The Guests of Odin

by Gavin Chappell

  Someone asked him what he was doing. “I am preparing sharp javelins to avenge my father,” was his crazy reply. Everyone scoffed at this: but it helped him afterwards.

  But these words made some of Feng’s thanes suspect a cunning mind beneath the mad behaviour. “His skill suggests he has the hidden talent of a craftsman,” said one of them to the king.

  “His mind is quick enough,” said another, “and he only acts the fool to hide some other intentions.”

  “Can you prove his deceitfulness?” asked Feng thoughtfully.

  “We would, my lord,” said a thane, “if we put a beautiful woman in his way, in some secluded place, and tempt him to acts of love. All men are too blind in love to be cunning.”

  So Feng sent his thanes to take the young man to a remote part of the forest, and do all that they thought necessary.

  Among them was Amlodi’s foster-brother, who did not want to trap Amlodi, but decided to warn him if he could. He could see that Amlodi would suffer the most if he behaved sanely, and if he made love to the girl openly. But Amlodi was aware of this also. When the men asked him to mount his horse, he sat upon it backwards, putting the reins on the tail. They rode on, and a wolf crossed Amlodi’s path through the thicket.

  “A young colt has met you,” said one of the thanes, laughing at his own wit.

  “In Feng’s stud there are too few of that kind fighting,” said Amlodi. There were some frowns at this, which seemed to them a more cunning answer than they had expected.

  “Your answer is witty,” said the first thane, ruefully.

  “I speak nothing but truth,” replied Amlodi. He had no wish to be seen to lie about anything, and he mingled truth with wit to reveal nothing about the matter or about himself.

  They came to the beach, where the thanes found the steering-oar of a wrecked ship. “Look, Amlodi,” said one, “we have found a huge knife!”

  “Then it was the right thing to carve so big a ham,” Amlodi replied. There was laughter at this, but in fact he meant the sea, which matched the steering-oar in vastness.

  As they rode past the dunes, one said: “Look at this meal!” referring the sand.

  “The tempests of the ocean have ground it small,” Amlodi replied.

  “That’s not the answer of a fool,” said the thane.

  “I spoke it wittingly,” replied Amlodi. And in after days the sea was known in poetry as Amlodi’s Mill.

  Then the thanes left him, so he could pluck up the courage for love-making. In a dark place he encountered his foster-sister, who was the woman Feng had sent to tempt him. He took her, and would have slept with her immediately, had her brother not given him some idea that this was a trap. For the man had attached a straw to the tail of a gadfly, which he had sent in Amlodi’s direction, and Amlodi guessed from this that it was a secret warning to beware treachery. So he dragged the maid off to a distant fen, where they made love. Before they did so, Amlodi secretly laid down three objects he had gathered during the journey. Once they had lain together, he asked her earnestly to tell no one. She agreed in view of their long friendship.

  When he returned home, the thanes were waiting for him. “Did you give way?” asked one slyly.

  “Why, I ravished the maid,” he replied.

  “Where did you commit the act?” asked another. “And what was your pillow?”

  “I rested on the hoof of a donkey, a cockscomb, and a ceiling,” replied Amlodi, and all laughed at the mad reply, but in truth, it had been fragments of these three objects that Amlodi had laid down on the ground before sleeping with his foster-sister.

  “Is what this madman says true?” they asked the girl.

  “He did no such thing!” she replied firmly. Also Amlodi’s escort agreed that it would have been impossible.

  Then Amlodi’s foster-brother said: “Latterly, I have been singly devoted to you, brother.”

  In reply, Amlodi said: “I saw a certain thing bearing a straw flit by suddenly, wearing a stalk of chaff fixed to its hind parts.”

  Although the others laughed, his foster brother rejoiced.

  So none of them had succeeded in tricking Amlodi. But one of Feng’s thanes, in council, said: “No simple plot can prove Amlodi’s cunning. “His obstinacy is great, and his wiliness is many-sided.”

  “Then what do you suggest?” asked the king.

  “I have thought of a better way, which will certainly help us learn what we wish. My lord, you must leave the palace, claiming that affairs of state take you elsewhere. Closet Amlodi alone with his mother in her chamber, but first place a man in hiding in the room to listen to their speech. If Amlodi has any wits he will not hesitate to trust his mother.”

  Feng nodded approvingly. He left the court claiming to be on a long journey. His thane went secretly to Gerutha’s chamber, and hid himself in the straw. But Amlodi was ready for any treachery. Afraid of eavesdroppers, he crowed like a noisy cock on entering the room, flapping his arms as if they were wings. Then he began to jump up and down on the straw to see if anything lurked there. Feeling a lump under his feet, he drove his sword in, and impaled the thane. Then he dragged the man from hiding and slew him. After that he hacked the body into pieces, seethed them in boiling water, and flung them into an open sewer for the pigs to eat. Now he returned to his mother’s chamber, where she lamented his madness. But he reproached her for her conduct, and tore her heart with his words.

  When Feng returned, he could find his thane nowhere. Jokingly, he asked Amlodi, among others, if he had seen him.

  “Your thane went to the sewer, but he fell in and drowned in filth,” Amlodi replied with a wild grin. “Then the swine ate him.”

  Feng shook his head in disgust at this apparent nonsense.

  Now Feng was certain that his stepson was full of guile and treachery, and he wished to slay him, but did not dare do this openly for fear of his wife. Instead, he decided to ask his old friend the King of England to kill him, so that he could claim ignorance of the deed.

  Before Amlodi went, he went to his mother in secret. “Hang the hall with woven knots,” he told her enigmatically. “And if I do not return after a year, perform obsequies for me. Then will I return.”

  Two of Feng’s thanes went with him, taking with them a runic message to the King of England, asking him to execute their charge. On board ship, while his two companions were sleeping, Amlodi searched them, found the message, and read the runes. Then he scratched clean the stave, and cut his own message to the effect that his companions should be put to death, not he. In a postscript he asked that the King of England give his daughter in marriage to “a youth of great judgement” who he was sending. He signed it with his uncle’s signature.

  When they reached England, the envoys went to the ruler, and gave him the rune-stave. The king read it, and then gave them good entertainment. But when Amlodi had the meat and drink of the feast placed before him, he rejected it.

  “How incredible,” people were heard to murmur, “that a foreign lad should turn his nose up at the dainties of the royal table as if it were some peasant’s stew.”

  When the feast was over, and the king was bidding goodnight to his friends, he sent a man to the quarters assigned to Amlodi and his companions to listen to their speech.

  “Why did you act as if the king’s meat was poisoned?” asked one of the thanes.

  “Blood flecked the bread,” replied Amlodi. “Did you not see it? And there was a tang of iron in the mead. As for the meat, it smelled like rotting flesh. Besides, the king has the eyes of a thrall, and in three ways the queen acted like a bondmaid.”

  His companions jeered at him for his words.

  Meanwhile, the king heard all this from his spy. “He who could say such things,” the king remarked, “must possess either more than mortal wisdom, or more than mortal folly.”

  He summoned his reeve, and asked him where he the bread came from. “It was made by your own baker, my lord,” replied the reeve.

  “Whe
re did the corn of which it was made grow?” asked the king. “Are there any signs of carnage in the vicinity?”

  The reeve replied. “Nearby is a field where men fought in former days,” he said. “I planted this field with grain in spring, thinking it more fruitful than the others.” He shrugged. “Maybe this affected the bread’s flavour.”

  Hearing this, the king assumed that Amlodi had spoken truly. “And where did the meat come from?

  “My pigs strayed from their keeper,” the reeve admitted. “And they were found eating the corpse of a robber. Perhaps it was this that the youth could taste.”

  “And of what liquor did you mix the mead?”

  “It was brewed of water and meal,” replied the reeve. “I could show you the spring from which the water came.”

  He did so, and when the king had it dug deep down, he found there several rusted swords.

  After this, the king went to speak with his mother. “Who was my real father?” he asked.

  “I submitted to no man but the king your father,” she replied.

  He threatened to have the truth out of her with a trial, and she relented. “Very well,” she replied. “If you must know, your real father was a thrall.”

  By this, the king understood Amlodi’s words. Although ashamed of his lowly origins, the king was so amazed by Amlodi’s cleverness that he asked him to his face why he had said the queen behaved like a bondmaid. But then he found that her mother had indeed been a thrall.

  Amlodi told the king that he had seen three faults in her behaviour. “To begin with,” he said, ‘she muffles her head in her mantle like a handmaid. Secondly, she picks up her gown when she walks. Thirdly, I saw her pick a piece of food from her teeth and then eat it.” He went on to say that the king’s mother had been enthralld after captivity, in case she might seem servile only in her habits, rather than her birth.

  The king praised Amlodi’s wisdom as if it was inspired, and in accordance with the message from Feng, gave him his daughter as wife. On the next day, to fulfil the rest of the message, he had Amlodi’s companions hanged. Amlodi feigned anger at this, and the king gave him gold in wergild, which he melted in the fire, and poured into two hollowed-out sticks.

  After spending a year with the king, he asked leave to make a journey, and sailed back to his own land, taking with him only the sticks containing the gold. When he reached Jutland, he dressed again in his old rags, and entered the banquet hall covered in filth. Here he found the people holding his wake, and he struck them aghast, since all believed him to be dead. But in the end, their terror turned to laughter. The guests jeered and taunted each other.

  “That Amlodi should turn up at his own funeral!”

  “Where are the men who went with you?” someone asked.

  Amlodi pointed to the sticks he bore. “Here they are,” he replied, to the laughter of all. Then he jollied the cupbearers, asking them to ply more drink. Next he girdled his sword on his side, then drew it several times, and cut himself with it. To protect him from himself, the king’s thanes had sword and scabbard riveted with iron nails. Then Amlodi plied the thanes with horn after horn of mead, until all were drunk. They fell asleep one by one in the hall itself.

  Now Amlodi took from his rags the wooden crooks he had fashioned so long ago, then cut down the hanging his mother had made, which covered both the inner and the outer walls of the hall. Flinging this over the sleeping thanes, the then applied the crooked stakes, knotting and binding them so none could rise. Then he set fire to the hall.

  As the fire spread, he went to Feng’s chamber, where he took his uncle’s sword from where it hung over the bed, and replaced it with his own. Then he woke Feng.

  “Your men are dying in flames,” he said. “And here am I, Amlodi, armed with my crooks to help me, athirst for long overdue vengeance, for my father’s murder.”

  On hearing this, Feng leapt from his couch and tried to draw the sword that hung over his bed. But Amlodi cut him down as he struggled to unsheathe the weapon.

  Uncertain of how the Jutish nation would react to his deeds, Amlodi lay in hiding until he could learn the people’s thoughts. Everyone living nearby had watched the hall burn through the night, and in the morning they came to see what had occurred. Searching the ruins they found nothing but a few burnt corpses, and the body of Feng stabbed with his own sword. Some were angry, others saddened, others happy that the tyrant had been slain.

  At this, Amlodi abandoned his hiding place, and called an assembly. Here he told the Jutes of the circumstances that had brought this about, where upon the people proclaimed him king, seeing him as a man of wisdom and cunning.

  With this done, Amlodi equipped three ships, and sailed back to England to see his wife and his father-in-law. With him went the best of his thanes, well equipped and richly clad. He had had a shield made for him, upon which was painted the story of his exploits.

  The King of England received them well, treating them as befits a king and his retinue. During the feast he asked: “Is my old friend Feng alive and well?”

  Amlodi shook his head. “He died by the sword,” he replied.

  “Who slew him?” asked the king sharply.

  “It was I,” replied Amlodi.

  At this the king said nothing, but secretly he was horrified, for in their youth he and Feng had sworn that each should avenge the other’s death if one of them were to be slain. But the slayer was his son-in-law. Which should he chose, to honour his vow, or to respect the ties of blood and marriage? At last, he chose the former, but decided that he would achieve vengeance by the hands of another.

  “I have sad tidings to relate, also,” he said. “While you were among the Jutes, my wife died of illness.”

  Amlodi offered his condolences, and asked if he intended to marry again. “Indeed,” the king replied, “and since I am delight with you cunning and craft, I would like you to find me a fresh match.”

  “Do you have any preferences?” asked Amlodi.

  The king replied that he did. “In Scotland there reigns an unmarried queen named Jormunthrud. I wish to marry her.” But he neglected to tell Amlodi that the reason the queen was unmarried was because she had the custom of killing all who wooed her. Amlodi set out for Scotland with his thanes and some of the king’s attendants. When he was near the hall of the queen, he came to a meadow by the road where he rested his horses. Finding the spot pleasing, he resolved to rest himself there, too, and posted men to keep watch some way off.

  Queen Jormunthrud learnt of this, and sent ten warriors to spy on the foreigners. One of them slipped past the guards and took Amlodi’s shield, which Amlodi was using as a pillow, and the letter the King of England had entrusted him with. When he brought these things to Queen Jormunthrud, she examined the shield, and saw that this was the man who had with cunning and craft unsurpassed avenged on his uncle the murder of his father. She also read the letter with distaste. She had no desire to marry an old man. She rubbed out all the writing, and wrote in their place saying that the bearer was to ask her hand himself. Then she told the spies to replace both shield and letter.

  Meanwhile, Amlodi had found the shield had been stolen, kept his eyes shut and feigned sleep when the spy returned. As the man was replacing the shield and letter, Amlodi sprang up, and seized him. Then he woke his thanes, and they rode on to the queen’s palace.

  He greeted her. “I am here to represent my father-in-law, the King of England,” he told her, and he handed her the letter, sealed with the king’s seal.

  Jormunthrud too it, and read it. “I have heard of you,” she said. “You are said to be very cunning. Your uncle deserved all he received at your hands. You achieved deeds beyond mortal estimation. Not only did you avenge you father’s death and your mother’s faithlessness, but at the same time you gained a kingdom. You have made only one mistake.”

  “And that is?” challenged Amlodi.

  “Why, your lowly marriage,” Jormunthrud replied, as if it was obvious. “Your wif
e’s parents were both of the stock of thralls, even if they became kings by accident. When looking for a wife, a man must regard firstly her birth over her beauty. I, whose origin is far from humble, am worthy of your bed and your embraces, since you surpass me in neither wealth nor ancestry. I am a queen, and whoever I deem worthy of my bed is king.” She embraced him.

  Amlodi, overjoyed by her words, kissed her back, and told her that her wishes were as his own. A banquet was held, the Scots gathered, and they were married. When this was done, Amlodi returned south with his bride, and a strong band of Scots followed to guard against attack. They met the King of England’s daughter.

  “It would be unworthy of me to hate you as an adulterer more than I love you as a husband,” she said, “for I have now a son as a pledge of our marriage, and regard for him, if nothing else, means I must show the affection of a wife. He may hate his mother’s supplanter, I will love her. But I tell you that you must beware your father-in-law.”

  As she was speaking, the King of England came up and embraced Amlodi, and welcomed him to a banquet. But Amlodi, being forewarned, took a retinue of two hundred horsemen, and rode to the hall appointed. As he did so, the king attacked him under the porch of the hall, and thrust at him with a spear, but Amlodi’s mailshirt deflected the blow. Amlodi was slightly wounded, and he went back to the Scottish warriors. Then he sent to the king Jormunthrud’s spy, who he had taken prisoner. The man was to explain what had occurred, and then absolve Amlodi.

  The king pursued Amlodi, and slew many of his men. The next day, Amlodi, wishing to fight, increased his apparent numbers by setting some of the corpses on horseback, and tying others to stones, and giving the impression that his forces were undiminished, and striking fear into the hearts of his opponents, who fled. Amlodi’s forces came down upon the king as he was retreating, and slew him.

  Amlodi amassed a great amount of plunder, and then went with his two wives back to his own land.