Odin's Child

Iceland AD 1029

1

The Stallion Fight at Thingholt

On that morning in May, as we rode to the stallion fight at Thingholt, my fate was revealed to me. A raven flew low across the sky into the rising sun, and the moment I saw it I knew Odin had spoken to me and that he would give me the courage to do what I had already secretly made up my mind to do. Only now, half a century later, do I see what a long text was folded into that swift vision.

The spring of my sixteenth year had come early to the South Quarter of Iceland, with days hot and cold, and thunderclouds sweeping up over the mountains. The stallions, smelling the air, trembled and kicked against their stalls. If you staked out a mare where the stallions could smell her, they would fight like berserkers to get at her. The great ones would die before they broke and ran.

Black Grani was such a one. This was his fourth spring and the time had come to take him to the South Quarter Thing and fight him. Thorvald, my father, grumbled and held back, but I gave him no peace, until, at last, he flung up an arm, which meant yes.

My brother Gunnar and I set out early from the farm that day, and it was nigh dusk before we came in sight of Thingholt plain and heard the distant shouts of men and the whinnying of horses. We left Grani and our mounts at the horse lines and walked across the sparse heath into the holiday crowd. And as we pushed our way through, there were some who knew us. A few old men came up and in low voices asked to be remembered to our father. But one red-faced woman, seeing us, cried, Jesu! and dragged her little daughter from our path.

Gunnar—six years older than me and as reckless as he was handsome—stopped short, favored her with his wickedest grin and purred, I’ve eaten my breakfast today, housewife, or wouldn’t I just love a bite of your fat girl! Now, my black-headed brother here, who is greedier than I….

The woman elbowed herself out of our way. Some, standing near, laughed, though others eyed us coldly and shook their heads.

I’ve too sharp a tongue in my head, Gunnar allowed to no one in particular. It’s my single fault.

Ahead of us a crowd gathered for the horse fights. We worked our way to the front until the clearing lay before us, a haze of dust hanging over trampled grass. At the edge, the mares were tethered, while in the center two farmers, stripped to the waist and backed by a knot of shouting friends, shoved and goaded their snorting stallions into battle. It was a good match and we watched, shouting with the rest, until the loser, foam-flecked and streaked with blood, charged into the crowd, scattering spectators to right and left. Winning horse and master both threw back their heads and cried victory.

In the days before the White Christ, the winning horse would have been sacrificed to Frey, whose horse’s prick fertilizes the fields, and the meat cut up and sold to the folk to eat. Christian priests put a stop to that, but they were too shrewd to make us give up our sport entirely.

While pieces of silver changed hands and horns of ale went round, Gunnar fingered his yellow beard and looked over the crowd for a likely competitor.

I will goad Grani. I had waited for this moment to speak.

Maybe next year, Tangle-Hair, he answered, not looking at me. When you’ve got more size on you. You’ll get yourself trampled.

Our younger sister had given me the nickname ‘Tangle-Hair’, as well as ‘Black-Brows’ and ‘Half-Troll’ and several others. Our father resembled a black bull—short, thick, and dark. Not handsome according to the taste of our people. And I was the image of him, black and shaggy-haired from birth. How much did I resemble him beneath the skin? That question gnawed like a worm in my belly.

Gunnar, I said, I goad him or no one does.

My skin was cold. What Gunnar could do smiling, I did with teeth clenched. That was the difference between us.

That’s not how you put it to Father.

Not even to my brother could I confess the real reason. I could scarce admit it to myself. We fixed our eyes on each other. I would know today, I swore to myself, whether my father’s blood—the blood that gave me his looks and his temper—had also infected me with his sickness. I would master my fear today or die. I didn’t mind which.

If it goes badly, you’ll face him by yourself.

I know.

I oughtn’t to let you. But then he smiled. I hope Grani knows what to do because it’s certain as rain and fire you don’t. Just promise me you won’t lose your temper, it’ll only worry the horse.

While he went back to fetch Grani, I drew a long breath and stepped into the circle to yell my challenge. This was the first time I had put myself forward in a group of strange men. I had a lump like a fist in my throat and hardly recognized my own strangulated voice. In answer there was only a little laughter and scattered shouts of Brave boy! Then anger welled up in me and I cried out, Odd Thorvaldsson does not leave this circle with his horse un-fought!

For a long moment, nothing. Then a stir in the crowd. Hold on! Hold on! Some jumped aside and others turned to look as a man thrust his way through from the rear. He launched himself toward me across the open space.

Don’t burst your lungs, boy, Hrut Ivarsson still has one good ear left to hear you with!

There was laughter from the crowd at this joke, which he acknowledged with a wave of his arm.

I knew who he was. Even to our remote farmstead, the story had made its way of how this man Hrut had got his ear torn off in a brawl last Yule Feast. Strife-Hrut, as his neighbors called him, was a bully who couldn’t enter a strange hall without starting a fight and who never paid blood money for his killings, though he was plenty rich enough. He farmed down on the Whitewater, near the coast, and spent a part of each summer over the sea, trading in his own ship.

He thrust his face at me—red and meaty, with small eyes, and a scrappy beard. He grinned, showing broken front teeth, and said, I’ve a roan stallion, ugly as me and less good-natured, that I’ll match with yours for the stakes of a silver ounce. He pulled a bit of hack-silver from his purse and waved it under my nose. And seeing as you’re only a young’un, my boy Mord, that isn’t much bigger ’n what you are, will goad him.

He had two sons, Mord and Brand, who had followed him into the circle and stood behind him now, one to either side. Both of them were closer to Gunnar’s age than to mine and no prettier to look at than their father.

Mind you, Hrut tapped my chest with a thick forefinger, I take up your challenge out of kind regards for Thorvald, for I know whose son you are. He had a shrewd head and a heavy hand once upon a time, and I call it a shame he keeps himself so close nowadays. It was meant as a sneer and was said loud enough for many to hear.

He has his reasons, I said.

I expect he does.

With a nod to his sons, Strife-Hrut went off to round up his horse. A moment later, Gunnar appeared at my side, grim-faced.

Tangle-Hair, these are men who don’t like to lose. They’d sooner kill a horse—or his driver.

What would you have me do?

In Christ’s name, Odd, let me handle the horse. Whenever Gunnar swore by Christ it was as if to say, Our mother would ask this.

Give me the goad, I said.

They were coming back now, leading their scarred animal, the survivor of many a fight, and the crowd gave them room, for the horse was sidestepping and his ears were flat against his head. I laid aside my sword belt and tunic and picked up the iron-pronged club, while Gunnar, with his hands tight on Grani’s halter, brought him to the edge of the clearing. The moment Grani saw the roan, his lips drew back over his teeth and he rolled his eyes like a battle-mad berserker.

He won’t need the goad, Gunnar shouted over the noise of the crowd. Keep close and let him hear your voice. That’s all he wants.

Round and round the stallions circled each other in the dusty ring, lashing out with their hoofs, thrusting with their necks, snorting with the same sound that the earth makes when it steams and heaves beneath our feet. And I, with the choking dust and the hot reek of horseflesh in my nostrils, danced alongside Grani, shouting his name and rushing in to throw myself against his flank as he charged.

We fought like brothers, he and I, side by side, the same blood, foam, and sweat soaking us both. The battle-joy rose in my throat and swept me up so that I had scarcely a mind left with which to tell myself, You have conquered fear—the sickness hasn’t touched you.

Hrut’s horse was a fierce biter and soon Grani was bleeding from his face and neck. But his strength began to tell against the roan. He drove his foe back on his haunches and, rearing up, lashed him with his fore-hoofs. Mord used his goad frantically, raking his animal’s back until long ribbons of blood ran down its flanks. His brother Brand rushed in, too, to throw his weight against the beast and the two of them shoved and flailed and swore, but the roan had no heart left in him. Wide-eyed with fear, he shied away, tumbling Brand over in the dust.

One more time, Grani! I shouted.

Then Mord raised his arm. I saw what he was going to do and I tried to throw myself in his way—too late! The goad went up and came slashing down at Grani’s head. My beautiful stallion rose on his hind legs and wheeled round, showing only a red well where his eye had been. In the same motion he struck me on the brow with his fore-hoof, knocking me down, and with a scream of terror and pain plunged through the crowd.

The next thing I remember, Gunnar was holding me up under the arms, wiping the blood from my eyes with a strip of his tunic. Together we stumbled after Grani. A dozen men held him down by his head and legs as he writhed in the dirt. What happened after that comes to my mind now only in sharp splinters of memory: my brother forcing my fingers around the haft of a spear, his mouth working, saying that the horse must not live mutilated, the spear shuddering in my fist, sinking deep, until half its length was buried in Grani’s chest, and his hot blood spurting over my hands.

A good sacrifice, said someone in the crowd who was of the old religion. Frey is glad of him.

I pressed my face against Grani’s neck, letting my blood and his run together, until Gunnar pulled me away. There is a reckoning, he said.

Followed by the crowd, we walked back to the clearing. There Hrut and his sons with four of their hirelings stood close together, looking truculent and just a little frightened. There was a numbing pain in my forehead over the right eye. My legs barely held me up.

Stay behind me, ordered my brother.

He was holding the goad—I suppose he had pried it from my hand—and, without a word, he went straight for Mord. Quick as a cat he swung it, aiming for the eye, and Mord let out a howl and fell to the ground. Instantly, the rest of them had their swords out. We would have died there and then if bystanders hadn’t rushed between us, throwing their cloaks over the blades and pushing us in opposite directions.

Next moment, there came a shout to make way. Hjalti the Strong, big and barrel-chested, shouldered his way into our midst and roared for quiet. He was the godi of Tjorsariverdale, a respected and powerful man.

He stamped his foot and glared around him. Devil skin him, he would stand for no brawling at his Thing. If folk couldn’t enjoy a simple horse-fight without falling to blows, then damn him if he wouldn’t see it all put a stop to!

But Hrut appealed to the crowd to pity his boy that was all bloodied and who knew but what he was blinded for life.

Hold! cried Hjalti. Enough! The harm’s equal for both. Mord’s wound for the horse’s. No blood money owed on either side, nor any more blows to be struck, or you’ll have me to deal with. Agreed? It wasn’t a question.

He looked to us. Gunnar, after a long moment, let the goad drop from his hand. Agreed, he said between his teeth.

Hjalti looked to Strife-Hrut. Hrut said nothing, but he and his men turned their backs and stalked off, dragging Mord behind them.

Well if he murders you, confided Hjalti, watching them go, it’ll be flat against the law.

Hjalti-godi was renowned for his keen legal mind.

The crowd began to drift away, except for a few who approached us and asked quietly if they might buy a haunch or a side of Grani to take home for their table, the horse having so much strength in him, and bugger the priest that didn’t like it.

I walked apart and let them bargain with Gunnar. I hadn’t the heart for it.

When he came back he threw an arm around my shoulder. You want to stay a bit? he asked. Watch the wrestling, stone-lifting? Listen to the lawsuits?

I shook my head, no.

"Not anxious to go home and deal with him, are you?"

He must be told, Gunnar. And maybe he’ll see what fate lies ahead of us—the feud, if there is one. He has the gift, you know he does.

Gunnar spat and ground the spittle into the dirt with his boot. Much good it does him.

2

Black Thorvald

We spoke little going home. Sullen clouds heavy with rain hid the sun, and a cold mist gathered in the hollows and low places along our way, creeping into our bones, although we huddled deep in our cloaks. The lump from Grani’s hoof oozed blood and throbbed. But the real pain was in my heart. They haven’t paid enough, I thought, not enough for Grani’s life, whatever Hjalti-godi says.

We reached the top of the ridge overlooking our home-field. The sun was sinking below the horizon draining the light from the sky. We gazed down at the silver ribbon of the Ranga, swift-flowing with the water of glaciers. Beyond the river rose Hekla’s snowy peak, a plume of smoke drifting up from its cone. Between the river and the volcano’s barren flank lay our farmstead – good land, although far from the coast and out of the way of travelers.

As we splashed across the ford, our grass-green house came into view. Long and low and walled with turf, it looked not so much built upon the ground as sprouted from it. A cow shed and stable joined the hall at one end, sheep pens ran along one side, and nearby were the smithy, the hay barn, and the thralls’ cabins—the sum total of our estate.

Because no freeborn tenant or hired man would stay on the place, we were forced to rely on the grudging labor of thralls. Two of them, idling outside the door, looked up when they heard us coming. If they noticed the absence of Grani, they gave no sign. We gave them our horses to stable and, stooping through the doorway, passed into the dim space within. The fuggy chill seemed to follow us inside and, as always when the air was damp, a haze of peat smoke filled the room, unable to find its way out through the smoke hole.

Before we took another step, Gunnar’s new-wed wife, Vigdis, ran to us, kissed him, and thrust his little son into his arms. While he gave him a squeeze and a toss, she eyed us anxiously.

Jorunn Ship-Breast, she called over her shoulder, there’s been trouble. Odd is hurt.

My mother’s head appeared through the doorway of the weaving room. She covered the length of the hall with swift strides.

Odd, what have you done to yourself?

She started to put her hand to my head but Gunnar got between us and told her I had been bloodied like a man and needed no women to fuss over me. She took a step back. Gunnar was her darling, he had that sort of influence with her.

What has happened, Odd?

Mother, you’ll hear it all when he does. He must be told first.

Gunnar and I strode down the hall and stopped before the smoke-blackened pillars of his high-seat. Thorvald’s rings and chains glowed dully in the pale light of the hearth-fire and his shadow trembled large on the wall behind him. Always he sat so in the evenings: silent, frowning at his knees while the life of the house flowed quietly past him as water in a stream laps the stone.

Only his hands had life. In one he held a knife, in the other a stick of kindling, planed smooth on its sides. For hours at a time he would bend over such a stick, working slowly along its length, carving the runes, which are Odin’s gift to men. First, he would cut the long uprights, then add the hooks and cross-strokes until all sixteen letters of the futhark were complete. And always, while he carved, he mumbled in a low singsong their names: Fe … Ur … Thurs … Ass … Reid … Kaun … Hagall … Nauth … Iss … Ar … Sol … Tyr … Bjarkan … Mathr … Logr … Yr. When he was done, he would fill up the empty spaces that remained with interlocking spirals and twining serpents until every bit of the stick was minutely covered.

If this was magic, it got him nothing. He neither prayed nor cursed as he carved; only the act itself absorbed him. When he was done, he would throw the thing into the fire, choose another stick, and begin again.

Gunnar and I stood waiting to be noticed until, finally, I spoke his name. Only then did he raise his eyes—dark, deep-set eyes under sweeping black brows like the wings of a raven.

You’ve an unlucky look about you, boy. Ignoring Gunnar, he looked straight at me.

I said, Grani is dead and we’re at feud with Strife-Hrut Ivarsson. I added the circumstances short and plain. While he listened, the corners of his mouth drew downward and the furrow between his eyes deepened. A vein, like a twisting worm, pulsed at his temple.

I waited, tense with expectation, hoping to hear the words that would send us into battle. His knife-blade bit deep into the stick; a sliver of wood flew at me.

You! he snarled. You would plague me about the horse. O, you brave Stallion-Fighter, don’t you know men like Hrut Ivarsson grow fat from feuding with their neighbors? You gave him his opening—I blame you for whatever happens now.

Gunnar started to defend me.

Shut up! Thorvald shouted him down. You think I haven’t seen it? Three nights ago in my sleep—twelve riders approached a desolate house and entered it. Inside were women standing before a loom—the Norns. Men’s heads were their loom-weights, guts were their weft and warp, a sword their beater, their shuttle an arrow. While they worked they sang a bloody song.

He sank back in his seat and passed his hand over his eyes. He had visions often—though never one I could recall as gruesome as this.

Husband, dreams are sent by the Devil to delude us. My mother had come up behind us while he spoke.

D’you think so? Did the foreign priests teach you that? Well … he began in a truculent tone but seemed to shrink under her steady gaze and an uncertain look crept into his eyes. … well, anyway, here it ends. We’ll not feud with Strife-Hrut. No, not for all the stallions in Iceland. Now leave me in peace.

My chest ached so I could scarcely breathe. At least we weren’t cowards!

The word burst from me—I had never dared say it aloud before. There was a long moment’s silence. Then the hand that held the rune-stick lashed out and struck me across the forehead where my wound was. My knees gave way and only Gunnar’s grip on my arm kept me from falling.

"Coward? To me? Say that again, boy, and I’ll have the lungs out of you! If it shames you to live in my hall, then go to sea and earn your bread with your spear as I once did. You’ll soon have your belly full of fighting. But while you eat my bread, you’ll take my orders. There will be no feud. Just as I have done these thirty years, I’ll have naught to do with Strife-Hrut or any of the rest of ’em. And almost to himself he added, You know why."

All the world knew why.

Twenty-nine years before, when Iceland became a Christian country, Black Thorvald, alone of the forty-eight godis, had refused to accept the new faith.

It happened this way. Missionaries came from Norway; in particular a man named Thangbrand of Saxony. At first, the people laughed at him, but Thangbrand frightened them with stories that the world was soon to end in fire and the dead rise from their tombs, for it was nearing the thousandth year, he said, since the birth of the White Christ. This Thangbrand was a fighter, too. He attacked some who disputed him and killed three or four—one, a famous berserker, whom he beat to death with a crucifix.

Then there began to be conversions and the country was deeply rent. At the Althing that summer, open fighting nearly broke out between the new believers and the old until, at the last moment, a compromise—or so they called it—was proposed. In order that the country not be split into warring camps, both sides would let one man decide for all of them and take their oath to uphold his decision.

The story goes that he lay for a night and a day in his tent, his face covered with a cloak, while outside the people waited. When, at last, he came out, he gave his verdict. Let there be one law and one belief for all, he pronounced—and let it be the religion of the White Christ!

My father and a few like-minded friends were stunned, furious. But they had sworn. More than that, they were outnumbered. The godis knew that if they did not lead the way to conversion, others would, and they would soon see their old-time influence usurped. Thus they rushed to lick the Christmen’s boots. That, at any rate, was what my father shouted in the face of their leader, the rich and powerful Snorri of Helgafel.

The following day, when people left the Althing, they dipped themselves in hot springs and let the foreign priests say words over them. All, that is, but Thorvald the Black. He stood apart and railed at them, scorning their new religion and calling it a feeble thing, unbecoming to war-like men. But, though many in their hearts agreed with him, none stood with him, and he left Thingvellir Plain alone.

Within a few years, the exposure of infants was banned as well as the public eating of horseflesh. Soon after that, even private sacrifice to the old gods was forbidden on pain of outlawry. Then old folk, especially old women, who clung to their fathers’ faith, were called witches and some were drowned in the deep pool at Law-Rock.

In the end, my father made two concessions. First, he gave up sacrificing to Thor, whose temple had stood on our land for five generations. Not because the law forbade it, but because he was enraged at Old Redbeard for letting this new god make a fool of him. And secondly, he allowed our mother, whom he had lately married, to have herself baptized together with the others of her family. This may seem strange, but he loved her very much. He even allowed her to go to church twice a year and to wear a cross provided she did not expose it near the fresh milk or the beer when it was brewing.

His stubbornness cost him dear. In the year one thousand, Black Thorvald was a vigorous man of two-and-thirty, full of fire and ambition. His voice was heard with respect at the Althing, and men had begun to seek his support in their lawsuits and to promise their allegiance in return. He had made a name for himself as a viking too, spending a part of each year at sea and enjoying the guest-friendship of the great Orkney jarls.

All this he let slip from his hands. He had never made a secret of the fact that he knew rune-lore and that he had the second sight. Now folk began to whisper against him, and the more they whispered, the more he despised them. As the years passed, his thingmen, whose fathers and grandfathers had been dependents of our family, deserted him for happier halls and fewer and fewer sought his help. He, being too proud to seek theirs, turned from them and ceased to attend any of their gatherings. Finally, he let his chieftaincy be purchased for a song, as though it were a thing of no worth.

While godis like Snorri and his friends grew great by feuding and suing, trading and marrying, and lavishing their money on the new churches that began to dot the land, Thorvald the Black, ignored and nearly forgotten, only grew angrier.

And little by little his mind gave way to melancholy, indecision, and sudden frights, until there was no spirit left in him. That was the worst of it. He was only a rag of the man he had been. Oh, he could rant and threaten us, but he walked on his knees.

My father’s voice broke in upon my thoughts. What are you gaping at, moon-calf? I said leave me. I’ll not change my mind. I’ve chosen my way and that’s an end of it.

Oh, yes! I shot back, for I truly hated him at that moment. Yes, and your way has led us to this, that we crawl before bullies like Hrut!

Odd! My mother saw his face darken and the worm writhe on his temple. Drop this quarrel at once. Beg your father’s pardon and vex him no more.

She looked from me to him, her eyes full, near to brimming over. She could still summon her tears for him.

My anger died even as she spoke. I too had tears though I kept them inside. I made my apology to his stony face and let her draw me away.

She sat Gunnar and me down on the wall bench and served us bowls of skyr and boiled mutton, and, for Gunnar, a big marrowbone she had saved especially for him. Our sister Gudrun Night Sun sat beside me and touched my forehead with her fingertip. She, too, was close to tears. She was a pretty girl of thirteen, all leg and no bosom, and hair so long she could tuck it in her belt. Tangle-Hair, I’m sorry about Grani. He was beautiful, and I loved him as much as you. We’ll fight those men, won’t we?

I shrugged. You heard Father.

At that Gunnar laughed harshly and said in a low voice, What did you expect?

For him it was simple. He despised our father in a quite uncomplicated way. For our mother’s sake, he did not fight with him. He shouldered the work of the farm and managed it well, for underneath all his dash he was a serious farmer; but in his heart he was only living for the day when he would be master of this hall.

He cracked his marrowbone and scooped it clean with a finger. Why don’t you clear off and go to sea for a bit, Odd? he said. The farm could spare you and any trading ship would take you on. I know all the captains. Gunnar managed our yearly bartering expeditions to the coast. You moon about strange places all the time.

That was true. But something held me back. I was Black Thorvald’s child, a part of him in some way that Gunnar—blond and bold and good-natured—would never understand. My father and I had unfinished business, though when or how it would ever be finished I did not know. But it was pointless to say this aloud.

What, and leave you here to wolf down all the best bits? I grabbed his marrowbone. He pushed me back and we wrestled, laughing, ending up in a pile on the floor.

3

A Walk in the Night

Late that night I lay awake in my place on the wall-bench, listening to the breathing of the others. My head ached and my brain teemed with restless thoughts.

A creaking noise—the door to my parents’ bed-closet swung open. Ulf, my father’s old hound, heard it too, heaved himself up from his warm place by the hearth, and trotted over to the shadowy figure that filled the doorway. The two shadows glided to the outer door, the bar was slid back, and they went out into the gray half-light of a northern spring night.

Going to piss, I thought idly. But another thought stirred in me. Visions come clearer out of doors, he always said. Our mother had scoffed at his dream vision, but he believed. I believed. Was he going out to seek a waking one? I lay still for a while, waiting to see if he would return. When he didn’t, I pulled my cloak around my shoulders and followed.

A milk-white mist covered the ground. I stood shivering by the door, searching for a sight of him. Out on the heath, a nightjar cried. Behind me the river whispered between its stony banks. Black against gray, the slumbering bulk of Hekla floated in the distance. I had lived all my life under the shadow of the volcano. From that direction I caught a movement. Ulf raced back and barked around my legs.

I could just make him out. Father, wait!

Go back!

He started away and I followed, walking quickly because I knew what great strides he took. I remembered too well how my little-boy legs had to work to keep up with him when he would take me on those midnight marches that filled my childhood with such terror and wonder. I didn’t need to catch up. I knew where he was going.

Ulf raced back and forth between us, but soon tired and fell back, leaving us alone—two shadows in the void. I thought, as I did when I was a boy, that Chaos must have looked like this on the day before creation.

For it was of such things that my father would rant, as we tramped the countryside on those restless nights long ago. Dragging me behind him with his hard hand gripping my small one, the words would pour out of him, for whole hours at a time, in a howling mad torrent. He taught me how Odin All-Father hung for nine days and nine nights on the windswept tree, on Yggdrasil the Sacred Ash, pierced by a spear, himself a sacrifice to himself. How he peered into the depths, grasped the runes and, screaming in his frenzy, flung them up. And he told me what natures the other gods had—guileful Loki and handsome Balder, and Frey, who makes the grain grow, and Red-Bearded Thor, bluff and jolly, except when he stands on the thunderclouds and hurls his hammer. But always and always he came back to Odin—Sorcerer, Rune-Master, Lord of the battle-mad berserkers. The more that darkness closed in around his mind, the more my father turned his hopes on One-Eyed Odin.

But where was there room for hope? He had had a vision, he said, of the end of things.

First would come a long, killing winter, and after that an Age of Axes, an Age of Swords, and an Age of Wolves. Kin would slaughter kin. The sky would split, the sun turn dark, and in Hel’s Hall a cock would crow, and the fettered monsters would wake and break their bonds—Garm the Hel-Hound and the Wolf Fenris, whose gaping jaws stretch from earth to sky.

Then would gather all the enemies of gods and men—the giant, Hyrm, driving from the east in a boat made of dead men’s nails, and the Midgaard Serpent, hissing and dropping poison, and all the dead, marching back along the road from Hel. They would ring Asgard round, they would storm across the Rainbow Bridge, and the armies of gods and giants would clash on a dark plain in the Last Battle. The wolf would swallow Odin and in the end, all would be dead—gods, giants, ogres—all. He called it Ragnarok, the doom of the gods.

A hundred paces ahead of me I could see his back bent over double as he toiled upward.

After such a night’s excursion I would creep under my covers and shake. My mother would hold me then and, in comforting me, try to make me tell what I had heard. I told her nothing.

In the mornings I would reason with myself, for I am a reasoner by nature. If the gods were dead, or doomed, then why not let them go? Why not accept the Christian god as nearly everyone did and let life be simple? My mother believed in the White Christ and she was a good woman.

No. Almost … but, no. My father’s hold on me was too great for that.

He raved because he knew things so deep that they drove him mad. He shook and bullied me because these were things so hard to tell that the words stuck in his throat. And he taught me—this above all—because I was his spirit-child. I was everything to him.

For his sake, then, I thought, let these doomed gods have my prayers, for what little good it may do them. The White Christ has all the rest.

That was what I said to myself in the morning. But oh, how he frightened me at night.

After some years the night marches stopped. His bouts of melancholy, which earlier had come only at intervals, mostly in the dark of winter, grew longer and more frequent. He would sink into brooding silences that lasted for days. It was then that I began to think he was bewitched.

I did everything to keep him from slipping away from me. Because I was gifted with word-wit beyond my years, I could recall every word he had ever spoken to me. Tales by the dozen, not all of them gloomy, and fierce poems on the deaths of heroes, composed in that knotty, riddling skaldic style of verse of which he, like many an old warrior, was a master. He used to declaim them to the mountains sometimes in a ringing drumbeat voice. Now, in an effort to please him, I shaped poems of my own, devising the most complex meters, the most elaborate kennings. Always only to please him.

As he had taught me the shapes and names of the runes, I begged him to reveal to me their secret uses, too. And he did teach me a little, but soon lost interest. He would grunt and put me off when I pestered him to teach me more, until at last, I ceased to ask. Perhaps he’d begun to doubt the magic himself and was afraid to put it to the test. But I feared it was some secret flaw in me that unfitted me to learn it.

Finally, I could find no way to break through the wall he had built around himself. As I grew older, I turned more and more to Gunnar, whom I adored. I saw how my father hated that, and so I did it all the more. Let him choke on it!

†

We had tramped for miles now and the ground began to rise and leave the mist behind. A hundred paces ahead, I saw his back bent low as he toiled upward. I scrambled after him, my feet slipping on the loose pumice stones and the fractured lava rocks with edges like knives. I called his name, but he went on as though he didn’t hear.

I remembered the boy I was, no more than ten, who came flying down this mountainside one night, half running and half falling, cut to ribbons by the stones and blinded by tears. In all the years since then I had not dared to go back.

But now—since the stallion fight, I told myself—I was no longer afraid. I had mastered fear itself. And so I climbed.

Hours passed. Now I had come as far as the snow-filled crevices that reached like skeleton fingers down the blue-black mountainside. The going was very steep as I neared the top. My palms and knees were bloody. An icy wind tore at my clothes and wailed in my ears like the shrieking of ghosts.

Here began the bottomless fissure that split the mountain lengthwise. A sulphurous steam rose from it. I climbed for another hour, working my way along the edge. I knew where my father would stop.

Get away from me! Why d’you follow me? He stood tottering on the rim of the crater. I sank down in the snow at his feet.

To see what you see. Our fate.

I’ve seen that already. I told you.

Then, to see the Old Ones in the mountain. I scarcely knew what I was saying, I only wanted to be near him.

You had that chance, boy. It wasn’t to your liking.

I was only a child….

He had dragged me here one night, snorting like a bull in his fury, and pushed me to the edge to show me my tomb. For into Hekla, he said, die all the men of our family. In terror, thinking that he meant to kill me, I broke away from him and flung myself headlong down the slope. By the time I reached the bottom I was half dead and lay in a brain fever for three days. When I recovered, I tried to excuse myself to him, but he only turned from me with a scowl and never mentioned that night again. Though later my mother told me he had not eaten or slept during those three days that I hung between life and death.

Well, if it pleases you now, he said, look your fill.

I crept to the edge and peered over. Far below, the fiery red muck rolled and spat like blood soup in a cauldron. I felt its scorching breath on my skin and sweat broke out on me. The stench of sulfur made my stomach heave.

Well, boy, d’you see them? The Old’uns? Sitting at their stone table, feasting, banging their mugs, roaring for ale? D’you see how they grin and howl at us? They wait for us, boy, they wait for us!

I stared until I could stand it no more. Weeping and retching from the fumes, I drew back from the edge. I had seen nothing. I shook my head, afraid to look at him.

For a time he was silent, and then he said in a gentler voice, You haven’t the sight, boy, and you’re better off without it. It’s a curse. If I could, I would never see again, for it can steal the heart from a man. He sounded suddenly weary.

No, Father, don’t say so. Your heart is still in its place, ready to beat again. Believe me.

"Believe you? Why, what have you seen of the world?"

None of it, Father, I’m sorry.

He gazed at me in silence for a time. Well, not your fault. Not your fault. Go away now, Odd. We’ll talk another time. Go home and sleep.

What about you?

I sleep best here.

I stood, uncertain what to do. He turned me around by the shoulders and I began to pick my way down the mountain track.

Odd, he called after me, the horse fought well?

Like a hero, Father. I never had to touch him with the goad.

You say so? Never touched him? Well, bravely done, boy. You are a stallion fighter. I was one once, too.

Yes, Father.

I left him to the volcano, which he loved, and to the dead, with whom he spoke more easily than with the living. But I thought that, maybe, I had made a small beginning on our unfinished business.

†

The sun was high in the sky by the time I reached home. Mother and Vigdis were working in the garden, Gudrun was chasing piglets, Gunnar and the thralls were at work shoring up the hay barn’s sagging roof. My brother stared at me in frank curiosity as I passed. So did the others. Our mother, kneeling to pull out weeds, avoided my eyes. They all guessed where I had been.

I went inside and threw myself down to sleep.

4

A Whisper from Another World

Heyannir is the month of haymaking. In the home fields of Thorvaldsstead, the sweet-smelling hay grew as high as our heads. Brown-shouldered under the sun, we worked late into the white nights, Gunnar and I with the thralls, swinging our scythes in long straight lines across the field. Scraps of straw clung to our bodies, stuck in our hair, filled our nostrils and throats, and often we stopped to sluice ourselves with buckets of cold river water and shake our heads like wet dogs to fling away the droplets.

Behind us followed the women and children, gossiping and playing as they gathered the hay with long-handled rakes, spread it on the racks to dry, and heaped it on the wooden sledges to be dragged by oxen to the barn.

It’s hard work and happy work, haying.

And