by Terry Jones
‘I only see a farmer sowing corn,’ said Erik. ‘He has a hunched back, but there is nothing so extraordinary about that.’
‘Watch,’ whispered Sven the Strong, and as he spoke, the hunchbacked farmer finished sowing the field, and the moment the last seed was sown a most extraordinary thing happened. As Erik and his comrades watched, green shoots began to thrust out from the earth, and the corn began to grow, and before even a word of surprise could come to their lips, the field was full of ripe corn, and the hunchbacked farmer had begun to reap it.
‘Now I truly believe we have found what we sought,’ said Erik, ‘for I have heard my father many a time describe such a place as this as the land where the sun goes at night … a land so fertile that no one need ever go hungry again.’
But no sooner had he said these words, than there was a roar, and Erik and his men turned to see a terrible creature glaring down at them. It was as tall as an oak tree, and its head was in the middle of its chest. Before they had time to raise their bows, the creature gave another roar, and as it opened its mouth they could see its teeth had been filed to sharp points.
‘Now I see why we have brought our weapons!’ cried Ragnar Forkbeard, and he raised his bow just as the creature took another step towards them, and it stretched out its arm so that its clenched fist hung above them, blotting out the sun.
‘Our swords and arrows will be but pins and penknives against such a creature!’ cried Thorkhild, but Sven the Strong had already let fly an arrow, and it flew straight and true, and pierced the terrible creature in the left eye. Whereupon the creature roared in pain, fell to its knees, and its fist came crashing down amongst the companions, like the bough of some mighty oak. And two of them were crushed under its weight, and screamed out in agony. Then Thorkhild let fly his arrow, and it flew straight and true, and pierced the monster in the right eye, and again the monster roared out in pain, and toppled forwards, and smashed down like some great tree, and the ground shook. As it fell, the companions ran for their lives, and the fist that it had held above them opened, and out rolled a huge piece of gold shaped like the crescent moon.
‘This is more wonderful than ever!’ murmured Erik, and was about to rush forward to seize the precious metal, when he stopped, and looked down upon the plain below them. There he saw more mis-shapen creatures running towards the plateau where they stood.
‘Quick!’ shouted Erik, above the roaring of the wounded monster. ‘We must return to Golden Dragon as fast as ever we can, for we will soon be outnumbered!’ Then Ragnar Forkbeard seized the golden moon – though it was all he could do to lift it up – and they all turned to retrace their steps. But even as they turned, the blood froze in their veins, for there – standing in the path by which they had come – were twenty … thirty … maybe fifty of the creatures, each as tall and as mis-shapen as the first, and each began to roar and began to stride towards Erik and his men.
‘Follow me!’ cried Erik, and without another word they began scrambling and running up the mountain.
Up they climbed – up and up – and behind them they heard the monstrous beings roaring for their wounded comrade. But still Erik and his men climbed until, just as the sun was setting, they stopped, and, looking down, they saw the monsters turning and going back down the mountainside.
‘They have gone to gather more of their kind,’ said Erik.
‘What are we to do?’ his men began to whisper to each other. ‘We have found at last the land where the sun goes at night, and yet here we are trapped on this mountainside, cut off from our ship, without food or drink, while this monstrous enemy surrounds us, and gathers its forces to finish us off once and for all.’
‘It is indeed hard to be near and yet so far,’ murmured Thorkhild. But just then a strange and even more wonderful thing began to happen: the mountainside began to tremble, and began belching out smoke so that Erik and his men were forced back down the rock face for some way. They stood there dumbfounded, and trembling with fear, as the very earth shook, and the smoke billowed out and formed a black cloud that hung over the mountain. Then there was a terrible C-R-A-C-K! and the summit of the mountain split apart, and a sheet of flame shot out into the air.
‘We are doomed!’ cried Erik’s men. ‘There are monsters below us and a volcano above! This surely is the end!’
But there was one among them who was not white with fear and who did not tremble. Thorkhild was standing, wide-eyed in wonder, staring into the sheet of flame at the top of the mountain.
‘What is it, Thorkhild?’ cried Erik. ‘What do you see?’
‘I see something I never thought to see again,’ replied Thorkhild, and he began to walk towards the flames that lit up the gathering night.
‘Come back!’ cried Ragnar Forkbeard.
‘What are you doing?’ cried Sven the Strong.
But Thorkhild was climbing up as if in a trance, and, as he did so, the black cloud descended upon him, and he vanished from their sight.
As soon as he was gone, the mountain ceased shaking, and the noise of thunder, which had filled their ears, abated. Erik’s men looked at one another, and each one wondered what it was that Thorkhild had seen.
‘What was it?’ they asked Erik, but Erik only shook his head and replied, ‘Wait … we shall soon see for ourselves.’
Then the smoke began to lift, and as it did so they all gasped. For there stood Thorkhild at the very summit of the mountain. He was blackened from head to toe, and his eyes were white – as if the heat of the flame had seared them of sight, and they knew that he was blind. Yet he was smiling, and in his hand he held a sword that was glowing like all the stars in heaven, and each and every one of the companions gasped, for they recognised it at once.
‘The Starsword!’ cried Thorkhild. ‘And I thought I should never see it nor hold it in my hands again. But now I can feel its power coursing through my arms, and my whole body. It is the Starsword … my hands know it, and in my blindness I see it as bright and shining as that day when it slew the Dogfighters on that beach so far away and so long ago!’
‘It is the Starsword!’ cried Erik, ‘and it saved us then, and it shall save us now! For I believe there is no enemy in this world that can withstand that magic blade.’
And even as he was speaking, they heard a roar, and they looked down, and saw myriad torches on the mountainside below them burning in the dark, and swarming up the scree towards them …
‘Look!’ said Erik. ‘Where there were thirty or forty of them before, it seems there are now three hundred – four hundred – maybe a thousand – see how their torches fill the mountainside!’
‘Let us hope the Starsword has not lost its powers,’ murmured Erik’s men, ‘for if it has, we are dead men.’
‘It has its power still!’ cried Thorkhild, and he stood there on the mountain top, with the Starsword held high above his head. ‘But something is wrong … something is different …’
And the Starsword shook and glowed brighter and brighter until it was a white light, shining as if it were the sun itself, and none could look at it but had to turn their eyes away.
Then below them, they heard the roaring cease, and they looked down and saw, by the light of the Starsword, the monstrous creatures, with their heads in their chests, armed with mighty axes, spears and swords as long as the mast of Golden Dragon herself, but they were standing bewildered – dazzled by the light of the Starsword. Then a great clattering filled the air as the creatures let their weapons drop to the ground. And then the ground shook, as the monsters themselves fell upon their faces, covering the eyes in their chests, blinded by the Starsword.
‘Now the Starsword will slay our enemies,’ cried Erik’s men, ‘now that they are disarmed and disabled!’
But Thorkhild gave a cry of pain. ‘It is different!’ he shouted. ‘The Starsword is burning in my hands!’ But he held onto it, and the Starsword began to vibrate, and an unearthly note rose up from it, which began to change as the sword quivered faster
and then slower and then faster again. And as it did so, note followed note, until they began to form a slow, haunting melody that enfolded the mountainside like a warm cloud.
‘I cannot hold it much longer,’ cried Thorkhild, ‘for it burns my hands!’
‘Quick!’ said Erik. ‘We must take our chance!’
‘But we dare not move until the Starsword has slain each and every one of those terrible creatures!’ cried his men.
But Thorkhild gave a great cry. ‘Run!’ he yelled. ‘Run before the Starsword slays each and every one of us!’ And at that, Erik set off down the mountainside towards the prostrate creatures. And although his men were filled with fear at the thought of running into the very midst of such an enemy, they saw nothing else for it and so they followed. Only Sven the Strong hung back.
‘Run!’ cried out Thorkhild. ‘I cannot hold the sword much longer!’
But Sven the Strong did not run. Instead he bent and lifted the blind Thorkhild onto his shoulders and then made his way swiftly after the others – the Starsword still singing its strange song as Thorkhild held it high above his head.
Down they went towards the gigantic monsters, and without hesitating Erik began to pick his way through them, there where they lay in their hundreds, and not one moved nor raised a hand to stop him or any of his men, as long as Thorkhild held the Starsword above his head.
And now the song the Starsword sang seemed to take on words … strange, outlandish words that neither Erik nor any of his men could understand.
‘Hurry!’ cried Thorkhild, ‘I cannot hold this fire in my hand any longer!’ And Sven the Strong redoubled his efforts, threading his way through the fallen giants. Several times he stumbled and almost fell beneath his load, but he managed to keep going, until – just as they had reached the last of the prostrate monsters – Thorkhild gave a cry, and let go of the Starsword. Whereupon it flew out of his hand, and the vibration and the music stopped abruptly. And the moment it did so, the giant creatures stirred, and one by one they began to raise themselves up, and started to gaze around by the light of the Starsword as it hung in the air above them. For a moment it burnt even brighter than the sun, but then it began to flicker and fade, until it became but a glowing ember, which shot across the sky like a shooting star, and then disappeared over the distant horizon.
Erik and his men made their way after it as swiftly as ever they could, and behind them they heard the half-blinded giants blundering about in the darkness. And so, before the creatures could stop them, the comrades regained their ship, Golden Dragon, and had soon put a mile of water between themselves and the land where the sun goes at night.
Then Erik called his men together and held a council of war. Some said they should turn back and fight, and some said they should keep going and leave the land where the sun goes at night far behind them.
‘We have found the prize that we have been seeking so long,’ said Sven the Strong. ‘We cannot give it up without a fight!’
‘But however can we defeat an enemy so monstrous and so numerous?’ cried Gunnar Longshanks, and some of Erik’s men murmured in agreement, and cast fearful glances towards the land that now lay on the horizon.
Then Ragnar Forkbeard stood up and held aloft the golden moon that he had carried all the way back. ‘Look!’ he said, and he took hold of the moon, and pulled the two horns of the crescent so that it suddenly opened up.
Erik and his men crowded round to see what wonderful thing could be held in such a precious container. But when they looked into it, all they could see was earth.
‘Wait!’ said Ragnar Forkbeard, and he took a barleycorn from the ship’s stores, and pushed it into the earth, and at once a tall blade of barley shot up and was ripe and ready for cutting. ‘A land that holds such riches as this earth is not to be given up without a struggle. Are we all turned cowards that we are ready to give up the very thing we have been seeking, merely because we shall have to fight for it?’
At these words, the rest of Erik’s men hung their heads in shame, and Erik said, ‘There is only one way we can defeat such an enemy and gain such a prize …’ and he turned to Thorkhild who had stood by silent all this while.
‘Thorkhild!’ he said. ‘You have not spoken, and you can often see things that others cannot, whether your eyes see them or no. Tell us: how can we regain the Starsword to help us to win this land?’
Thorkhild heaved a sigh, and replied, ‘I do not know where the Starsword is to be found, and even if I did, I would dread to use it in this quest, for I fear that the Starsword would slay us before ever it helped us to win this land.’
‘What do you mean?’ cried Erik. ‘Has it not already helped us?’
Then Thorkhild turned his blind eyes towards Erik, and said, ‘It helped us to escape, but as I held the Starsword it burnt in my hands like fire, and its vibrations swept through my body and through my soul, and it seemed as if it were speaking to me through its song, and I could understand every word.’
‘And what was the Starsword’s song?’ asked Erik.
‘Its song was a warning,’ said Thorkhild, ‘that we are all as blind as I am now if we think of nothing but of possessing that land, and cannot see our true goal.’
‘But surely! This is our true goal!’ cried Erik’s men.
‘Not if the Starsword’s song was true,’ replied Thorkhild, ‘for it sang of the deeds men do and the knowledge that those deeds are good – not of lands nor riches:
“Our deeds are our gold,
Our quest is our goal”
– these were its words.’
‘I do not understand,’ said Erik, ‘for in our search we have been through many adventures – you and I and Ragnar Forkbeard and Sven the Strong and all the rest, and there has been courage unheard of and feats of arms, and always we have tried to do our best and to do that which is right – even though at times it has been hard to know what that was.’
‘Perhaps this is such a time,’ replied Thorkhild, and he turned his blind face towards the black night across the sea and went on, ‘Those monstrous creatures were indeed hideous to behold, and more terrible than any foe we have met before, and yet that does not make it right for us to kill them or to steal their land away from them.’
‘But they would have killed us, if we had not defended ourselves first!’ cried Erik.
‘Who are we to say?’ replied Thorkhild. ‘For what was terrible roaring in our ears may have been words of friendship in their mouths. And for all we know that first awful creature, when it stretched out its fist above us may have been offering us a gift of friendship instead of threatening us … may have been giving us the golden moon, only we were too frightened to see.’
And Thorkhild put out his hands, and Ragnar Forkbeard placed the golden moon in them, and Thorkhild plucked the ear of barley and scattered its grains to the wind. As he did so, the seagulls that followed in the wake of the ship, pecked them out of the air, and at once turned into stars that flew up into the heavens, and became a constellation shaped like a woman, calling them across the seas.
Then Erik stood up, on board Golden Dragon, and said, ‘We have been to the land where the sun goes at night … I may sleep in my bed again. But in finding that land, we almost lost ourselves. It is indeed a wonderful place, but this moonful of earth is all of it to which we have a right and all of it that we shall take.’
And with that, they set the sail of Golden Dragon towards home.
THE LAST TRiCK
LONG AND WEARY was that last voyage of Golden Dragon. And many a time Erik and his men thought their last hours had come, what with giant waves and tempests and monsters of the deep. And many a time they wished themselves back safe on the shores of home.
But one morning, as dawn was breaking, they heard the look-out cry: ‘Land ahead!’ And they all crowded to the prow of Golden Dragon, and peered into the sea breeze, and there – sure enough – was a land of snow-capped mountains on the horizon.
‘We are home!’ cri
ed Erik, and his men cheered, and they threw their helmets into the air. But before a single helmet had returned to the hand that threw it, they heard a noise of rushing water, and they looked to port and saw the sea rushing past them in the direction they were going.
‘What is happening?’ cried Erik’s men. ‘The sea is overtaking us!’
And just then they found themselves caught up in a headlong rush of waters, and suddenly the ship was being dragged away from the land, and they looked beyond and saw the sea rushing back in the opposite direction, and they realised it was swirling them round and round, and faster and faster they went in a circle.
‘It’s a whirlpool!’ cried Erik. ‘The Old Man of the Sea has not finished playing his tricks on us yet!’
And as they clung to the deck and the sea swung them around faster and faster, the centre of the whirlpool grew black and started to drop away below them, so that the ship Golden Dragon was now on a vertical wall of sea, being swept round and round.
Erik and his men clung on as best they could, and their hearts filled with despair, for they had seen their homeland on the horizon, only to be snatched away to face again the terrors of the deep. And Erik looked over the side of Golden Dragon and peered down into the depths of the whirlpool, which now was sucking them down as they span faster and faster. And he saw the terrible blackness of the deep, as the whirlpool opened up wider and wider, and the funnel of water seemed to stretch for a mile below them. Still they spiralled down and down, and not one of them dared look up to see the frightful walls of water above them. Still the whirlpool yawned wider, until Ragnar Forkbeard gave a shout, and there was the sea-bed itself … the bottom of the ocean, exposed to the eye of day for the very first time!
‘We have seen our home and the bottom of the sea in the space of time it takes an arrow to fly from the bowstring to the bull’s-eye,’ murmured Erik. ‘Let us pray for some miracle that will take us back as quickly – for this time I do not know what else there is that we can do.’