And, with all the candles burning,
Silent sat and heard once more
The sullen roar
Of the ocean tides returning.
Shrieks and cries of wild despair 85
Filled the air,
Growing fainter as they listened;
Then the bursting surge alone
Sounded on; —
Thus the sorcerers were christened! 90
“Sing, O Scald, your song sublime,
Your ocean-rhyme,”
Cried King Olaf: “it will cheer me!”
Said the Scald, with pallid cheeks,
“The Skerry of Shrieks 95
Sings too loud for you to hear me!”
VI.
The Wraith of Odin
THE GUESTS were loud, the ale was strong,
King Olaf feasted late and long;
The hoary Scalds together sang;
O’erhead the smoky rafters rang.
Dead rides Sir Morten of Fogelsang. 5
The door swung wide, with creak and din
A blast of cold night-air came in,
And on the threshold shivering stood
A one-eyed guest, with cloak and hood.
Dead rides Sir Morten of Fogelsang. 10
The King exclaimed, “O graybeard pale!
Come warm thee with this cup of ale.”
The foaming draught the old man quaffed,
The noisy guests looked on and laughed.
Dead rides Sir Morten of Fogelsang. 15
Then spake the King: “Be not afraid:
Sit here by me.” The guest obeyed,
And, seated at the table, told
Tales of the sea, and Sagas old.
Dead rides Sir Morten of Fogelsang. 20
And ever, when the tale was o’er,
The King demanded yet one more;
Till Sigard the Bishop smiling said,
“‘T is late, O King, and time for bed.”
Dead rides Sir Morten of Fogelsang. 25
The King retired; the stranger guest
Followed and entered with the rest;
The lights were out, the pages gone,
But still the garrulous guest spake on.
Dead rides Sir Morten of Fogelsang. 30
As one who from a volume reads,
He spake of heroes and their deeds,
Of lands and cities he had seen,
And stormy gulfs that tossed between.
Dead rides Sir Morten of Fogelsang. 35
Then from his lips in music rolled
The Havamal of Odin old,
With sounds mysterious as the roar
Of billows on a distant shore.
Dead rides Sir Morten of Fogelsang. 40
“Do we not learn from runes and rhymes
Made by the gods in elder times,
And do not still the great Scalds teach
That silence better is than speech?”
Dead rides Sir Morten of Fogelsang. 45
Smiling at this, the King replied,
“Thy lore is by thy tongue belied;
For never was I so enthralled
Either by Saga-man or Scald.”
Dead rides Sir Morten of Fogelsang. 50
The Bishop said, “Late hours we keep!
Night wanes, O King! ‘t is time for sleep!”
Then slept the King, and when he woke
The guest was gone, the morning broke.
Dead rides Sir Morten of Fogelsang. 55
They found the doors securely barred,
They found the watch-dog in the yard,
There was no footprint in the grass,
And none had seen the stranger pass.
Dead rides Sir Morten of Fogelsang. 60
King Olaf crossed himself and said:
“I know that Odin the Great is dead;
Sure is the triumph of our Faith,
The one-eyed stranger was his wraith.”
Dead rides Sir Morten of Fogelsang. 65
VII.
Iron-Beard
OLAF the King, one summer morn,
Blew a blast on his bugle-horn,
Sending his signal through the land of Drontheim.
And to the Hus-Ting held at Mere
Gathered the farmers far and near, 5
With their war weapons ready to confront him.
Ploughing under the morning star,
Old Iron-Beard in Yriar
Heard the summons, chuckling with a low laugh.
He wiped the sweat-drops from his brow, 10
Unharnessed his horses from the plough,
And clattering came on horseback to King Olaf.
He was the churliest of the churls;
Little he cared for king or earls;
Bitter as home-brewed ale were his foaming passions. 15
Hodden-gray was the garb he wore,
And by the Hammer of Thor he swore;
He hated the narrow town, and all its fashions.
But he loved the freedom of his farm,
His ale at night, by the fireside warm, 20
Gudrun his daughter, with her flaxen tresses.
He loved his horses and his herds,
The smell of the earth, and the song of birds,
His well-filled barns, his brook with its watercresses.
Huge and cumbersome was his frame; 25
His beard, from which he took his name,
Frosty and fierce, like that of Hymer the Giant.
So at the Hus-Ting he appeared,
The farmer of Yriar, Iron-Beard,
On horseback, in an attitude defiant. 30
And to King Olaf he cried aloud,
Out of the middle of the crowd,
That tossed about him like a stormy ocean:
“Such sacrifices shalt thou bring
To Odin and to Thor, O King, 35
As other kings have done in their devotion!”
King Olaf answered: “I command
This land to be a Christian land;
Here is my Bishop who the folk baptizes!
“But if you ask me to restore 40
Your sacrifices, stained with gore,
Then will I offer human sacrifices!
“Not slaves and peasants shall they be,
But men of note and high degree,
Such men as Orm of Lyra and Kar of Gryting!” 45
Then to their Temple strode he in,
And loud behind him heard the din
Of his men-at-arms and the peasants fiercely fighting.
There in the Temple, carved in wood,
The image of great Odin stood, 50
And other gods, with Thor supreme among them.
King Olaf smote them with the blade
Of his huge war-axe, gold inlaid,
And downward shattered to the pavement flung them.
At the same moment rose without, 55
From the contending crowd, a shout,
A mingled sound of triumph and of wailing.
And there upon the trampled plain
The farmer Iron-Beard lay slain,
Midway between the assailed and the assailing. 60
King Olaf from the doorway spoke:
“Choose ye between two things, my folk,
To be baptized or given up to slaughter!”
And seeing their leader stark and dead,
The people with a murmur said, 65
“O King, baptize us with thy holy water.”
So all the Drontheim land became
A Christian land in name and fame,
In the old gods no more believing and trusting.
And as a blood-atonement, soon 70
King Olaf wed the fair Gudrun;
And thus in peace ended the Drontheim Hus-Ting!
VIII.
Gudrun
ON King Olaf’s bridal night
Shines the moon with tender light,
And across the chamber streams
Its tide of dreams.
&nbs
p; At the fatal midnight hour, 5
When all evil things have power,
In the glimmer of the moon
Stands Gudrun.
Close against her heaving breast
Something in her hand is pressed; 10
Like an icicle, its sheen
Is cold and keen.
On the cairn are fixed her eyes
Where her murdered father lies,
And a voice remote and drear 15
She seems to hear.
What a bridal night is this!
Cold will be the dagger’s kiss;
Laden with the chill of death
Is its breath. 20
Like the drifting snow she sweeps
To the couch where Olaf sleeps;
Suddenly he wakes and stirs,
His eyes meet hers.
“What is that,” King Olaf said, 25
“Gleams so bright above my head?
Wherefore standest thou so white
In pale moonlight?”
“‘T is the bodkin that I wear
When at night I bind my hair; 30
It woke me falling on the floor;
‘T is nothing more.”
“Forests have ears, and fields have eyes;
Often treachery lurking lies
Underneath the fairest hair! 35
Gudrun beware!”
Ere the earliest peep of morn
Blew King Olaf’s bugle-horn;
And forever sundered ride
Bridegroom and bride! 40
IX.
Thangbrand the Priest
SHORT of stature, large of limb,
Burly face and russet beard,
All the women stared at him,
When in Iceland he appeared.
“Look!” they said, 5
With nodding head,
“There goes Thangbrand, Olaf’s Priest.”
All the prayers he knew by rote,
He could preach like Chrysostome,
From the Fathers he could quote, 10
He had even been at Rome.
A learned clerk,
A man of mark,
Was this Thangbrand, Olaf’s Priest.
He was quarrelsome and loud, 15
And impatient of control,
Boisterous in the market crowd,
Boisterous at the wassail-bowl,
Everywhere
Would drink and swear, 20
Swaggering Thangbrand, Olaf’s Priest.
In his house this malcontent
Could the King no longer bear,
So to Iceland he was sent
To convert the heathen there, 25
And away
One summer day
Sailed this Thangbrand, Olaf’s Priest.
There in Iceland, o’er their books
Pored the people day and night, 30
But he did not like their looks,
Nor the songs they used to write.
“All this rhyme
Is waste of time!”
Grumbled Thangbrand, Olaf’s Priest. 35
To the alehouse, where he sat,
Came the Scalds and Saga-men;
Is it to be wondered at
That they quarrelled now and then,
When o’er his beer 40
Began to leer
Drunken Thangbrand, Olaf’s Priest?
All the folk in Altafiord
Boasted of their island grand;
Saying in a single word, 45
“Iceland is the finest land
That the sun
Doth shine upon!”
Loud laughed Thangbrand, Olaf’s Priest.
And he answered: “What’s the use 50
Of this bragging up and down,
When three women and one goose
Make a market in your town!”
Every Scald
Satires drawled 55
On poor Thangbrand, Olaf’s Priest.
Something worse they did than that;
And what vexed him most of all
Was a figure in shovel hat,
Drawn in charcoal on the wall; 60
With words that go
Sprawling below,
“This is Thangbrand, Olaf’s Priest.”
Hardly knowing what he did,
Then he smote them might and main, 65
Thorvald Veile and Veterlid
Lay there in the alehouse slain.
“To-day we are gold,
To-morrow mould!”
Muttered Thangbrand, Olaf’s Priest. 70
Much in fear of axe and rope,
Back to Norway sailed he then.
“O King Olaf! little hope
Is there of these Iceland men!”
Meekly said, 75
With bending head,
Pious Thangbrand, Olaf’s Priest.
X.
Raud the Strong
“ALL the old gods are dead,
All the wild warlocks fled;
But the White Christ lives and reigns,
And throughout my wide domains
His Gospel shall be spread!” 5
On the Evangelists
Thus swore King Olaf.
But still in dreams of the night
Beheld he the crimson light,
And heard the voice that defied 10
Him who was crucified,
And challenged him to the fight.
To Sigurd the Bishop
King Olaf confessed it.
And Sigurd the Bishop said, 15
“The old gods are not dead,
For the great Thor still reigns,
And among the Jarls and Thanes
The old witchcraft still is spread.”
Thus to King Olaf 20
Said Sigurd the Bishop.
“Far north in the Salten Fiord,
By rapine, fire, and sword,
Lives the Viking, Raud the Strong;
All the Godoe Isles belong 25
To him and his heathen horde.”
Thus went on speaking
Sigurd the Bishop.
“A warlock, a wizard is he,
And the lord of the wind and the sea; 30
And whichever way he sails,
He has ever favoring gales,
By his craft in sorcery.”
Here the sign of the cross
Made devoutly King Olaf. 35
“With rites that we both abhor,
He worships Odin and Thor;
So it cannot yet be said,
That all the old gods are dead,
And the warlocks are no more,” 40
Flushing with anger
Said Sigurd the Bishop.
Then King Olaf cried aloud:
“I will talk with this mighty Raud,
And along the Salten Fiord 45
Preach the Gospel with my sword,
Or be brought back in my shroud!”
So northward from Drontheim
Sailed King Olaf!
XI.
Bishop Sigurd of Salten Fiord
LOUD the angry wind was wailing
As King Olaf’s ships came sailing
Northward out of Drontheim haven
To the mouth of Salten Fiord.
Though the flying sea-spray drenches 5
Fore and aft the rowers’ benches,
Not a single heart is craven
Of the champions there on board.
All without the Fiord was quiet,
But within it storm and riot, 10
Such as on his Viking cruises
Raud the Strong was wont to ride.
And the sea through all its tide-ways
Swept the reeling vessels sideways,
As the leaves are swept through sluices, 15
When the flood-gates open wide.
“‘T is the warlock! ‘t is the demon
Raud!” cried Sigurd to the seamen;
“But the Lord is not affrighted
By the witchcraft
of his foes.” 20
To the ship’s bow he ascended,
By his choristers attended,
Round him were the tapers lighted,
And the sacred incense rose.
On the bow stood Bishop Sigurd, 25
In his robes, as one transfigured,
And the Crucifix he planted
High amid the rain and mist.
Then with holy water sprinkled
All the ship; the mass-bells tinkled: 30
Loud the monks around him chanted,
Loud he read the Evangelist.
As into the Fiord they darted,
On each side the water parted;
Down a path like silver molten 35
Steadily rowed King Olaf’s ships;
Steadily burned all night the tapers,
And the White Christ through the vapors
Gleamed across the Fiord of Salten,
As through John’s Apocalypse, — 40
Till at last they reached Raud’s dwelling
On the little isle of Gelling;
Not a guard was at the doorway,
Not a glimmer of light was seen.
But at anchor, carved and gilded, 45
Lay the dragon-ship he builded;
‘T was the grandest ship in Norway,
With its crest and scales of green.
Up the stairway, softly creeping,
To the loft where Raud was sleeping, 50
With their fists they burst asunder
Bolt and bar that held the door.
Drunken with sleep and ale they found him,
Dragged him from his bed and bound him,
While he stared with stupid wonder 55
At the look and garb they wore.
Delphi Complete Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Delphi Poets Series Book 13) Page 57
