus assailed by great perplexity upon finding himself mucking dung and swineherding as a result of his loyalty to Þorgeir Hávarsson’s king. He began to question whether he had learned his lore correctly, and whether he should continue to extol eminences who had been laid lowest: one butchered on a chopping-block in the north, the other driven alive into exile. Ever more often, the skald’s mind wandered to the power and authority of Cnut Sweynsson, who had landed in Norway under countless sails, as previously told, and won a greater empire than any other king in the North, according to report. Eventually, the skald persuaded himself to rework his lay for King Olaf in praise of King Cnut Sweynsson, and to eulogize the overwhelming victories that King Cnut had won in England against King Æthelred and in Denmark against Jarl Ulf, as well as when he subdued Norway simply by spreading word of his coming under striped sails.
King Cnut now sent his treasurers by ship, loaded with English money, to hold private talks with noble Norwegians, he himself having settled in with a great force on Zealand, at Trelleborg. Reliable sources state that an Icelandic merchant conveyed Þormóður Kolbrúnarskáld to Denmark aboard his ship, declaring that such an excellent skald had little opportunity for glory among crofters in Norway, and that the refuge and home of such a man was solely with kings who rule over numerous empires at once.
Trelleborg was designed by foreign architects using Roman arithmetic, under the direction of Cnut’s father, King Sweyn Bluetoothsson. It was there that Cnut and his father gathered mercenaries that they managed to recruit both inland and on the isles, billeting them and training them for use on campaigns in other lands – it was at Trelleborg that Sweyn had mustered the forces he took to England to harry King Æthelred. At this particular time, Cnut’s English army, which he had sent to terrify Olaf Haraldsson the year before, was stationed at Trelleborg. Within the fortress’s ramparts stood thirty tall wooden houses, and in a nearby estuary of the Great Belt dawdled numerous ships, painted beautifully above the water-line.
When Þormóður Kolbrúnarskáld appears at the rampart gate, the guards announce that for beggars to approach king’s castles is an offense punishable by death, especially those that limp so badly that they are useless for war. “And,” they say, “it is beyond belief that a beggarman should seek audience with a king such as Cnut, the greatest champion since the passing of Charlemagne and equal in rank and dignity to emperors, high kings, and the Lord Pope himself. Where are the clothing and weapons that you would wear to present yourself to such a king?”
“I am an Icelandic skald,” says the visitor, “and I have given my clothing and weapons, as well as my toes and fingers and nose and ears, and my teeth, which used to sneer at stately men, and my hair, which was the delight of women, to gain the renown necessary to address statesmen who rule the world with might and wisdom. I handed over my farm to slaves, as well as my wife, who can fly like a swan, and the same for my daughters, who had the nimblest toes in the west of Iceland. I pray you deliver this message to the king, good fellows: that I have journeyed through colder and darker lands than most men, and over surging seas, and lived with trolls north of all human habitations, and I have kept safe, in the fair wind of the moon-bride,1 a lay in alliterative verse, longer and better than any that even the Lord Pope himself has managed to deliver to his master, King Christ, whom the trolls claim has his kettle on the moon.”
The guard retorts:
“King Cnut will not suffer to have leprous tramps in his sight tonight, when he is receiving Skald Sigvatur Þórðarson, formerly King Olaf’s marshal. He has stopped here on his way to Rome, and we have just ushered him into the king’s hall, wearing a sable mantle and gold-broidered shoes. He is assuredly a far greater skald than you, though we in the king’s guard find monkeys, dwarves, and pipers far more entertaining than any of you Icelanders.”
This book will not describe the feast that Cnut Sweynsson held at Trelleborg on Zealand after he had reconquered Denmark and its associated territories and was making ready to leave the country. Learned men, however, say that one of the guests was Skald Sigvatur Þórðarson of Apavatn in Grímsnes, arrayed in precious velvet and an engraved sword, with numerous gold rings on his fingers and costly arm-rings of the sort that can only be had from emperors or suffragan bishops. It is presumed that at this feast, Sigvatur recited the lay whose refrain declares that none towered higher under Heaven itself than King Cnut: “Cnut reaches to Heaven.” This lay tells of how Cnut received word from the east that things were going awry in his realms in the North – those enemies of his that he feared least, such as Olaf the Stout and his followers in Norway, had been ousted by the populace, whereas in Denmark, those he distrusted most, his brothers-in-law and bosom friends, had taken power. The lay does not tell how Cnut scared King Olaf away from Denmark, but instead focuses its praise on Cnut’s mustering of an English army to defend Denmark from Danish peasants: in control now of those lands, says the poem, was something the king considered far worse than the rule of either his friends or his enemies – namely, the impudence of the peasants, who aspire to take possession of the lands they inhabit and rule them themselves. In his lay, Sigvatur names such conduct “Danish robbery.” The lay suggests that it was not due to paltriness, but rather, unwillingness, that Cnut chose not to launch military campaigns against his enemy Olaf Haraldsson or his friend Jarl Ulf Sprakaleggsson and Ulf’s son Harthacnut, who had snatched Cnut’s kingdom in Denmark from him
. It is only when Cnut is informed that the peasants there are poised to take matters into their own hands – rule by peasants, he feels, is something infinitely worse than the might of his friends and enemies combined – that he sets out with fourteen hundred and forty English ships, to show these upstarts in Norway and Denmark that he towers highest under Heaven of all kings on Earth, and is nearest to God, and is such a dear friend of Christ and his mother that he is free, without any word of rebuke from the Lord Pope himself, to murder his friend before the high altar at Mass, during the transsubstantione panis. The lay repeats the same refrain after recounting the king’s mighty exploits – so glorious a king is Cnut that he alone can be seen beneath the arch of Heaven: “Cnut reaches to Heaven.”
Following the feast, King Cnut leaves the North and returns to rule England. Skald Sigvatur Þórðarson, for his part, has enough cash in his saddlebags when he reaches the mainland to buy himself horses and ride south over the Alps to Rome that fall.
46
OLAF HARALDSSON left Sweden along with his son Magnus, and sailed in the fall with merchants all the way to Kiev, to the realm of the Grand Knyaz Yaroslav the Wise and his Grand Knyaginya, Ingegerd of Sweden. There he hoped to find support and refuge.
The town is located on the southern bank of the Dnieper River, where it is broadest, resembling a great lake. Buttercups as big as loaves of bread grow in the meadows there. Sometime in the past, bellicose Swedish merchants had pushed their way into power and subjugated the folk that inhabited the region’s wide plains or woods. Grand Knyaz Vladimir the Saint, the father of Yaroslav the Wise, had been baptized a Christian in Constantinople, and decreed that all of his tributaries were to be Christian. Of old, the leading men and great lords of that land were called boyars and bogatyri. Vladimir waged a long and vicious war against these people, with the support of foreign kings, both the Byzantine emperor and his Swedish kinsmen. Many places were conquered and Christianized during that war, while those of Vladimir’s men who fell in battle were proclaimed holy martyrs by the patriarchs – death on the battlefield was their salvation, their exemption from Purgatory. Their skulls were the greatest of treasures, and the source of numerous wonders and miracles.
Standing on the banks of the river was a splendid royal castle, surrounded by an orchard and high towers. The towers were manned constantly by watchmen, on the lookout for the approach of Cumans or other enemy armies from across the plain or down the river – these lands having never submitted entirely to their sovereign. Located within the town walls was a monastery that grew into one of the greatest in that part of the world, as it was in possession of several items of profound interest to most Christians: first among them, a finger of the blessed protomartyr Stephen. Learned men argued that this finger was one of the best safeguards against shortages of butter, and was extremely effective against grasshoppers, besides being a powerful counter to the usury of Jews. Also preserved in this monastery, whole and intact, was the earthly body of the blessed Knyaz Vladimir, Yaroslav’s father. This body, replete with fragrance and glory, stirred consciences deeply and gave rise to many a miracle throughout the region and beyond. This monastery, moreover, possessed more skulls of those that had given their lives in the service of Holy Wisdom than any other monastery thereabouts, and these skulls begot an abundance of miracles for the welfare of the people. Many bought candles and lit them before these skulls, for the salvation of their own souls and those of their kin.
At the behest of the praiseworthy Lord Patriarch, who, in the East, holds the same position as the Pope in the West, Yaroslav the Wise undertook to erect the Cathedral of Holy Wisdom, which has stood there in some form ever since and has always been counted as one of the major cathedrals in that part of the world. For its construction, enormous finances were required. People were exhorted to make monetary donations, any sum they could do without, in memory of saints and martyrs, for the sake of their own souls and the souls of their kin, and many an individual’s reputation was enhanced if he donated generously to Holy Wisdom and lit candles before the skulls.
It is said that when Olaf Haraldsson arrived in Kiev in the fall with his son Magnus, and sought out Yaroslav, the knyaz scarcely deigned to acknowledge this banished king of Norway who had come to his country as a fugitive, devoid of the glory of royal birth and of power. Worse still, his shoes were ragged, and his kirtle was filthy with grease stains. His son wore no shoes at all. Yaroslav also found it strange that the man who was formerly his rival should now seek his friendship, and said that he would rather be a better friend to such an excellent king as Cnut the Great than feed and shelter those who were traitors to him. What is more, he said, he had not gone to such great pains to kill his four brothers in battle simply to give away land in Kiev to foreign fugitives. Yet he would, he said at last, condescend to allow Olaf to accompany the Swedish merchants, after they had dragged their ships ashore for the winter, to the districts where they traditionally gathered tribute for their livelihoods while wintering in Kiev.
Folk say that in the eyes of a woman, no suitor is so contemptible that, even if she has spurned him disgracefully or betrayed his trust, she will not, ever afterward, have more affection for him than for any other man. The older she grows, the more eager she will be to aid him as best she can, regardless of his predicament. In like manner, Knyaginya Ingegerd decided to ensure that Olaf Haraldsson was well looked after in Kiev and granted whatever position in their court he himself chose, and she provided him with raiment befitting a nobleman. Her sister’s son Magnus, she said, would be brought up with the knyaz’s children.
In those days, the Norse tongue was not commonly spoken in Kiev, except among the Swedish guard serving there, whose duty it was to fight the commoners and keep them subjected to the Grand Knyaz. Clerics and notables there spoke Greek, which they called the world’s most important language. In that town, only beggars and lepers spoke the vulgar tongue. There were few in Yaroslav’s court who deigned to speak with Olaf Haraldsson, he being held in such low esteem. Olaf’s lack of friends caused him no small amount of grief and sorrow. No one there paid any heed to him, apart from the woman who had disgraced him most with her falsehood and deceit, and who now granted him alms out of pity. Olaf grew disgruntled at how no one seemed to want to listen to him whenever he ventured to speak, especially when they knew that he was more eloquent than most in his own tongue, able to deliver elegant, authoritative speeches to large crowds, and to recount glorious exploits from his Viking days and other adventures.
Now it happened, as we find so often in the old tales, that the king, feeling foresaken, turned his mind ever more frequently to that lord who is praised by his friends as most trustworthy and most patient in listening to those who find themselves in dire straits – namely Christ, King of Heaven, who shall sit in judgement over mankind on the Last Day. Olaf began frequenting houses of worship in order to speak to the saints and apostles, those most favored by Christ, as well as to holy maidens and commanders of the angelic hosts. He put himself in the hands of these holy beings, hearkening tearfully to the prolonged chanting of monks, which, in the Greek tradition, is often most melancholy and plaintive. However, those who governed the Christian church in that part of the world were not great friends of the Holy See in Rome. In Greek they were called metropolitans, and were governed by archimandrites and patriarchs. They had all been excommunicated by the Lord Pope, as he had been by them. Yet Olaf Haraldsson could not distinguish their Christianity from that of his old friend Bishop Grímkell of Canterbury. In most respects, the Greek and Latin rites seemed the same to him.
Olaf, having gotten a grasp of the monks’ language, spent long periods conversing with them and listening as they told their wondrous and compelling tales full of miracles, revelations, and the remarkable visions of the saints – all the while picking lice from their beards with great dexterity. By the bounty of Holy Wisdom, King Olaf now came to understand how tender an embrace Christ offered to those who had squandered their k
ingdoms: how patient he was in lifting them to their feet if they submitted to him, honoring every man’s supplications, whether he were emperor of his land or an exile. He spoke often with the monks about his wretched state, landless and penniless as he was, dependent upon the charity of strangers and detested almost everywhere. Yaroslav would have none of his service, nor would he grant him land for his livelihood, either to govern or to plunder, as he had been accustomed to doing since childhood. Despite the coldness shown to him by Yaroslav and his court, the more Olaf’s heart was moved by the truths of these miraculous tales, the more he felt visited by Christ the Emperor’s grace.
It is said that Knyaginya Ingegerd insisted that Olaf Haraldsson, her first suitor, be granted a place in Kiev where he would enjoy more respect than he was given by her spouse, Yaroslav. By her intercession, Olaf was invited to dwell in the monastery and mingle with the men who consecrated themselves to God through their holy way of living. Yet it was God’s law that no childbearing creature, other than the queen of the land, should be allowed to cross the inner threshold of a monastery.
Wayward Heroes Page 29