by Joyce Holt
"It's true, though," Jorunn stammered when she got her breath back. "We have no home, no refuge."
"I'll give you a home, the both of you," Utlagi snarled, pouncing out of nowhere. Before Jorunn could draw breath he grabbed her arm, twisted it behind her back and clapped a hand over her mouth. "Once I've slashed your tongue, you'll have no power to fight back!" he snarled into her ear.
Svana squealed and beat at the lout. "Let her go!" she cried. He aimed a kick. She ducked out of range.
Veils of snow thickened as if to wrap them into a shroud like all his wives, gone and forgotten. Jorunn struggled against his hold, pain shooting up her arm, wrenching her shoulders. She couldn't breathe. Why did no one come to her aid?
The few folk left on the strand looked as scruffy and ill-tempered as her tormenter. Utlagi nodded to a comrade who brought rope and rags, but the man stopped, staring down the strand. "Serpent!" the man yelled, and dashed back to the grove.
Jorunn's sight darkened for lack of air, but through the mist she saw a monstrous creature in the lake, swimming toward shore.
60 – Sword of Words
A great head reared from the still surface of the lake, its snout gory with blood. Two long horns spread wide and curved toward the sky. Through veils of snow could be seen another shape beyond the first, and then another, like the humping spine of a lake serpent.
The ruffians shrieked. Their feet scrabbled in the shingle and pelted away.
Utlagi gave a strangled cry. His hand loosened only enough for Jorunn to grab breath as he dragged her away from the shore.
Svana followed, panting, darting her horrified gaze between captor and monster.
The serpent lurched and lurched again, and the water spilled from the long neck, then chest, then spotted legs of a tall white cow with russet flanks and red-streaked face. The serpent humps beyond revealed themselves, as they neared, to be another four cattle following the herd's leader.
Utlagi bellowed a laugh. His grip tightened like an iron shackle. He hauled Jorunn toward the rope and rag dropped when his comrade fled.
Svana swung about to face this remaining monster. "Wither and wilt away, witless baleful ale-slave!" she cried, echoing Jorunn's last jab at their father.
"Not you too," Utlagi growled, lunging toward her.
Jorunn saw more movement beyond Svana. Clinging by one hand to the first cow's withers was a tall young man splashing ashore, lips blue with cold, knees wobbly as he took his full weight upon dry land. "B-bloody-handed wife b-beater," the newcomer cried, joining the war of words. "B-barren heart, artless beast!"
His voice, it chimed a thrill to Jorunn's soul. No longer piping child-high, but the song of it, the ring and flavor of words, the very voice she'd been mourning as lost forever.
"Oddleif!" Svana cried, leaping to greet him. "Help us, oh help us!"
"No business of yours, you vagabond," Utlagi snarled. "Mine, bought and paid for, both of them. Begone!"
"Wife-killer, woe to you!" Svana cried, slipping out of his reach.
"Beware word-swords we wield," Oddleif added, striding forward.
The tall cow at his side lowered her horned head and snorted a breath that blew snow flurries into a swirl smelling of summer grass and clover. She too stepped ahead, heavy hooves striking like hammers at the shingle underfoot.
Utlagi's hand shifted over Jorunn's mouth as he stumbled backward. Jaw loosened from his grip, she bit. He yelped, and clamped harder.
Oddleif and Svana pressed with the keen blade of words, and the five tall red cows snorted, stomped, aimed their long horns as if at a wolf.
Utlagi gave one last bellow of rage and threw Jorunn to the ground. He backed away, cursing, swearing, holding up a Thor's-hammer amulet to ward their words.
The lead cow charged, and Utlagi fled to the grove. The red-sided cow followed a few paces more, lowed some rude comment of her own, then ambled back with tail a-swish.
Oddleif grabbed Svana by the arms. "I'm not too late, am I? Not wed already?"
"Nei, nei, on the very brink but no marriage made. Oh Oddleif, you were gone so long, and I've been so afraid!"
He hugged her close, heaved a great sigh into her hair. "Clever girl! Wise words you wielded for a sword!"
"Thanks to your teaching." Svana laid her head on his shoulder, eyes scrunched shut, half-sobbing still.
Jorunn struggled up to one knee, staring in amazement. Oddleif – Oddleif wasn't dead. He hadn't vanished forever from the world as had Eirikr King of Hordaland. Joy swelled Jorunn's heart, joy and a sudden sharp pain to see him so wrapped around Svana. Her skin tingled at the thought of how that must feel.
But if Oddleif and Svana had grown such feelings for each other, she should be glad. Overflowing with gladness. And gratitude. He had been Svana's hero, protecting her as long as he could, never mind that puzzling spell when she could spy him nowhere in the world.
"You came back," Svana cried into his shoulder, "my only ally, my only hope, you came back! I was so afraid they'd trap you there, trap you forever. You've been gone for months!"
"I can see," he murmured to the top of her head as snowflakes swirled like a garland around the two of them. "Less than a day, I'd swear it, but now winter coming on? When it should still be midsummer? Uff da! But I swore I'd return. I promised her I'd look after you while she was gone hunting a place for the two of you. I vowed it with all my heart. All my heart."
Jorunn scrambled to her feet.
Oddleif turned his gaze, took in her face for the first time, blinked. His jaw dropped, his eyes widened, and he broke away from Svana. "You came back!" he cried.
"I did," Jorunn said, stepping forward, her hands lifting as if bearing some unseen bowl toward this young man who used to be so much shorter. "And so did you."
He bounded forward, laughing, crossed the distance in a heartbeat, and swept Jorunn from her feet. "I have a well-patched roof!" he cried as Svana danced a circle around them, joining in his laughter.
"You do?" Jorunn echoed, bewildered. His tunic was cold and dripping, but through the sodden cloth burned an amazing warmth. She marveled at the feel of his sinewy shoulders where she clung with one arm.
"I have three cows from Dondstad and now five I bring back from Alfheim—"
"Alfheim? Cattle – from the realm of elves?" Amazed, Jorunn twisted in his arms to study the tall red-sided cattle.
They gazed back with large dark eyes, bright and keen as a spisshund's gaze. "Yooou," the lead cow lowed, blinking long lashes in welcome.
"And I'll get two goats if that's what's needed to fulfill our pledge," Oddleif went on.
"Pledge? What pledge do you mean?"
Hazel eyes still merry as a fox's shone from a face half-known. Not a child any longer. Strong brow, long nose, firm jawline downy with a young beard. "If we were of an age, you said." His voice thrummed with music. "If things weren't so bleak. If I was older and had a cow. Or even a goat. Your very words. Remember the proverb? Two goats and thick sod overhead. I do! I have a sodded roof over a humble little hall."
"Better a humble house than none," Jorunn whispered, recalling that day so long ago. Her voice trembled into another line of the saying. "With a pair of goats and a well-patched roof—"
He set her on her feet and held her shoulders, his hazel eyes burning into hers. "Come to my small hall. I give it over to you, for now, a dwelling place for you and Svana."
Mind in a whirl, Jorunn could find no sensible answer. "A sodded roof. Goats."
"Think upon our words of five years past, and at the next assembly, at Yule—" He drew a ragged breath and stepped back, giving her room to feel, to remember, to think. "I'll be your husband, if you'll have me."
Jorunn felt a blaze of heat rise from her heart to her cheeks. "You want me, ugly birthmark and all?" she whispered.
"I shall kiss the lovely thing," he whispered back, her own scornful words from that day they parted. "I want to dance the springar with you."
"And my big
lumpy feet?"
"Them too."
Jorunn let out a long breath that fogged the air between them. "Yule cannot come too quickly."
At a nudge from the lead cow Oddleif staggered into her arms again. "How I adore," he quoted, "Jorunn's crooked nose." He kissed it.
Epilogue
Far to the north in Trondelag, the Golden Maid of Hordaland dropped a curtsy to Harald Halfdansson, King of all the Nord Way. "You fulfilled the challenge I set," she told him, "quite to my liking. But if you still want me to wife, I have a new task for you."
"A new task?" His browline arched then dipped into mock severity. "What more do you want besides a throne such as mine?"
"This one will not take five years. An afternoon's work, is all."
"Indeed?"
"Just be so kind and wash your five years' growth, King Tanglehair, else I shall have to take my favor elsewhere." Gyda sniffed and looked aside as if the sight caused her pain.
Harald beckoned to his men. "Tell the smith to sharpen his shears. Call for a tub of hot water and towels."
Jarl Ragnvald, the king's oldest ally and most trusted advisor, called for the strongest wood ash soap and set about the task himself.
At the evening feast men called, "Skoal!" to their ruler, hailing him with a new byname – for the golden luster of his hair. Harald Fairhair, first king of all the Nord Way, took to wife Gyda Eiriksdotter, the far-sighted maiden of Kvien.
Notes From History and Legend
The Norse saga "The Heimskringla" relates the challenge that beautiful Gyda gave to the young king of Vestfold; how his men were appalled at the gall of her rebuff; how Harald Halfdansson took the challenge to heart and set out to gather all the coastal kingdoms of the Nord Way under his rule.
The Heimskringla also tells of his vow not to wash or trim his hair until he succeeded in his quest. With the passage of five or six years on campaign, keeping his vow, he gained the nickname Harald Shockhead (shock of grain) or Harald Tanglehair.
The Battle of Hafrsfjord was the climactic final engagement in this campaign. Gyda’s father Eirikr, king of Hordaland, was slain. Solve Klofe of Møre escaped, as did the brothers Roald and Hadd of Telemark. Solve became known as a great sea king and returned time and time again to harry the lands Harald had taken.
Once Harald finally washed his hair, it gleamed so lustrous and golden that he gained the byname Harald Fairhair.
The local sagas in Telemark1 tell of "Prins Dond," who had once ruled in Sweden where he was known as Anund of Uppsala. (According to one source, his son Erik Anundsson – thought to be the same as the legendary Erik Weatherhat – usurped the throne and sent Anund into exile.) Dond was grandfather or uncle of the brothers Roald Rygg and Hadd the Hard, who are also mentioned in the Heimskringla. Donstad was one of his three major estates in Telemark, and known even in recent times as a dwelling of the rich. Dond also owned Raudland ("red-land") higher in the mountains where the soil is red with iron ore, and where bog iron granules precipitate from glacier runoff.
Dond employed master smiths at the next valley down the dale, now known as Byggland.
Some time after the battle of Hafrsfjord, Bjørn Roaldsson went into exile and settled in Iceland.
* * *
Old tales2 say that the red-sided cattle of Telemark came from the realm of the tusse-folk, and that cattle-raiding took place by both sides, human and tussar. Throw a piece of iron over a tusse-cow and it will leave the tussar and follow you home, if you're so wise as to call it by name. To this day they are known as Telemark cattle, or Telemarkfe, producers of rich milk no matter how poor the pasture.
Some characters from Norse mythology mentioned in TROLL AND TRYLLERI are Odin, his wife Frigg, and his beloved son Balder; Thor, his wife Sif, and his chariot-goat Toothgnasher; Loki the Trickster; Freyr who is honored at the sacrifice of vetrnætr or í motí vetri, commonly translated as Winternights; and the three Norns who sit at the root of the great World Tree and spin the fate of mankind.
1. Items 004-007 in Karl Arnt Skarpeid's document "Fra Västergøtland i Sverige Til Høllen i Søgne" [From Västergøtland in Sweden to Høllen in Søgne], part 20 in: "Slektshistorie: Våre Forfedres Historie Gjennom Tidene" [Family-History: Our Ancestors' History Through the Ages]
2. Pages 28-34 in Tussar og Trolldom [Elves and Magic] by Kjetil A. Flatin, first published in 1930 by Norsk Folkeminnelags [Norse Folklore-society]
Glossary and pronunciation
Jorunn "YOUR-rune"
Gyda "YEE-dah"
berg mountain; pronounce the "er" as "air"
bonde "BONE-deh"; wealthy landholder, no title of nobility
borg high fortified refuge
drake "DRAH-keh"; dragon
fjell "fyell"; mountain
fjord "fyord"; narrow body of water, salt water or fresh
fossegrim otherworldly being who dwells in waterfalls and plays bewitching music
harpe* open bow-harp or lyre
hulder young troll, of human size
ja, jo "yah"; yes; "yoh" when answering to a question phrased in the negative
jotun "YOH-toon"; older troll, of giant size
kenning metaphor
mor mother
nei "nigh"; no
nisse "NISS-eh"; small being, like a brownie or pisgie
Norns the three Fates, in Norse mythology
Skagerrak arm of the North Sea between Norway and Denmark
skald masterful poet, held in high regard
skatt taxes
spisshund spitz breed of dog
Svearike Sweden
tarn small mountain lake
thrall slave
trylleri "TRILL-eree"; magic, enchantment
tusmørke twilight: the murky light when tusse-folk roam
tusse "TUSS-eh"; glamorous otherworldly being
uff da oof indeed! (exclamation of unpleasant feeling)
Valkyrie beautiful female warrior of Asgard, sent to gather fallen warriors to Odin's side
vik "veek": a port, or the land at the head of a fjord
viking "VEEK-ing"
wyrm wingless dragon
øy exclamation; said with lips pursed
* the stereotypical pillared harp did not appear until ca. AD 1000
Coming soon:
Did you enjoy Troll and Trylleri? Trek even deeper into the past with the next historical-fantasy by Joyce Holt
Hero's Shield
book 1 in the Tapestry of Cumbria
"A feisty heroine with a brave heart and a lust for adventure distinguishes this historical sword-and-sorcery fantasy... in which magic, folklore, and history are seamlessly interwoven."
~ Review of the novel (manuscript version in 2013) by Publishers Weekly, an independent organization
Cumbria,
land of haunted ridges and dales, lakes and glens, bounded by the crumbling bulwark of Hadrian's Wall...
Cumbria,
realm of the fierce and clamorous Brigante tribe, now freed from the weight of Roman oppression...
Cumbria,
proud heart of the great Isle of the Brythons...
One hundred and fifty years after the Romans abandoned their northern province of Britannia, the Thirteen Kings of the North bicker and feud, while in the perilous wildwoods that cloak the Cumbrian mountains, shapeshifters from the Otherworld stalk the unwary.
In HERO'S SHIELD, a silent danger looms in the east where Angul hordes have already swallowed two coastal kingdoms of the Bryts. One headstrong young warrior strives to block their path into the west. Little does she know that first among the invaders comes a sorceror wielding magic stolen from the Fair Folk.
Hero's Shield
book 1 in the Tapestry of Cumbria
by Joyce Holt
Chapter 1
Gwen darted along a deer trail, dodging talons of under-growth. She ran silent and swift as a fox, with many a glance uphill through branches to her left.
There it was again, a glint of low sunl
ight on metal, quick as a flick of dragonfly wings, and the thud of hoofbeats at a trot.
How many horses? Just one, from the sound of it, but a heavier tread than any of the mountain ponies. A stranger riding away from the hillfort, but no clamor of pursuit by her kin.
Couldn't be a trader. There'd be a string of ponies at a walk, and not this spear head catching the late afternoon sun.
Not a raiding party. There'd be more than just one.
Unless there'd been battle, and only a lone survivor to ride away.
"Bogan's luck," Gwen swore beneath her breath as she drew her belt knife. "Of all times to be needing a sword, and not even a dagger at hand." With nothing but her foraging sack for a shield, she leaped into the path of the oncoming rider, crying, "Hold! Who and where—"
A black stallion reared, snorting, and a spear tip swung to meet her challenge.
Gwen slid out of reach, not daunted by the blade for the man moved slower than that rascal Rhys, most irksome of cousins. Not daunted at all, but wide-eyed at the pennant that streamed from the spear shaft, and at the man's garb. His red tunic and plain white cloak stood out like blood and bone against the gloom of the wildwoods.
"You're from the king's guard!" Gwen blurted. She straightened her stance.
The warrior raised his spear – and a wry brow – as he reined his horse back under control. "Indeed I am, and making haste on his errand. Give way."
"What tidings have you brought to Raven's Crag?" she asked as she edged aside. The stallion surged past, eyes rolling to keep her in sight, nostrils still flaring from alarm.
"To war! Cynmarc rallies the host to wreak vengeance on Rhun, Bastard of Gwynedd."