The Wolf and the Raven

by H A CULLEY

  ‘The main settlement is at Reykjavik, just around the south-western extremity of the island.’

  ‘You think that’s where we’ll find Ingólfr and Aslaug?’

  ‘If not, someone will know where they are. The population is no more than a couple of hundred, including thralls, or so I’m led to believe.’

  Even discounting the snekkja which had been lost in the storm, Ragnar had nearly three hundred men with him.

  ‘Do we plunder this place, Reykjavik?’

  ‘I have no quarrel with the Norsemen who have chosen to live here,’ Ragnar replied with a shake of his head. ‘I’m paying our men in silver, but we may well raid the west coast of Ireland on our way home,’ he added with a grin.

  The icy weather from the north had given way to more a milder climate as they rowed westwards along the coast. The temperature wasn’t that different from southern Norway in the middle of May, although they were much further north. The main difference was the hours of daylight. Whereas nights in May were twice as long as the days at Arendal, here it was the other way around and, even then, the night time skies seemed lighter.

  Twilight was approaching as they rounded the point and hauled up the sail. They beached the ships for the night shortly afterwards. The next day Ragnar decided to go hunting to replenish their depleted food stocks before heading for Reykjavik.

  Although they scoured the land for five miles from the coast, they saw nothing apart from a species of white fox and a few rodents.

  ‘What in Odin’s name do the people here live on?’ asked a puzzled Yingvi after a fruitless morning.

  ‘I suspect that it must be fish. It’s not animals at any rate. Let’s head back,’ another dispirited warrior suggested.

  Glumly the rest of the hunting party agreed and traipsed back to the ships.

  ‘We’ll eat the rest of what we have and drink the last of the ale tonight,’ Ragnar decided. ‘We can buy more when we get to Reykjavik.’

  ‘Well, I hope so,’ Olaf replied. ‘But I suppose the people who live in this place must find something to eat.’

  ‘Probably fish and eggs,’ Torstein the godi suggested. ‘There are plenty of sea birds and doubtless there are fish in the sea.’

  ‘That’s true,’ Yingvi said. ‘We’ve seen lots of dolphins and a few whales too in the last few days.’

  ‘You can’t hunt whales in a longship,’ another man scoffed.

  ‘Perhaps the people here have built ships which are better suited to doing so,’ Ragnar suggested. ‘Where else would they get the oil for their lamps from?’

  As dawn broke the next day the bleary eyed Norsemen hauled their longships back through the surf and sailed onwards to the west. With nothing to eat they were beginning to get worried when the ship’s boy up the mast of Ragnar’s drekar called down that he could see huts dotted along the shoreline about three miles ahead.

  The sight of the longships produced a flurry of activity in the settlement. At first the sight of three drekar and two snekkjur caused consternation. Traders normally arrived in one or two knarrs and occasionally a longship would call, but not a fleet like this.

  However, as the ships drew closer the absence of the fierce dragon’s heads from the prow, signalling that they came in peace, reassured the men, women and children gathered along the jetty to watch their arrival.

  Ragnar had noticed a dozen or so boats heading out to sea as they approached. Two seemed like small knarrs but with a lower freeboard and what appeared to be cranes mounted just behind the mast. The others were much smaller boats propelled by four oars aside. There was no mast, unlike most fishing craft, but some sort of structure was built onto the prow. Later Ragnar was to discover that these boats were used to harpoon and then tire out dolphins and whales before their prey was lifted aboard the larger craft.

  There wasn’t room for all five ships to tie up alongside the jetty and so two of them were beached further up the coast. The stench which hit Ragnar as he stepped ashore surprised him, then he noticed the mixture of guts, blood and oil that coated a slipway beside the jetty. Presumably this was where the dolphins and whales were butchered for their meat and oil.

  ‘Greetings stranger, what brings you to Reykjavik, and with so many warriors,’ a tall man with a large belly asked him as Ragnar looked around.

  The man was dressed in leather trousers and jerkin so presumably the settlers had some domestic animals.

  ‘I seek Ingólfr Arnarson, do you know him?’

  The man’s eyes narrowed and he licked his lips nervously.

  ‘What business do you have with Ingólfr?’

  ‘That’s between me and him. Now where can I find him?’

  ‘We don’t want any trouble, another, smaller man, standing nearby called out, eyeing the large number of armed warriors piling onto the jetty. ‘You’re speaking to him,’ he added, nodding towards the other man.

  Ragnar whipped out a dagger and thrust the point into the soft, puffy flesh under the large man’s chin.

  ‘Is that so? Well, Ingólfr Arnarson, let’s go and find your whore shall we?’

  ‘Whore? I have a wife. Is that who you mean?’

  ‘Aslaug used to be my wife. My name is Ragnar Lodbrok.’

  ‘Aslaug? No, my wife is called Astrid. Aslaug some time ago with her daughter, Åløf.’

  ‘Died how?’ he asked, still keeping the point of his dagger pressing into the jowls of the other man.

  ‘Look, she was never anything to me,’ he said quickly, trying to keep the tremor from his voice. ‘She merely sought passage here, no more. She paid some of the men to build a hut and lived there quietly with her daughter. She had money to pay for food, but in the winter she and Åløf used to cut a hole in the ice through which to fish. One winter the ice was thinner than usual and they both fell into the freezing water. Someone saw them go in but we never found the bodies.’

  ‘He’s telling the truth,’ one of the other men called out. ‘I was the one who saw them fall through the ice.’

  Ragnar felt deflated, although in a way the news had come as something of a relief. The Norns had deprived him the pleasure of confronting Aslaug, but at least he wouldn’t have to tell Ivar and his other sons that he’d killed their mother.

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘This past winter.’

  ‘Very well. It seems our journey here has been wasted. We’ll stay tonight and return home tomorrow, but we’ll need to buy provisions from you. What have you got to sell?’

  ‘Smoked fish would be best.’

  The prospect of eating nothing but that for ten days didn’t appeal but it was better than starving.

  -℣-

  When they got back to the area where they had encountered the storm the sea was relatively calm and the sun blazed down on a deep azure sea. It would have been almost pleasant had it not been for the icy wind.

  Around midday the lookout called down that there was a group of islands on the port bow. As they came closer it looked as if there was one large island with two smaller ones to the south of it. The islands were mountainous but they were not nearly as high as those on Snæland and none spouted out fire, but the landscape was less barren. As they got nearer they could see that there were a number of islands, not just three – perhaps a dozen in all.

  ‘What are they called?’ Olaf asked Ragnar as they sailed around the coast of the largest island looking for somewhere to land.

  ‘I suspect that they must be the Faroe Islands. A few Norsemen from Orkneyjar are said to have settled here fifty years ago but no-one seems to know whether any of them still survive.’

  ‘Look, there are a few sheep on that hillside. Perhaps they brought them with them.’

  ‘Good. I could do with some real meat for a change. The only problem is finding somewhere to land.’

  Ragnar was right. The coast seemed to consist of steep cliffs. Even when a stream flowed into the sea it did so as a waterfall. At one point the hills sloped down to the sea but the s
horeline was rocky with no place for a ship to land safely.

  Eventually they found an inlet with a shingle beach at the end. The ships’ boys leapt ashore to moor their respective vessels to one of the large boulders that littered the shoreline. Several hunting parties set off to bring back sheep, both for that evening’s feast and to cook and stow in casks for the remainder of the journey home.

  Olaf led the group from Ragnar’s drekar as they ascended the steep slope out of the valley. Once they reached the summit they saw a small flock of sheep on the far side of a large shallow depression. They had thought the island was deserted, the original settlers having died out but, to their surprise, they saw a boy sitting on the hillside above the flock with a large dog by his side.

  ‘Not uninhabited after all,’ a warrior called Porsi muttered to Olaf.

  ‘So it would seem,’ Olaf replied before gesturing for his men to remain where they were.

  As he walked towards the boy, the latter stood up and watched Olaf nervously. At one point it seemed that he would turn and flee but the dog’s growl seemed to steady him. Olaf dropped his spear and unbuckled his sword belt, letting both drop to the ground.

  ‘We mean you no harm,’ he called across to the young shepherd. ‘Where do you and your family live?’

  The boy pointed behind him and, evidently deciding that Olaf posed no threat to him, he stood calmly and waited for the man to reach him. The dog was still growling so the boy stroked his neck and said something to him. Whatever it was seemed to calm the dog and it lay down, never taking its eyes off Olaf.

  ‘We are Norsemen sailing from Snæland to Orkneyjar. We need meat, can we buy a few sheep from you?’

  ‘Snæland? I’ve never heard the name before but my grandfather came here from Orkneyjar a long time ago. But you can’t have any of my sheep, we need what we’ve got to keep us fed.’

  ‘There are no other animals on the islands?’

  ‘No, none. Birds, yes. More than enough but their meat tastes awful. We eat their eggs though.’

  ‘How many of you are there?’

  ‘About twenty of us live on this island and perhaps another fifty in total on some of the other islands.’

  ‘If there are no wolves or other animals to prey on your sheep, why guard them?’

  ‘Because raiders come from the other islands to steal them.’

  ‘Ah, I see. But you knew we weren’t from the other islands?’

  ‘Yes, everyone on the islands wears sheepskins like me. I’ve never seen clothes like yours before. How do you make a shirt out of metal?’

  Olaf started to explain but the look of incomprehension on the lad’s face caused him to stop.

  ‘Look, we don’t want to hurt you but we need some of your sheep and I don’t want to kill you, so be a good boy and let us take a few, all right?’

  ‘You said you came in peace!’ he yelled. ‘You lied.’

  Before Olaf realised what was happening the boy had pulled out his dagger and thrust it up under the hem of his byrnie and into his groin. Blood spurted down his legs as Olaf collapsed onto the ground. With a roar of rage the other warriors started to run towards the boy as he reached for a horn that lay where he’d been sitting. He put it to his lips and blew three long blasts. Then he turned and ran, the dog at his heels.

  He was fleet of foot and the Vikings had no chance of catching him. Porsi gave up the chase and knelt by Olaf to take care of the wound, but it was evident that he was dying.

  ‘Curse this place,’ he cried, tears running down his cheeks.

  Like all Ragnar’s hirdmen he admired Olaf almost as much as he did Ragnar himself.

  ‘Two of you go back and let Ragnar know what has happened. Someone stay with Olaf until his body can be collected; the rest of you come with me.’

  The boy had foolishly run straight back to his home, so it wasn’t long before the dozen Vikings led by Porsi came across the collection of huts where the Faroese lived. There were few trees on the island to provide timber and so their dwellings were built of stone packed with mud to fill the gaps and had turf roofs. A dozen men and boys of various ages had already assembled clutching spears, axes and shields, whilst the women and small children ran away into the hinterland.

  Porsi and his eight Vikings didn’t hesitate but, armed with spears and swords but no shields, they moved into wedge formation and descended on the Faroese. The latter had formed a shield wall but they were no match for Porsi’s experienced warriors. Without hesitating Porsi and his men charged straight at the shield wall which, parted as they hewed their way through it, killing four settlers as they did so. The fight descended into hand to hand combat which the Vikings won without suffering more than the odd minor flesh wound. The only surviving Faroese was the shepherd boy; they wanted him alive so that he could be made to suffer for killing Olaf.

  It took two days for Ragnar’s men to scour the island and round up the women and children. Those who would be useful as thralls were bundled on board and the rest, including the younger children and old women, were killed out of hand.

  Ragnar was distraught over the loss of his oldest friend and the boy who’d killed him was made to suffer, being slow cooked over a low fire so that his legs sizzled like roasting pork and then, when Ragnar was sick of his screaming, he cut open his belly and let his entrails spill out. It took another hour for him to die but, mercifully for him, he had lost consciousness when he’d been gutted.

  Ragnar had extracted a brutal revenge for the death of his closest companion, but it didn’t make him feel any better. He sailed away, his belly and the ships’ casks full of mutton, but it was a poor exchange for Olaf’s life.

  Chapter Nineteen – The Struggle for Supremacy

  848 to 858

  When he returned to Agder Ragnar was even more determined to kill Edmund of Bebbanburg. He had to pay for the death of Fridlief. However, that would have to wait. In his absence Eystein Beli had died and his nephew and successor, Hákon, had seized the opportunity presented by Ragnar’s absence to invade Alfheim once more.

  Ragnar drove the Swedes back across the border in the summer of 848 and went on to invade Uppsala, determined to kill Hákon; but the war reached stalemate and the Swedes re-conquered part of Alfheim before the year ended. In the following years the Norns favoured one side and then the other. Ragnar had finally recovered all of Alfheim in 853 but then Vestfold had entered the fray on Hákon’s side.

  Aided by the Danish Jarl Guthrum, son and heir of Grimulf, Ragnar had conquered Vestfold in 854 and Hákon sued for peace. The truce hadn’t lasted. Once both sides had – at least partially – recovered from their losses in manpower and refilled their empty money chests by raiding far and wide, Ragnar launched what was to be his final assault on Uppsala in 857.

  The following year the final battle took place just outside the sprawling settlement of Uppsala. By then Ragnar was approaching fifty and had slowed down to the extent that his sons refused to allow him to fight in the front rank. This had caused a blazing row between them and their father but, in the end, Ragnar had seemed to accept that his place was in the rear.

  However, when the fighting began he forced his way to the front, accompanied by the cheers of his men. His exasperated sons gathered around him, determined to keep him safe, but he was struck in the right shoulder by an arrow and was carried to the rear.

  His men lost heart when their heroic king was wounded but Ivar and Bjorn rallied them and, assisted by the nineteen year old Sigurd Snake in the Eye on the right flank and his brother Halfdan, who was two years younger, leading the left, they managed to hold the line.

  When word spread that Ragnar wasn’t badly wounded, his army surged forward and overwhelmed the Uppsalan Swedes. Bjorn killed Hákon and his men broke. It was only later that the truth emerged. Sigurd had spread the lie that his father only had a flesh wound. The truth was that the arrow had a barbed point and had carried steel, leather and linen deep into the wound. By the time that Bjorn, assisted
by his servant Erling, had managed to cut the arrowhead out and cleaned the wound as best they could, Ragnar was feverish and delirious.

  He kept asking for Olaf, but of course his old friend and companion had been ashes scattered on a Faroe Islands hillside for many years. As time went on the wound became infected and it was only Erling’s insistence that they cut away all the putrefying flesh that saved Ragnar’s life. Ragnar’s delirium continued, however, and his fever got worse.

  The situation was critical. Hákon might have been killed but there were other claimants to the throne of Uppsala and the King of the Geats to the south was known to be mobilising to take advantage of the power vacuum.

  ‘We need to act now to consolidate our hold on what we’ve gained, not just Uppsala, but Vestfold as well,’ Ivar began, once the four brothers and the senior jarls had gathered in the king’s hall at Uppsala.

  ‘Not only that, but several jarls were killed in the battle and they need to be replaced,’ Lagertha added. ‘Otherwise you could find dissention spreading throughout the ranks of this disparate army as men struggle for power. Strong leadership is needed to hold us all together.’

  She was no longer the young shield maiden she had been when she’d been Ragnar’s queen, but in her early forties she was still a striking figure of a woman.

  ‘Thank you, Jarl Lagertha. What you say is true but I suggest we need to agree on a leader to act on our father’s behalf until he is recovered. That must be our immediate concern,’ Ivar responded, earning himself a glare from Lagertha.

  ‘Fine, she said curtly. ‘But then turn your attention to replacing the jarls. Two men have already fought over who is to replace one of them. As a result Ólaug is dead. Ragnar won’t thank you for allowing that to happen.’

  No one had been aware of the tragedy and the hall buzzed with concern over the news. Ólaug had been Olaf’s eldest son and, as such, had been a favourite with Ragnar.

  ‘I’m sorry, we didn’t know.’ Bjorn was the first to speak. ‘I agree that it is something we need to resolve here and now, once we have sorted out the question of leadership.’