Odinn's Child

by Tim Severin

  Despite Thorvall's enthusiasm for Thor — and my boyhood respect for the tough hunter — I still preferred Odinn. I savoured the idea of creeping about in disguise, picking up intelligence, observing and manipulating. Like all children, I liked to eavesdrop on the adults and try to learn their secrets, and when I did so and stood hidden behind a door or a pillar, I would close one eye in imitation of my one-eyed hero God. Also, if my foster mother had searched under my mattress she would have found a square of cloth I had hidden there. I was pretending it was Skidbladnir, Odinn's magic ship, which received a favourable wind whenever it was launched and could carry all the Aesir, fully armed, yet when Odinn no longer needed it, he could fold it up and tuck it in his pocket.

  Several years later, when I was in my teens, it slowly dawned on me that I myself might be a part of Odinn's grand design. By then it seemed that the path of my life was increasingly directed by the All-Father's whim, and whenever possible I paid him homage, not only by prayer and secret sacrifice, but also by imitation. That is one reason why, as a callow youth, I sought to become a poet, because it was Odinn, disguised as an eagle, who stole the mead of this night, and tomorrow afternoon I believe I will be able to reply to your question.'

  There was a general sigh of despondency. Those who lived close enough to be able to walk to their homes through the dark left the building. The others bedded down for the night in Herjolf s hall and waited anxiously for the long, slow spread of dawn, which comes so late at that season that the light begins to fade almost as soon it reaches the earth.

  The next afternoon, when the audience had reassembled, a hitch arose. The Sibyl unexpectedly declared that she needed the help of an assistant. She required someone to sing the proper seidr chants as her spirit began to leave her body. The chants would help free her spirit to start on its journey to the otherworld. There was consternation. The Sibyl had never requested an assistant before. Herjolf turned to face the crowd and appealed to everyone in the hall — if anyone could help, please would they step forward. His appeal was met with silence. The Sibyl sat on her high seat, blinking and peering down impatiently. Herjolf repeated his appeal, and to everyone's surprise Gudrid stepped forward quietly. 'Do you know any seidr?' Herjolf asked in astonishment. Gudrid's own father, Thorbjorn, must have been equally startled. He was gaping with surprise. 'Yes,' replied Gudrid quietly. 'When I was a foster child in Iceland to my father's friends Orm and Halldis, it was Halldis who taught me the warlock songs. If Halldis were here today, she would do it better, but I think I can remember all the words.' The Little Sibyl gave a sceptical grunt, and beckoned Gudrid close to her. She leaned over and must have asked the young woman to say a sacred verse to test her because Gudrid sang some refrain in a voice so low that no one could make out more than a few words, most of which seemed to be in some strange sort of language. The Sibyl nodded curtly, then settled back on her cushion.

  At that point Gudrid's father, Thorbjorn, normally very easygoing, broke in. 'I'm not having my daughter involved in any witchcraft,' he announced loudly. 'That's a dangerous game. Once started, no one knows where it will end.'

  'I'm neither a witch, nor a seeress, but if it will help our situation I am prepared to take part,' Gudrid told him firmly.

  Thorbjorn took this rebuff badly, turned on his heel and pushed his way out of the crowd and left the building, muttering that at least he would not have to witness his daughter's disgrace.

  'The spirits are still wary and obscure to me,' the Sibyl said after a short silence when the audience had settled down. 'They must be calmed and called to attend us.' She gestured to Gudrid, who exchanged glances with several of the farmers' wives. As their husbands looked either curious or uncomfortable, these women pushed through the crowd, and under Gudrid's instructions formed a small circle. There were perhaps half a dozen women facing inwards, Gudrid standing in the centre. As the crowd hushed, she began to sing the words of the warlock song. She had a high clear voice and sang without any trace of embarrassment. The women around her began to sway quietly to the rhythm of the voice, then their hands reached out and joined, and their circle began slowly to shuffle sideways, the direction of their rotation against the sun. Husbands and sons looked on, half-fearful and half-amazed. This was woman's work, something that few of the menfolk had ever guessed. Gudrid sang on, verse after verse, and the older women, softly at first, then more loudly, began to echo the refrain. To some of the audience the songs seemed at times like a lullaby that they had heard as children, though only Gudrid appeared to know all the verses and when to change the rhythms. She sang without a tremor until finally her voice died away, the women slipped back into the crowd and the volva looked down at Gudrid. 'I congratulate you,' she announced. "Whoever taught you, taught you well, and the spirits have responded. I can feel them now, assembling around us and ready to carry my spirit to the Gods.'

  She beckoned Gudrid to stand closer and began to croon softly. Gudrid must have recognised the chant, for she began to respond, catching the refrain, repeating the stanzas, changing a line, adding a line. Back and forth went the chant between the two women, their voices weaving together, and the volva began to rock back and forth in her chair. Then the words made a circle on themselves. There were repetitions and long pauses. People in the crowd began to shuffle their feet, glance at one another, then turn their gaze back to the blue-cloaked figure on its high seat. Not a person left the hall. Finally, after a little more than half an hour, the Sibyl's voice slowed. Gudrid, still standing beside her, seemed to sense that her role was at an end. The volva's head sank forward on her chest, and she appeared to be both awake and asleep. For a long moment nothing happened, and then very slowly the volva raised her head and looked straight down the crowded room. She nodded to Gudrid, and Gudrid quietly walked back to the edge of the crowd of onlookers, turned and faced the Little Sibyl.

  Herjolf cleared his throat with a nervous cough. 'Can you tell us the answer to the question we all ask?' he said. The volva's reply was matter of fact. 'Yes, my dream was clear and cloudless. My spirit circled up through the air and I saw ice breaking in the fjord. I saw the first signs of new grass even though the migrating birds had not yet come to feed and prepare their nesting sites. The air was warm around me though the day was still short. Spring will come very early this year and your trials will finish within a few days. The hunger you are suffering will be at an end and no one else will die. You have put your trust in the Gods, and you will be rewarded.'

  Unexpectedly the volva turned towards Gudrid and spoke directly to her. 'And for you,' she said, 'I also have a prophecy. My spirit messengers were so charmed by your seidr knowledge and the songs you sang that they have brought me news of your destiny. I can now reward you for the help you have given me. You are fated to make a distinguished marriage here in Greenland, but it will not last for long. Rather, I see how all your links lead you towards Iceland and its peoples. In that land you will give rise to an illustrious family line and, through its people, you will attain an enduring renown.'

  TYRKIR CAME TO the end of his story.

  'So you see, Thorgils,' he said, 'that's why Thorvall thought, when you imitated the hopping One Foot in your game, that you might have inherited seidr skill, the power of spirit flight, through your foster mother. Gudrid herself could be a skilful volva, if only she did not consort so much with White Christ fanatics.'.

  I knew what Tyrkir meant. Ever since Gudrid had come back from Lyusfjord, she had been spending time with Leif’s wife Gyda, a zealous Christian. The two women were often seen visiting the White Rabbit Hutch together. Tyrkir and Thorvall found it worrying that someone so gifted with the skills and knowledge of the Old Ways was drifting towards the newfangled Christian beliefs. Gudrid's interest in Christianity shook their own faith in the Old Gods, and they felt uneasy. They did not realise, as I do now, that the underlying truth is that good pagans make good Christians and vice versa. The choice of religion is less important than the talents of the person who is
involved. The same is true of generals and politicians, as I have noticed during my travels. I have seen that it makes no difference whether an outstanding military commander is clad only in skins and painted woad, or in a gilded helmet and a beautifully tailored uniform of Persian silk as worn by the horse-warriors of the kingdom between the two great rivers. The martial genius is identical, and the brilliant, decisive reaction to the moment is the same whatever the dress. Similarly with politicians. I have listened to speeches delivered at a flea-infested tribal council meeting held around a guttering campfire in a bare forest glade which, if prettified with a few well-polished phrases, could have been the same as I heard from a conclave of the highly trained and perfumed advisers to the Basileus. I am talking about Christ's supposed representative on earth when he sits on his gilded throne in a chamber banded with porphyry and pretends that he is the incarnation of a thousand years of learning and refined civilisation.

  The saddest aspect of Gudrid's drift towards the White Christ ways, now that I look back on it, is what a waste it proved to be. My foster mother would have made a truly remarkable priestess of the Old Ways if she had preferred to study under the Little Sibyl. For it is a striking feature of the old beliefs - and it would appal the monks around me if they knew - that the majority of its chief experts were women. There are fifteen different words in the Norse language to describe the various female specialisms in seidr, but fewer than half that number of words for male practitioners. Even Odinn the shape-changer has a strong element of the female about him, and you wonder about his enthusiasm for disguising himself as a woman. By contrast the White Christ expects his leading proponents to be male and women are excluded from their inner priesthood. Thus Gudrid diminished her horizons on the day she formally professed the faith of the White Christ. If she had followed the Old Ways she could have been respected and influential and helped those among whom she lived. But as a devout and saintly Christian she was finally obliged to become an anchoress and live on her own. However, that brings me far ahead of my story . . .

  Thorvall and Tyrkir tried their best to make me understand that unless the Old Ways continued to be practised, they would soon be submerged by the advancing tide of White Christ beliefs. The speed with which the White Christ faith had taken hold in Iceland alarmed my tutors, and they feared that the same would happen in Greenland. 'I don't know how the White Christ people can claim to be peaceful and gentle,' said Thorvall sourly. 'The first missionary they sent to Iceland was a ruffian named Thang-brand. He swaggered about the countryside browbeating the farmers into taking his faith, and when he was teased about his crazy ideas, he lost his temper and killed two Icelanders in fights. To try to control him, a meeting was arranged between him and a learned volva at which the two of them would debate the merits of their beliefs. The volva made Thangbrand look an utter fool. He felt so humiliated that he took ship for Norway, and the volva proved her worth by asking Thor to send a storm, which nearly sank his ship on his journey home.

  'The Icelanders were far too easy-going,' Tyrkir added. "When the missionaries came back to Iceland some years later and began their preaching all over again, the farmers had no more stomach for the endless debates and quarrels between those who decided to take the new faith and those who wanted to stay with the old ways. They got so fed up that their delegates met at the Althing with instructions to ask the Lawspeaker to come up with a solution. He went off, sat down and pulled his cloak over his head, and thought about it for nearly a day. Then he climbed up on the Law Rock and announced that it would be less bother if everyone accepted the new religion as a formality, but that anyone who wanted to keep with the Old Ways could do so.

  'We completely failed to see that the White · Christ people would never give up until they had grabbed everyone. We were quite happy to live side by side with other beliefs; we never presumed to think that our ideas were the only correct ones. We made the mistake of thinking that the White Christ was just another God who would be welcomed in among all the other Gods and would coexist with them peaceably. How wrong we were.'

  Inevitably, my education in paganism was patchy. Thorvall and Tyrkir often confused folklore with religion, but in the end it did not matter much. I soaked up the welter of information they gave me. Tyrkir, for example, showed me my first runes, cutting the rune staves on small flat laths of wood and making me learn his futhark, the rune alphabet, by heart. He taught me also to read the staves with my eyes shut, running my fingers over the scratches and translating them in my mind. 'It's a skill that can come in handy,' he said, 'when you want to exchange information secretly, or simply when the message is so old and worn that you cannot see it with the naked eye.' I tried hard to repay my tutors by having significant dreams which they could interpret. But I found that such dreams do not come on demand. First you have to study the complex paths of the Old Ways, and then you must know how to enter them, sometimes with the help of drugs or self-mortification. I was still too young for that, and I was reluctant to approach my foster mother to ask about her seidr knowledge because she was growing more Christian by the day, and I was uncertain if she would approve of my growing interest in the Elder Faith.

  Besides, that next winter Gudrid was distracted by much more down-to-earth events. Her father, old Thorbjorn, had died not long after our return from Lyusfjord, and Gudrid, as his only surviving child, had inherited everything. Next, Thorstein the Black announced that he would not return to the farm in Lyusfjord. He felt it was an unlucky spot for him and he did not feel like starting there all over again as it would mean finding a new partner to help run the farm. So by January he had found a buyer to purchase the farm as it stood, paying him in instalments, and this meant he could reimburse Gudrid for her deceased husband's share. The result was that Gudrid, who was still without a child of her own, still beautiful, still young, was now a wealthy woman. No one was much surprised when, within a year of being made a widow, my glamorous foster mother was approached by an eligible new suitor and that she agreed to his proposal of marriage. What did surprise everyone was that her husband announced soon afterwards that he was fitting out a ship to travel to Vinland and establish a new and permanent settlement at the same spot where the two Eriksson brothers, Leif and Thorvald, had previously set their hopes.

  SEVEN

  WHY DID GUDRID'S new husband, Thorfinn Karlsefhi, decide to try his luck in far-off Vinland? Partly, I think, because he felt he owed a debt of honour to my father, Leif. By Norse custom, when a man wishes to marry, he first seeks formal permission from the bride's senior male relation. In Gudrid's case this was Leif and he readily agreed to the match. When Leif suggested the Vinland project to Thorfinn soon afterwards, I believe that Thorfinn, who had an old-fashioned sense of family loyalty, felt that he should take up the project. Leif still believed that Vinland could be a new and prosperous colony for the Greenlanders and, though he was too busy as head of the family at Brattahlid to go there himself, he did everything he could to support the new venture. He offered Thorfinn the loan of the houses he had built there, which were technically still his property, as well as the help of several key members from his own household. Among them were my two secret tutors - Thorvall the Hunter and Tyrkir the Smith - and two slaves Leif had acquired on the same fateful voyage which brought him to my mother's bed in Orkney.

  I had always been curious about Haki and Hekja because I saw them as a link to my own enigmatic past. They were husband and wife, or that is what everyone took for granted. On the other hand, they may have had no choice but to live together as a couple since fate had thrown them together. They had been captured in a viking raid somewhere on the Scottish coast and shipped to Norway, where, like Tyrkir, they were put up for sale in the slave market at Kaupang. One of King Olaf Tryggvason's liegemen bought them as a pair. He presumed the two captives were Christians and thought that he could get into the good graces of his king if he made a gift of them to his monarch. King Tryggvason could then gain public credit and reputation by giving
the two slaves their freedom. To their owner's dismay, it turned out that Haki and Hekja were not Christians at all, but adherents of some pagan belief so obscure that no one had any idea what their mutterings and incantations meant. Olaf kept them at his court for only a few months, but the two Scots showed no aptitude for household work. They were only happy when they were out on some high moor or open fell that reminded them of their homeland. So when my father Leif visited the court, the Norwegian king got the two seemingly useless slaves off his hands by presenting them to Leif with the remark that he hoped that one day he would find some use for these two 'wild Scots', as he put it, whose only skill seemed to be how swiftly they could run across open country. Leif found the perfect work for Haki and Hekja as soon as he got back to Greenland. The couple made excellent sheep and cattle herders. They would spend each summer on the farthest heath lands, where they made themselves temporary shelters by thatching over natural hollows with branches and dried grass. Here they lived snugly like summer hares in a form, a resemblance enhanced by their extraordinary speed on foot. They could run down a stray sheep with ease, and they were particularly valuable when it came to chasing wayward animals during the autumn drive, when the livestock had to be brought down from the hinterland and put into the winter barns. For the rest of the year they busied themselves with odd jobs round the farm, where I used to watch them surreptitiously, wondering if my mother with her Irish blood had possessed the same mixture of fair skin and dark hair, and I tried without much success to understand the words that passed between the two Scots in their guttural, rippling language.