by Henry Treece
Puffin Books Editor: Kaye Webb Horned Helmet
This is the story of Beorn, an Icelandic boy who runs away from a cruel master, is befriended by Starkad the fearful baresark Jomsviking, and joins his ship.
As the Vikings make their swift deadly raids along the Scottish coast Beorn learns to fight, and kill, to sing their songs, and to accept their rigid code. ‘Jomsvikings are not concerned with manners, only with truth and hard-dealing. Never talk to a Jomsviking just for the sake of politeness. We have sworn an oath only to say what is so; no more and no less.’
There is no softness in this book. It is a magnificent saga of the Norsemen, showing both their courage and brutality with a ring of truth.
” This is a very fine historical novel. It moves at a tremendous pace, and, without being at all consciously “poetic”, has the authentic ring of heroic poetry’ - Rosemary Manning in the Teacher ‘The language is poetic and strong and seems to shout with a love of the fierce life. The drawings by Charles Keeping are dark as nightmares; superb. Mr Treece obviously knows what he is talking about’ - the Yorkshire Post Cover design by Charles Keeping Henry Treece
HORNED HELMET
Illustrated by Charles Keeping
Penguin Books Penguin Books Ltd, Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England
Penguin Books Australia Ltd, Ringwood, Victoria, Australia
First published by Brockhampton Press 1963 Published in Puffin Books 1965 Reprinted 1968, 1970, 1972
Text Copyright © Henry Treece, 1963
Illustrations Copyright © Brockhampton Press Ltd, 1963
Made and printed in Great Britain by Richard Clay (The Chaucer Press) Ltd, Bungay, Suffolk Set in Monotype Plantin
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser
Contents
Author’s Note
1 Kol’s Judgement
2 Rock-pool
3 Man with a Spear
4 Snorre Pig and the Herring
5 Baresark
6 Lost Sword and Found Son
7 Grettir’s Venture
8 Dead Man’s Howe
9 Two Vikings and a Log
10 Rescue
11 Starkad Tamed
12 Blanchland Haven
13 Blind Beacon
14 New Guardian
15 'Up Holly-ah!'
16 Golden Hair
Contents
Author’s Note 7
1 Kol’s Judgement 11
2 Rock-pool 14
3 Man with a Spear 24
4 Snorre Pig and the Herring 31
5 Baresark 41
6 Lost Sword and Found Son 48
7 Grettir’s Venture 53
8 Dead Man’s Howe 62
9 Two Vikings and a Log 71
10 Rescue 78
11 Starkad Tamed 83
12 Blanchland Haven 88
13 Blind Beacon 96
14 New Guardian 109
15 ‘Up Holly-ah!’ 113
16 Golden Hair 119
Author’s Note
Iceland was known to seafaring Irish monks quite early on; but it was not until 867 that a Norwegian Viking, called Naddodd, discovered the island, when his longship was driven off-course on the way to the Faroes.
After that, Vikings (or ‘wanderers’) from all parts of Scandinavia, the Hebrides, and Ireland went to settle there, to farm and to fish, and often to escape punishment for crimes they had committed elsewhere!
Between the years 930 and 1260, these independent ‘Icelanders’ created a form of rough law and self-government that was quite amazing - especially when we remember that they did not become Christians until the year 1000.
We can learn all about this from the Icelandic stories called sagas. I have tried to write Horned Helmet in the style of the sagas, as far as possible, so that you can get the feel of these old tales.
The Northmen, whether they came from Scandinavia or Iceland, were often very intelligent people, with a rough dry sense of humour. They did not like to show their feelings too much, so they spoke in a short sharp sort of way, leaving much unsaid, as I try to do in this book. Of course, they were usually very brave, and didn’t mind dying in battle as long as they could kill some of the enemy as well! They thought this was a good bargain - and these Vikings were great bargainers in everything. They even bargained about whether it was better to pray to Christ or to Odin and Thor, and they were always arguing about which religion was the more useful to them. Horned Helmet is set about the year 1015, when officially Iceland had been converted for fifteen years; but there were still quite a number of Northmen who were not quite convinced that Christianity was the best religion.
When we talk of the Northern World in the year 1015, we mean not only Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, and Lapland, but also Iceland, Orkney, the Shetlands, the Hebrides, together with parts of Ireland, Scotland, England, Germany, Russia, and even northern France! These Viking Northmen seemed to get everywhere in their longships; and that is the impression I want you to receive from this story. Sometimes, it seems a little confusing, I know - but that is just how it was in those days. You see, one race married another, and then they shared languages, religions, and stories. Why, a year after our story begins, England even borrowed a Danish king - the famous King Canute who is supposed to have tried to turn the waves back!
The helmet in this story is not the sort of Viking helmet with horns on it that one often sees. It is an ancient Celtic helmet like the one that was found in the Thames. At the time of our story, this helmet would be at least a thousand years old - which is one reason why Starkad set such great store by it. It was an ‘heirloom’, as they used to say then, to be passed on from one to another as long as it lasted. Swords were regarded like that, too. They went on and on for generations, and sometimes, when they broke at last, they were made into spear-heads so that they could carry on the good work a while longer!
The Jomsvikings were a fierce body of seafarers whose home was at Jomsburg, on an island in the Baltic, at the mouth of the river Oder. They were gathered together into a great band by the Danish king, Harald Gorms-son, whose nickname was ‘Bluetooth’. This King Harald began as a heathen, but after he was converted himself, he tried very hard, and very ferociously, to make all the other Danes Christians. In 988, his son Swein got so tired of Bluetooth’s religious frenzy, he organized a revolt and had his father turned out of his kingdom! Then the Jomsvikings fought for Swein instead. They were still foraging about the seas and rivers well into King Canute’s reign; sometimes following one leader, sometimes another - and sometimes just pleasing themselves!
Some of them, like Jarl (Earl) Skallagrim, went as far afield as Constantinople, which they called Miklagard, to serve in the Greek Emperor’s Varangian Guard and to live among people who followed the teachings of the Greek Orthodox Church. As long as there was a profit in it, they did not mind where in the whole world they went.
A word about Beorn, the boy-hero of this story; his name should really be spelled Bjorn, but that looks clumsy, so I have spelled it as it sounds in English.
Incidentally, his silly song about Snorre the Pig is really a sarcastic sneer about an Icelandic chieftain of those times, who often tried to get his own way by force or even treachery. Snorre is described in Njal’s Saga.
Beorn also tells about another Icelander, Grettir, whom he claims as a relative. In those days, Icelandic families were so intermixed that many folk must have been related to Grettir. This Grettir, whose life-story is told in Gre
ttir’s Saga, was born in 997, that is, three years before Iceland became partially converted to Christianity, and eighteen years before our story starts. Grettir was a big, strong, rough Icelander who robbed a dead king’s burial mound, and who voyaged and fought in many parts of the Northern World.
The incident of the cloak-pin in Chapter 9 is borrowed from Olaf Tryggvason’s Saga, and it really did happen to two Jomsvikings.
The verse that the priest, Alphege, speaks on page 94 is a translation of The Dream of the Rood, written first in Anglo-Saxon by Cynewulf of Northumbria. And the verse spoken by Katla on page no comes from another Saxon poem called The Battle of Maldon, fought in 991; that is, twenty-four years before our story begins.
Henry Treece
1 Kol’s Judgement
Beorn was only a boy when his father jumped off Ness Rock into the sea, and was swept away like a piece of black driftwood.
It was a grey day, with the gulls and sea-mews haunting the air with their cries, as though they were mocking at Beorn for crying too. If he had had a mother he would not have cried so much, because boys in Iceland did not reckon to cry, whatever happened. But Beorn’s mother had been taken away by a shipload of vikings a year ago, when she was down on the shore gathering weed and driftwood for the fire; and now he was quite alone.
Kol, the Old Man of the Council, the Law Speaker up there on the high rock, with all the other old men nodding round him, said sharply to Beorn, ‘ Stop hitting your head against that rock, boy. It will do no good. Your father chose what he wanted to do. It’s not your business to complain.’
All the villagers of Thorstead, some of them fisher-folk, some crofter-farmers, grunted and nodded at this, and knocked their axe-heads on the ground to show they agreed with the Old Man.
Beorn was too young to find the right words to answer this. He felt so lonely and sad that he could only go on crying and rubbing his red knuckles into his sore eyes.
The Old Man grew impatient with him. He pulled his brown sheepskin cloak round him and said, ‘It is all over. Your father should not have burned down Glam’s barn. That is a serious crime, and he knew it. He lived in Iceland long enough to know that. And he need not have jumped over the cliff as he did. Our judgement was simply that he should fight Glam with the axe; and that was fair judgement. Now, as your father has cheated Glam of his payment, you must see to it yourself. You will go with Glam, in payment for his barn, and will be his boy for as long as he wishes. And when he wants you no longer, it is his right to sell you to anyone he pleases. That is the judgement.’
Beorn cried more than ever then. Glam was a big frightening man with yellow teeth and old white scars all over his arms and face. Once he had been a sea-rover in Norway, until he was outlawed for killing the king’s nephew after losing a game of chess to him. Glam was a terrible man with the long axe; that was why Beorn’s father had jumped over the cliff. He would not have stood a chance. Perhaps he thought it was better to risk what the sea might do to him than what Glam’s axe would surely do.
Beorn shouted out, ‘My father never burned Glam’s barn down, Old Man! It was dry old wood and thatch, and it was the lightning that burned it.’
Glam, standing before the Old Man, threw back his rough head and laughed for all men to hear. ‘ The lad’s a fool,’ he said. ‘ Does anyone think that Thor Thunderer would burn down my barn? Well, do they?’
He turned and glared at all the folk. He was such a fierce fighter that they all shook their heads. No one ever disagreed with Glam at Thorstead. So he looked down at Beorn and said, ‘You see, boy? All the folk know that I am in the right, and you have heard what Old Man Kol has said - you are mine now, and must do as I say.’
He came forward to take hold of Beorn’s hair and lead him away, but the sight of his big red hands was too much. Beorn swung round suddenly and began to race over the grey rocks, and among the stunted heather-bushes and gorse. He heard the folk crying after him, and Glam’s heavy feet thudding behind him for a while. Then everything was still, save for the quick thumping of his heart, the never-ending hissing of the sea, and the cracked cry of the sea-birds, who had watched it all and seemed pleased with what they saw.
2 Rock-pool
Beorn lay on the hill under a bleak hawthorn bush that night, cold and hungry, with his teeth chattering and his face wet with tears. Below him, he saw his home, the cabin that his father had built with his own hands, from rocks and turfs and driftwood, its roof of brown reeds from the salt-marsh beyond the headland.
It was a rough enough home, with the draughts coming up under the door, and the cows lowing at the far end of the room; but there had always been a friendly fire burning in the middle of the floor, in the hearth-stones, and good broth bubbling in the iron pot to keep the cold away.
Now that fire had gone out, and no smoke came up through the chimney-hole. But as Beorn watched, another blaze started down at the house. This was Glam’s doing. He and his fellows had put a torch to the thatch, and now it flared so brightly that Beorn felt sure the burners would see him watching, under the hawthorn bush. But they were too busy with their work, and went away at last without noticing him.
And when they had gone, Beorn crept down the slope and went among the white ashes of his home, to see if they had left anything at all. He hoped he might find his father’s axe, or even his blackthorn staff, anything to remind him; but the men who followed Glam had left nothing that was worth taking. Most of them had been old sea-wolves, and once they swept through a place, there was little left, even for a mouse to eat.
Beorn lay among the warm ashes then and slept till dawn, lightly like a dog. Afterwards he woke and ran into the hills again, for he was not sure when Glam might come back to kick among the ashes in search of plunder he had missed.
In a narrow gully, Beorn knelt down and said a prayer to Father Odin, asking his help. But it seemed no good. A big black raven settled above him on the rock, and watched him steadily with bright eyes until the prayer was finished; then it gave a squawk and flapped away with rattling wings. This was answer enough, thought Beorn. Father Odin’s own bird had deserted him, and that was a bad sign.
There were red berries on the whinbushes still, and cold clear water in the streams. Beorn kept himself going on these for a day or two; then, one afternoon, he felt sure that if he could only get down to the shore beyond the headland, he might find meat of some sort, even if it was but a sealskin, with bits of blubber still sticking to it after the men had flayed it. Or perhaps a young whale, washed among the spiky dog-toothed rocks and unable to get afloat again. These creatures were not hard to kill with a stone.
Beorn’s mouth watered at the thought of meat, and he was so hungry now that it was the only thing he wanted. Even the thought of his father came second to the hunger that bit at his insides, like a wolf.
So he came down off the hill, keeping behind bushes and rocks and stone walls whenever he could, and hoping that none of the shepherds or village children saw him and raised the alarm-shout. He ran bent double until he was past the settlement, his heart in his mouth. As he drew near Kol’s yard, two dogs began to bark furiously, as though a thief had come to steal the goats from the shed. Beorn lay down under the dry-stone wall till old Kol came out and quietened them with a stick, then he scurried on down to the shore.
No men were about, and Beorn was glad of that. Here and there, among the dirty grey pebbles at the water’s edge, seaweed fires smouldered, where the women had been flaying seals. A few half-starved dogs prowled about, dodging the incoming waves, looking for scraps of skin or bones. A covey of gulls stood over the blackened carcass of a seal, like old men at a Council Gathering, shaking their red beaks at one another, as though they were passing judgement on some poor comrade. Beorn saw that there was a lame gull, who could only put one foot to the ground, and he thought that this must be the one this Council was trying. He wished he had a stick to chase them away before they passed judgement on the lame gull. Then he thought again, and knew
that if he did chase them, or even go to the carcass to see if there was anything left to eat on it, the birds would flap above the shore with such a loud screaming that one of the villagers would be bound to come down and see what was happening. Then they would find him again, and give him to Glam.
So Beorn turned away and scrambled among the rocks, hoping to pick up something in the little pools there. There were anemones, but you couldn’t eat them. And heaps of slimy grey-green weed and bladder-wrack. Beorn put some of this into his mouth, then spat it out again because of its bitter taste. It was good enough for burning, when it was dry, but not for eating.
Soon he was so wet and weary, splashing through the rock-pools, that he almost stopped searching for food. It came to him that nothing could be worse than this, not even if he went up to Glam’s steading and gave himself up, to take what beating might await him there.
Then, below him, he noticed a basin of rock that was full of mussels. They lay just below the clear water, blue and grey, left by the last tide, just waiting to be scooped up and eaten. Beorn slipped and slithered down the green rocks, his mouth watering so much that he had to swallow hard. Then he was in the pool, and plunging his hands deep into the ice-cold water, already tasting the shellfish in his mind, even before he had broken one open.
He had the first salty fish in his mouth when he heard a rustling sound above him, and turned round quickly. Glam was standing there, his stick of bog-oak in his right hand, smiling down at him wickedly and showing his big horse’s teeth.
‘Eat well, wretch,’ Glam said, ‘because you’ll need something in your belly to make up for the beating I’m going to give you for running away.’
Now Beorn could hardly swallow the shellfish. It stuck in his throat and made him cough and splutter. He was not hungry any more, only afraid. Glam looked enormous, on that rock, against the grey sky - like a troll, with a big shaggy head and rolling eyes.