Viking's Sunset

by Henry Treece

  And when he did this, the other red men waved their hatchets and began to shout, as though they had gained a victory, not a defeat.

  Then the old chief came forward and said, ‘This is my son, Wawasha. Though I love him, you must give him death if you so will, for by the laws of our people he may not accept life from any man. If you do not kill him, then expect no thanks from him ever. It is your choice.’

  And Grummoch said, ‘Wawasha is a brave warrior. I, Grummoch, man of the Northlands, love brave warriors and do not wish to kill them. Let Wawasha be my brother and also the brother of my oath-brother, Harald Sigurdson. I do not wish a red warrior to thank me for sparing him; I only wish that he shall become my brother and that our bravery shall go forward together.’

  Then Wawasha, who had regained some of his breath, though his face was still deathly pale, smiled ruefully and said, ‘Let it be so.’

  And, as Grummoch and Harald and Wawasha made a little circle, each holding the other’s hand in friendship, the Beothuk people began to shout and to dance on the sand where they stood, waving their feathered hatchets and nodding their black heads up and down like the heads of horses.

  Gudbrod Gudbrodsson said, ‘One brother is worth ten enemies.’

  Jamsgar Havvarson said, ‘Aye, but a brother at dawn may be an enemy at sunset.’

  ‘Oh, go on with you,’ said Thorfinn Thorfinnson. ‘You are like an old Lappland butterwoman at a Spring Fair – full of strange omens, with a black cat on your head.’

  Jamsgar Havvarson who was a simple soul felt on his head then, and said, ‘I have no black cat on my head, only my hair.’

  Gudbrod Gudbrodsson said, ‘Hold tightly to it, friend, for if you can see what I see, these Beothuk seem fond of collecting other men’s hair. Look at the scalps which hang from their belts.’

  Jamsgar Havvarson said, ‘I shall put my hat on then, for I have no wish to lose my hair, full of Innuit lice though it may be. I value my hair. It is very pretty when it is well combed and made into plaits. Indeed, along the fjord, there are women who say that they have never seen hair like it.’

  Thorfinn Thorfinnson said, ‘Indeed, they speak the truth, for it sticks out like the hay in a rick; it is coarse like that of a sow; and it is thin like that of an old donkey. In truth, friend, keep your hat on for if such a treasure were lost, its like would never be found again in all the Northland.’

  Jamsgar nodded gravely. ‘I shall do that, friend,’ he said.

  Then they followed the red men up the shore to a green place among the trees, from which the blue smoke was rising into the still air.

  12

  Beothuk

  The vikings found life among the Beothuk much to their liking, especially after their long stay in the ice-bound land of Innuit and their bitter journeys over the seacrests.

  The old chief, Gichita, allowed Harald and Grummoch to sit with him and his son, Wawasha, nearest the fire, and even gave them feather headdresses as a sign that they were accepted into the tribe as warriors. These were fur caps, into which hawk and eagle feathers were set at front and rear. The one which Grummoch wore was edged with small silver buttons which clinked as he moved. Harald’s headdress had a band of white beads upon a broad blue cloth background.

  When Gichita made the presentation of these headdresses, he said, ‘Great warriors should wear the signs of their fame.’

  Gichita’s young daughter, Neneoshaweg, taught the Vikings how to dress their hair in Beothuk style, drawing it down at the back in a long tail and pulling it through a tube of bone, so that it stayed there when they ran through the thick woodland.

  ‘This is less trouble than plaiting our hair, oath-brother,’ said Grummoch to Harald. ‘The only thing is that this tube of bone bounces between my shoulders when I move, and that is worrying. I keep turning round, thinking that someone has tapped me on the back.’

  Harald answered, ‘That is a thought which you can cease to worry over. If ever you are tapped between the shoulderblades here, there will be little point in turning round. The damage will be done by then!’

  But in spite of this grim jest, life among the Beothuk was pleasant for a while. The Vikings made presents to Gichita of iron swords and axes, which had belonged to the men who were lost on that perilous trip from Iceland to Greenland; and in return Gichita gave them feathered hatchets of stone and elk-bone, and also hunting knives, beaten from copper and from cold iron, their blades set in the horn of great stags or elks.

  And soon the Vikings took to wearing the warrior-paint across their faces, in broad bands, sometimes blue from a woodland plant, and sometimes yellow, made from a clay which the Beothuk dug from a damp glade near the settlement.

  Gudbrod Gudbrodsson said one day, ‘This face-covering becomes you well, Thorfinn Thorfinnson.’

  Thorfinn bowed his head solemnly, after the manner of the Beothuk. ‘I am pleased to hear you say that, my friend,’ he answered.

  Gudbrod nodded. ‘Aye,’ he said, ‘it becomes you well because it covers your ugliness so that you seem less like an ape from Jebel Tarik and more like a man, though a very strange man at that!’

  Thorfinn gave a snort and walked away to where the musicians were playing on their drums and bone flutes and one-stringed harps.

  And there, in the glade, to the monotonous rhythms, Grummoch danced the Bear Dance, which he had once learned in Lappland, bending his great body and shuffling one foot after the other, his thick arms hanging down before him.

  This pleased the Beothuk, who knew well enough what the dance symbolized; and soon they, too, were imitating him, for this dance was greatly to their taste.

  The Vikings were welcome in other ways, for they were great tellers of stories about the evening fires and before they went to lie down in their hide sleeping bags under the skin awnings in the glade.

  The story which Harald told was most admired by all, and he was asked to tell it again, and again, until the Beothuk knew every word of it.

  ‘Once, years ago,’ he began, ‘the great goddess Freya had two sons – one, Balder the Handsome, the other Hoder the Blind. Fine was it to see Balder riding his white horse through the skies,’ (here he had to stop and explain what a horse was, for the Beothuk had never seen one) ‘and sad was it to watch poor Hoder stumbling among the forest roots, helpless. For Balder was a man among men, much like Wawasha here, while Hoder was of little use save to eat meat by the warm fire and to snuggle into his sheepskin bed at night.’

  When Harald spoke these words, a strange silence fell upon the listening Beothuk, who all looked towards a pale youth sitting at the back of the circle.

  ‘Freya was so pleased with her warrior son,’ Harald went on, ‘that during one Spring feasting she called upon birds, beasts, and trees of the woodland to swear a great oath never to harm Balder. She even made the thunderclouds and the rushing waters swear this oath, too, which they did willingly, for Balder was such a favourite in the Northern world.

  ‘And when earth, water, fire and iron had sworn never to hurt Balder, Odin thought it was time for the feast-jesting to begin, and called upon all the warriors and champions to hew or to shoot at him, to prove whether the oaths had been sworn well. And they had, for swords, axes and arrows fell harmless from the young Viking’s body, and he smiled as the champions thrust at him with spears, for they slid away from him, though he wore no armour.

  ‘It was while this feasting was going on, the horn-cup passing from hand to hand, that Loki the Mischief-maker came to Freya and asked if there was nothing in the whole wide world that could hurt this splendid fellow. And Freya, drinking with the men, answered carelessly that there was one thing – a plant called the mistletoe, which grew eastwards of the hall of Valhalla, and was too weak and too young to be the cause of any fear.

  ‘So that night Loki put on his dark cloak and crept out of the noisy hall, and went to the grove where the mistletoe grew. And there he cut down a twig of the plant and shaped it into a little javelin with his sharp knif
e, Evil-doer. Then he returned, the twig hidden beneath his dark cloak, and went to Balder’s brother, Hoder, who stood silently among the shouters, at the edge of the circle.

  ‘“Why do you not join in the merrymaking, Hoder?” asked Loki.

  ‘“Because I cannot see where my brother stands, and because I have no weapon with which to strike at him,” answered the blind one.

  ‘Loki said, “Such things are not beyond the wit of man or god to set right. Let me lead you forward through the hall and set you close to Balder, so that you may throw this stick at him, in token that you too have tested him. For it ill becomes a brother to hang back at a time like this, when everyone, even the kitchen-thralls, have honoured him by striking at his weapon-proof body.”

  ‘So blind Hoder let Loki take him to a spot before the laughing Balder, and set the mistletoe spear in his weak hand, and guided his hand, so that the shaft flew towards Balder’s heart.

  ‘All men gave way when Hoder made his cast, for he was of the kingly blood and was not to be denied anything.

  ‘But when the little shaft struck Balder, it sank deep into his heart, and the handsome warrior-god fell forward on his face, trying to drag out the strange weapon which had brought his death upon him. But it had bitten too shrewdly, and Balder died on the floor of the feast hall with his friends weeping over him.

  ‘Loki slid quickly away into the darkness. No man blamed Hoder, for it was seen what a trick had been played upon him by Loki. So Balder’s brief hour of triumph was over.

  ‘Then, among weeping, the shield-men carried Balder’s body down to the fjord and laid it aboard his longship, Ringhorn, the hugest of all ships ever built along the fjords. And with him on the funeral pile lay Nanna, his wife, who had died of grief that night. And at his feet lay Balder’s great white stallion, Reksgor, with all his golden trappings.

  ‘And so, at last, after some difficulties, the longship was sent blazing across the fjord, where at last it sank. Both gods and men wept sorely, feeling that something had gone from their lives.’

  When Harald had finished, there was a great silence about the camp-fire of the Beothuk, for this tale moved them every bit as much as it moved the listening Vikings, many of whom let the salt tears fall upon their chests without shame.

  To lighten this silence, Grummoch said, ‘Gichita, this is an old tale. Do not weep. You have a son every bit as handsome and as warrior-like as Balder. Wawasha is such a one.’

  Then Gichita rose and pointed to the pale-faced youth who sat at the edge of the fire-circle.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘and I have, also, a son who greatly resembles poor Hoder, except that his hands and not his eyes are useless. Come forth, Heome, and let our stranger-brothers see your hands.’

  13

  Heome

  The braves about the fire moved back, so that Heome might obey his father and stand before Harald and Grummoch. This he did only after his father, Gichita, had spoken three times, and then with a bad grace, which showed in the expression on his pale face.

  Standing in the firelight, under the low spruce boughs, he said bitterly, ‘Here are my hands, white strangers. Feast your pale eyes upon them and laugh in your hearts. A brown bear of the forest tore them when I was but a lad. Look on them and smile!’

  He held out his wasted arms and the Vikings saw that the hands were puckered and useless.

  Gichita said with bowed head, ‘This happened when Heome was in his twelth year, at the time when the boys are initiated as braves. It is my sadness that Heome failed in his testing-time.’

  Harald was about to find something to say which might give pleasure to the young man, but before his tongue could move, Heome gave a bitter laugh and said for all the warriors to hear, ‘You sent me to the woods, my father. You commanded me to do that which has cost me my hands. On you rests the blame! On you rests the wretchedness of my crippled hands!’

  Gichita bowed his head and covered his fierce old face in the blanket of buffalo-hide. But Wawasha, the great warrior, leaped up in the firelight, with the red glow upon his copper armbands and in the feathers on his head, and reached out his hands towards Heome.

  ‘Brother,’ he said, ‘speak no more in that manner. Our father is old and should not be so tormented. He sent you to the woods because that is the custom of our people, not because he wished you harm. You are the flesh of his flesh; he would not wish that flesh to be hurt, brother!’

  Heome turned in the firelight and spat in his brother’s face. The gathered braves drew in their breath.

  Heome said, ‘Since I was twelve the women have fed me with bone spoons, and morsels in their fingers. Is that a life for a man? You tell me not to hurt my father; I tell you that I hate my father, for what he has done to me. I tell you that Gichita has lost my love.’

  Then Heome began to weep, and the sound of his weeping in that twilit forest was worse than the sound of his anger, for it was the sound of a damned creature who had lost all hope and had nothing to live for.

  Even the birds of the forest took up his weeping cry and echoed it along the avenues and glades, and for a while all the wild woodland was astir with the deep sadness of this red man’s bitterness.

  Harald rose and, thinking of his own wounded sons, said, ‘All men have their sufferings.’

  But he got no further, for Heome swung round upon him and said, ‘Be quiet, dog, when your betters speak! One day I will see you burned in the slow fires for a meddling hound!’

  And then he turned and strode away into the darkness beyond the firelight. The braves drew away so he might pass by unhindered.

  Then Wawasha said, ‘That is my only brother, whom I love more than I love my own right hand, and who hates me.’

  And the old man, Gichita, said, ‘I would suffer my own old hands to be smitten from me, if Heome could have back the use of his.’

  After that, the singing and dancing, the story-telling, were over, for this quarrel about the fire cast a gloom upon all who were there.

  In their own tent, Harald said to Grummoch, ‘One day, Loki will come and teach crippled Hoder how to kill his brother Balder.’

  Grummoch nodded. ‘That thought ran in my own mind, too,’ he said. ‘Yet what can we do to prevent such a thing? We are strangers here, and a stranger does well to stay outside the door when his hosts quarrel within.’

  Harald answered, ‘Perhaps I did ill to tell that old Norse tale by the fire this evening.’

  But Grummoch shook his head.

  ‘The damage had been done long years before we sailed from Norway, oath-brother,’ he said. ‘You cannot blame yourself for Heome’s misery.’

  Harald thought for a while, then nodded his head, meaning that Grummoch was right.

  ‘Yet,’ he said, ‘if the chance comes, I will see to it that Heome is accepted by his tribesfolk as a warrior. Then perhaps his thoughts of vengeance may be turned aside.’

  That chance came sooner than Harald, or anyone else, expected.

  14

  Grey Wolf

  The hunters ran through the forest, silently as shadows. The Vikings, who ran in a separate party, led by Harald, made rather more noise, not being used to this sort of thing.

  From ahead of them, the Vikings heard that the Beothuk had sighted their quarry by the high owl-cries which this folk made when excited.

  Gudbrod Gudbrodsson said, ‘When our folks see their enemy, they do not hoot like a flight of night-birds. They go in and finish him, silently.’

  Thorfinn Thorfinnson said, ‘That is because we are a modest folk, and brought up not to boast of our deeds. My uncle, Svend Threeswords, from under the hill near Gulpjefjord, once killed fifteen Danes in the night, as they slept in the heather, with one little knife. He wiped it and went home for his porridge and never a word did he say to my Aunt Besje, until she asked about the stains upon his arms. Then he said he had been picking blackberries. Another time he hung on a frayed rope above a deep gorge, when he was gathering samphire, for fourteen hours, and
at the end of it, when a shepherd came and saw him and offered to drag him up, said, “Please yourself, fellow, I am prepared to go on dangling here until tomorrow. It is no effort when once one has got the hang of it.” He was a modest man, you understand?’

  Jamsgar Havvarson said, in his simple way, ‘Yes, it is true that we Northmen are anxious to avoid all praise. When my father sailed into Frankland and burned eight churches of the Whitechrist, the Pope offered him great reward for acting so valiantly, and promised him bed and board for life in the stoutest jail in Rome, if my father ever visited that city. But he did not go to claim his lifetime’s lodgings. Other men would have jumped at the chance, but my father, who was a simple fellow, chose to stay at home with his goat Nessi and his four cows, whose names I now forget, rather than have his fame bruited abroad in Rome.’

  ‘Indeed,’ said Thorfinn, nudging Gudbrod, ‘we are a modest folk. Let us hope that our modesty is well repaid by the gods.’

  It was while they were thus talking and running that Harald almost stumbled over Heome, who lay under a juniper bush, exhausted at trying to keep up with the other Beothuk hunters.

  Grummoch picked the young fellow up and slung him over his shoulder.

  ‘Come, friend,’ he said, ‘you may not be able to kill a bear, but there is no reason why you should be left behind if there is anything to see.’

  After a while, Heome tried to kick at Grummoch, in his anger at being so shamed, but the giant affected not to notice this display of temper, and so they went on. At last Heome made no further effort to resist.

  And towards midday, when the sounds of the Beothuk had died away in the distance, the Vikings came to a glade in which was a heap of stone slabs, almost overgrown by lichen and creeping plants. In that heap was a doorway, so that it looked like a little house.

  Harald went forward to look into the doorway, but drew back as though he had been slapped across the face. Then all who were close by smelled the bitter scent of wolf.