Wayward Heroes

by Halldor Laxness

  When Olaf saw that his stepfather took this as a joke, he laid his knife on his plate, his face pale, and said: “You would do better to restrain your mockery of the matter now raised, Squire Sigurd. It is my firm intent to become king of Norway, and to drum up the necessary forces to do so, even though they may seem meager to others at the moment.”

  Sigurd Syr stopped laughing. Instead, he asked how a young vagabond, barely out of puberty, lacking the support of kin, and with only two flimsy little ships, could come up with such an idea.

  Olaf replied: “The wealth of my kin may have been dispersed, but I am of no shabby extraction – my cousin was King Olaf Tryggvason and my great-grandfather Harald Tanglehair, and they both subdued all of Norway. This inheritance is my birthright as much as it is any other of my kindred’s. Though I have but few ships, and no troops apart from a handful of foreign ragamuffins, I have made a pact with and sworn an alliance to the king to whom the realm of Norway is but a leaf in a bird’s beak – and that is Christ. For him, I have pledged to free the souls of men in Norway from everlasting fire, and he in return will grant me his spells and miracles and other marvels. As a token of this pact of ours, he has sent his son Bishop Grímkell, who was anointed and inspired by the Holy Spirit in Rouen to guide my hand in raising anew in this land the banner of Almighty God and of my kinsman Olaf Tryggvason.”

  Sigurd said: “Who the true sons of Harald Tanglehair are has never been ascertained. In fact, he begat children with maidservants and vagrant women from one end of Norway to the other for seventy years, since noblewomen had little desire to take such a louse-ridden man to their beds. Every single dimwit who has since commenced upon dastardly deeds in Norway calls himself Harald’s direct or distant heir, and everyone always laughs, as I laughed just now, when these pretenders have nothing to back their claims of patrilineage. Yet it cannot be denied that some people who wish to solve their own problems and others’ with fire and warfare may be descended from Harald Tanglehair, including Olaf Tryggvason and other landlopers such as your father, Harald Grenske, who was burned alive while wooing. However, as vague as the lineage is of those men who claim to be related to Harald Tanglehair, I assure you that the lineage of White Christ is even vaguer. You will therefore need to use plainer words in order for me to understand what support and arms you may expect from him.”

  Olaf rose to his feet and delivered the following speech:

  “Christ has promised me such support,” said he, “as we have never had from the gods to whom we sacrificed of old. He has taught us how pressing it is for all men to redeem their souls from fire and the serpent. Not a single king that makes war in Christ’s name will ever end up as unfortunate as we Vikings were when we fought without the gift of the Holy Spirit and for no godly cause, and when wrinkled old townswomen doused us with piss. Christ will levy me the troops that we require for each battle, and the pope and the emperors in Rome and Constantinople will ally themselves with me, as will Robert Capet, along with the host of bishops and archbishops that Christ has anointed, and myriad saints and arch-saints, angels and archangels, and the rest of the residents of Heaven accustomed to supporting every king who marches to battle for Christ, reinforced by war wagons and Greek fire. And I assure you that every king who saves the souls of the rabble will be raised to everlasting glory in the Kingdom of Heaven, even though he himself may fall. Now the people of Norway have a choice: either to be redeemed from fire and the serpent, or to die.”

  Following her son’s declaration, Queen Åsta Gudbrandsdatter rose from her seat – her neck and cheeks flushed. She stepped forward and said:

  “I have always known you, Squire Sigurd, to be a peaceable man, yet I never thought that you were a poltroon. No man could ever level such a charge at King Harald Grenske, even when he returned penniless from his Viking expeditions and consigned himself to death by fire. In short, I would choose to be married to a beggarly man who risks his own life to acquire the title of king and glory, even if he were burned alive, rather than a swine monger who considers heroism and royal propensities laughing matters, loads his cellars with butter and lines the bottoms of his coffers with silver, and, in his impotence, makes offerings to Freyr’s rod. Now the moment has come when I give you a choice, Sigurd: either aid my son with your wealth, your strong ties of kinship, and your good repute in his quest for the throne of Norway, or you shall never join me in my bed.”

  Squire Sigurd smiled, and said: “We must not let my churlish disposition prevent us, Mistress, from drinking welcome toasts to your son, as is befitting. I must be growing old, Olaf, for I find myself lacking the heart to contradict your mother, Queen Åsta, even more so now that she has gained such powerful backing. It appears quite clear to me that the god you named will stretch his hand far to provide you with the backing you need, though such a god seems rather dull to me in comparison with our friend King Freyr, who has a bigger penis than the other gods.”

  34

  KILLING HAAKON, Cnut’s jarl, seemed unpropitious to Olaf, yet he was more anxious about incurring the wrath of the Norwegian populace by slaying such a tolerant and peaceable ruler for no good reason, knowing too that such a deed would be condemned by Christian lords abroad, and by none more than the archiepiscopal see of Bremen, which then administered canon law in the North. He did, however, send spies out to keep track of the jarl’s movements, and around the same time that Squire Sigurd Syr commenced secret negotiations with estate holders and other leading men in Gudbrandsdalen and Oppland to solicit their support for the new claimant to the throne, Olaf learned that Haakon had just left Sogn, sailing south to his winter residence with only one ship. Olaf and his men launched their two ships and sailed north, hoping to catch Jarl Haakon. When they learned that the jarl’s ship had anchored for the night in a certain sound, they set an ambush for him, navigating between skerries in the darkness until the jarl’s men were suddenly surprised to find two ships lying alongside their own, and fighting men leaping aboard.

  That night, Olaf Haraldsson took Jarl Haakon captive. When the jarl asked what brigand had seized him, Olaf told him his name and his lineage, as well as his plan to take over the kingdom of Norway. He would give Haakon a choice, he said: leave Norway immediately, after swearing an oath that he would make no attempt to defend the land against him, or else be beheaded that very night. The jarl was inexperienced and rather feeble of character. He was hardly prone to great exploits, and would not battle against Olaf the Stout. The jarl swore the oath demanded by Olaf and was granted permission to leave. At dawn the next day, the jarl and his men put to sea.

  As regards Cnut Sweynsson, he had taken from King Æthelred the one thing that was left him – his wife, Queen Emma. First, Thorkell the Tall had laid hold of all of King Æthelred’s goods and chattels, and then Sweyn Bluetoothsson had claimed his land and kingdom. Now Cnut took Queen Emma as his own wife, after banishing King Æthelred to the forest, where he and several of his marshals and captains lived as outlaws, stealing peasants’ chickens for their sustenance until the peasants drove them away. King Æthelred then fled to a remote skerry, where he lived out his days munching fox flesh and gnawing roots. When he gave up the ghost, Æthelred was king of seven birds of bone.

  Upon landing in England, Jarl Haakon Ericsson goes straight to meet his kinsman King Cnut, and tells him the news: a squat, knock-kneed, rotund peasant boy has come to Norway, wearing a blue cloak over a red one, his right shoe on his left foot and his left shoe on his right. He commands two old barges crewed by a handful of foreign vagrants, and claims that he intends to subdue the entire country. King Cnut laughs and says that they should wait until spring to send men to Norway to kill Olaf the Lout. Later, Cnut bestows the title Jarl of Northumberland on his kinsman Haakon, who now ceases to be part of our story.

  Old accounts report that while Jarl Haakon’s ship is still being readied to turn its prow seaward, a man in colorful clothing comes walking back to the aft deck and raps on the bulwark with the shaft of his
spear, in the manner of a king’s man requesting silence at court. Cupping one hand to his mouth like a horn, he calls out, asking whether King Olaf Haraldsson is near enough to hear his words. Olaf’s crew wonder who this man might be, addressing their leader by the title of king, and they reply:

  “The king is indeed here.”

  The finely-dressed man says:

  “You are welcome to this land, King Olaf Haraldsson, to raise folk from ignominy and mediocrity and restore the kingdom of Norway. I have composed a lay for you, and will gladly recite it to you if you grant me leave to do so.”

  Olaf the Stout’s face lights up at this salutation, but he says that he finds poetry hard to grasp and rather tedious. “Yet,” says he, “what is the name of this man, who alone of all men in Norway chooses to greet me in a becoming manner?”

  The finely-dressed man replies: “No Norseman am I, though I speak the Danish tongue. I am an Icelandic skald. It is my hope that the king most nobly born in Norway since Yngvi-Freyr will not turn a deaf ear to my praise.”

  “It is odd,” says Olaf the Stout, “that you have never set eyes on me until this very day, although my reputation hardly precedes me. Only tonight I took captive Haakon and his crew, including you, yet you have found the time to compose a lay about me. What Icelander are you, then?”

  “My name is Sigvatur, of Apavatn,” says he, “the son of Þórður the Skald, who, for the longest time, served King Thorkell Strutharaldsson, your leader on Viking expeditions, and who now sits by a little lake on a heath, keeping an eye out for the strange fish that swim in it, and expects soon to die. He has relayed to me your bold exploits for me to work into verses, and in my lays your name shall be preserved throughout the course of the ages. Would you like to hear, King, what the cuckoos sang to me about you, or will you send the author of your glory away with your enemies?”

  Olaf says that the jarl’s ship is not to sail until he has spoken with this man, and he orders manropes drawn between that ship and his own. Skald Sigvatur now boards Olaf the Stout’s ship. He has naught with him but his spear, inlaid with gold, and the clothing on his back, covered by a red pelisse lined with fur. On his arm he wears a fine gold band. He is a lively man, black eyed. Jarl Haakon Ericsson sits at the helm of his vessel, his fur cloak wrapped about him, and watches silently as the skald changes ships.

  Olaf Haraldsson greets his visitor and asks: “Why do you abandon your master now, when fortune is divided so unequally among us rulers?”

  “I do so,” says Sigvatur, “because I have augured from birds that you will come to rule this land. We skalds are the voices of royal fortune and heralds of the heroes who conquer lands. I ask now for silence. I will make your former deeds shine with the same majestic luster destined for you by the Norns. And I hope to be able to join your retinue.”

  Olaf the Stout replies: “It will suffice if you join my retinue on the day that I deem it important for me to have the support of a skald, seeing as how you depart from this jarl of yours when you witness him hounded out of his realm – yet he is a greater ruler than I, and a better Christian, and one of the most stately men in the North, and of such high pedigree that he is granted his authority by Cnut. I have a suspicion that so noble an overlord as Cnut will find for this jarl a greater and better abode than I will ever possess, though he now sits wrapped in his cloak, meek and pale.”

  In the evening they went ashore to feast at one of Sigurd Syr’s farms, and there Olaf the Stout and his men heard the praise-poem that Sigvatur Þórðarson had composed about Olaf’s fifteen greatest battles. First, the lay told of how Olaf, when twelve years old, had ravaged Gotland, occupied the island and made the Gotlanders his tributaries. Then various battles of his were described, fought in locations that no one has ever been able to pinpoint precisely. Here, praise was given to Olaf’s victory in Kennemerland, a place that people say is part of Friesland. These verses told of how the high-minded farmers of that land rode to shore to welcome Olaf’s ships and greet the seafarers with gifts, and how Olaf immediately assailed them, killed them all, and took possession of their gold and silver. Next, the lay extolled Olaf’s victory at Canterbury, when, the English annals say, most men were mutilated, and the venerable man of God, Ælfheah, was pelted to death with knucklebones and horns. On Olaf’s part in this achievement, Sigvatur sang: “Gentle helmsman, you took the broad burg of the Cantware by morning.” The lay moved on to Olaf’s great exploit of reddening Ringmere Heath with peasants’ blood – it being customary in poetry not to mention peasants as anything but vermin of the sort that men kill in their tunics. Again, the lay lauded Olaf’s sacking of London, leaving English carcasses floating down the River Thames. Finally, Sigvatur’s poem celebrated the glorious battle fought when Olaf assaulted Hill-in-France – when Chartres went up in flames. These verses lauded Olaf for “razing low a high Hill.”

  The Icelander’s eulogy of the gentle helmsman Olaf Haraldsson was, however, too much of a hotchpotch of complicated geography and obscure tales of voyages to remote regions for anyone to keep straight. Few in the company were old enough to have visited all the territories where Olaf had roamed, and even they recalled only a small number of the names of places they had actually harried. More specifically, these vagrants understood little of the Danish tongue in poetic form, scarcely any of them being from the North: some came from England and Ireland, Orkney, or Shetland, though most were foreigners. Yet they knew themselves to be valiant warriors and mighty champions, and thought their leader could hardly be overpraised – so to them the lay seemed quite fine. Olaf the Stout, for his part, accepted Sigvatur the Skald as a member of his retinue from that moment on.

  35

  THAT WINTER, Sigurd Syr spent a great deal of time on the road, his horses loaded with costly wares. It appeared that this farmer, who had passed his days ingloriously at home, was in possession of far greater wealth, both in money and valuables, than a Viking could gain through deeds of everlasting renown in distant lands.

  Great deliberation and scheming now took place in Gudbrandsdalen and Oppland, as well as in Viken, the Fjord regions, and anywhere else that Sigurd Syr had friends, kinsmen, or stewards. First there were private conversations, then feasting and drinking, and then, as winter drew to a close, the peasants were summoned to assemblies. In some districts, the petty kings made public their willingness to renounce their titles, if their tenants consented, and to pledge their allegiance to that noble man who had come to Norway to unite the country in the manner of his deceased predecessors and rule it as sole monarch: Olaf the Stout. The populace made little objection, as it is difficult to keep kings on their thrones when they no longer wish to occupy them. Olaf personally attended many assemblies, and folk marveled at his lordliness – wearing, as he did, numerous colored cloaks, his fingers and arms weighted with gold rings, spindle-limbed and potbellied, averse to the whimsicality of youth. Some peasants welcomed his rule with applause, while others grumbled under their breath. Several lords sent their sons to him at the behest of Sigurd Syr, to swell and enhance the troop of men that he had brought with him from abroad. Olaf now rode throughout the districts with his company and took oaths from various leading men, with Bishop Grímkell constantly at his side, carrying a large cross and gazing heavenward. It seemed that wherever Sigurd Syr had been with his pack train that winter, Olaf was welcomed with open arms. Everywhere he went, Olaf announced his wish to baptize the populace, following the example of Emperor Charlemagne and Olaf Tryggvason, the sovereigns considered to have been the staunchest champions of Christianity among all the secular lords in the world. Olaf decreed that churches be donated more money and land than they ever had before, and declared Christ his half-share partner in land and movable property throughout Norway, while Grímkell took young men under his wing and taught them the signum crucis and how to sing the Credo and paternoster and the psalms, and then ordained them priests. Olaf went a step further than the emissaries from Bremen in his ordinances, stating that those wh
o refused to accept the faith or to practice Christianity under his rule were to lose nothing less than their lives. He vied so hard with the archbishopric of Bremen for the favor of Christ that he baptized more people in Oppland in just a few days than the German suffragan bishops in Viken had managed to convert over the course of many generations, refuting those who said that an oaf and his excommunicate, vagabond cleric had come to Norway from westward over the sea. Olaf imitated the habit of many a Christian ruler, who, for their own amusement, would name twelve of their most trusted officers their apostles, after Christ’s forecastlemen – moreoever, Olaf named his three highest ranking men after the kings of the East who brought gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh to honor the Lord.

  History has shown time and again that when a king sells his kingdom, its people are rarely as easily sold – and so it went with Norway now. In many places throughout the country, the peasants stubbornly resisted the new order that always accompanies a regime change. Yet it turned out that the populace did not harbor sufficient hatred for this Olaf, who was a complete stranger to them, since no headway was made in gathering an army to oppose him, and even when meager bands of troops did come together in various places, they were quickly dispersed. The stronger the foothold gained by the claimant to the throne, the harder he pressed his advantage. Olaf quickly reverted to his old Viking tactics, searching out those he reckoned unfaithful to him, taking them by surprise and slaying them or burning them alive in their houses, and then confiscating their property, while having his friends prepare feasts for him and his men.