That night, there was in the longhouse a great feast. The drinking-horns were drained and drained again of the potent honey-mead. King Bodvar rewarded his men with rich gifts. Queen Hvit sat beside him, all but preening in satisfaction whenever she looked toward the staring, sightless grey eyes of the bear.
Its mottled pelt of many hues had been shredded nearly to tatters, so fiercely had the beast fought for its life.
“And to get at you,” the same man who’d struck Bera told her. “I’ve never seen one so determined. Lucky for you we happened along just then.”
Pieces of the uncured pelt were passed hand to hand around the feast-tables, scraps that would make fine trim for boots and cloaks, hoods and tunics. A long strip of it came to Bera and she held it across her lap, fingers petting the fur.
The carcass had been skinned and butchered. Its meat was roasted, and served crisply crackling on silver platters. These, too, were passed hand to hand around the tables, with eating-knives eagerly skewering portions.
Bera pushed away the proffered dish with a grimace.
“Not hungry?” asked Hvit, noticing this.
“No.”
Suspicion narrowed the queen’s gaze and furrowed her brow. “You are a guest in the king’s hall; why will you not eat?”
Something in her voice, a venom, a coldness, made even the most drunken of them pause in their feasting.
With a cry, Bera sprang from her seat. She looped the strip of bearskin around Hvit’s neck and yanked it tight.
Uproar followed, but Bera paid it no mind. It took four men to haul her back and restrain her. By then, the queen slumped in her chair, her face bloated and purple, throttled to death.
“What is the meaning of this?” Bodvar demanded as Bera was dragged before him.
“Look,” she said. “Now your son is avenged.”
Every eye followed her gaze, and every breath in the feast-hall caught with a gasp.
Held aloft upon the bloodied spear-point, the severed head was a bear’s head no longer, but that of a man.
That of Bjorn.
TO FETTER THE FENRIS-WOLF
Sheep lay slaughtered across the yard: flesh torn, guts strewn, wool blood-matted in the churned mud. By the small sod hut was the shepherd’s dog, which had fared no better. Within was the shepherd, who had fared far worse.
The shepherd’s eyes bulged and his mouth gaped, horror-struck. His body was split from throat to groin. His ivory rib cage, pulled apart in splintered shards, exposed a dark, glistening hollow. His limbs splayed outward to the hut’s four corners. The thick meat of his thighs and upper arms had been mauled.
Men from the village gazed upon the grim scene. They were farmers and fishermen, not warriors. They clutched axes and cudgels, not swords and spears. They wore no coats of mail, no leather. Their faces were ashen and their knees quaked.
What some had suspected, and others had feared, could no longer be denied in the stark, raw face of this savage butchery: A wolf had come to their lands.
Not a normal wolf, though. No shadow-slinker or lone-lamb-stealer had caused this type of damage. This was the work of something else—a great wolf, a god wolf, a chaser of Mani, whose brightness last night had been white and full.
The townsfolk knew it as truth, as well as they knew their own names, as well as they knew the name of the slain shepherd: Utli Olafsson, their neighbor, their kinsman, and their friend. Like Utli the shepherd, Baudr the huntsman has also been their neighbor, their kinsman, and their friend. Baudr had gone missing, vanished along with his dogs from his cottage without a trace. His uncertain fate now seemed undeniable.
***
All the able-bodied folk of Vidrtoft worked to make their village ready for the coming darkness.
Gottar did what he could to guide them and to assuage their fears. They looked to him as if he were a lord, for he was the wealthiest and most prosperous. He’d made a modest fortune through trading, then married the sole daughter of a man land-rich but poor in silver. He had no lofty aspirations, comfortable in the small authority of being the one before whom disputes were brought, the one whose counsel was sought and whose advice was followed. When he spoke, men hushed to listen.
The barrier surrounding the cluster of huts and houses was a mere low fence of sticks to which they added logs and brambles. They secured the cows and oxen in their byres and penned up the goats and pigs.
Men and strong boys, armed with staves or pitchforks, stood watch while others took their turns seizing what scant sleep they could. Torch poles jutted from the earth, waiting to be set ablaze.
Vidrtoft had no longhouse, no great jarl’s hall. Gottar thought sometimes of building one, but the lodgings he’d gained from his father-in-law served him well enough, and he preferred to save his money and not spend it on meaningless displays.
The village did have at its center a wide round ring of cut stones topped with logs and a shingled roof. In ordinary times, this was used as a place for gatherings and feasts, as well as working. It served now as a fastness, where the rest of the folk could be brought—the children and eldren, the ill and unfit and infirm. But even they had their tasks. Only the smallest babes and frailest invalids were not expected to lend their hands. The grain must be ground, the fires must be tended, the wool must be spun, and the chores must be done.
Word of Utli the shepherd’s fate had spread rapidly, details exaggerated in each telling. Whispered recounting of Baudr’s disappearance was no longer attributed to simple accident or mischance. Some mentioned the savaged remains of boar and deer recently found.
The prospect of night loomed a darker and more ominous shadow than ever before.
A month before….
The snares had done well that day, so Baudr the huntsman ate well that night, as did his dogs. The beasts sprawled in a companionable pile by the fire, and Baudr stretched himself out on the raised platform that served him for sitting and sleeping.
He smiled, content in the quiet.
Now and again he did think of marriage—he knew a fine widow, the wide-hipped Andin, who’d let it be known she would not mind another husband—but few women would be willing to leave the village for the solitary life that he enjoyed.
He’d long since had more than his fill of company. In his youth, he’d served a jarl. He’d bent his back to the oar of a dragonship and had been paid in good coinage. The closeness of such quarters had not suited him; the press and stench and ceaseless talk of his fellow sailors weighed on him like a heavy cloak. And he found that he far preferred putting his skill with a bow to good use against game rather than men.
His cottage sat, small but snug, in its hollow between a boulder and tree. When the mood or need took him, and he had ample pelts and smoked meats to trade, he could travel to Vidrtoft. Sometimes folk came from the village to hunt or cut timber, so he was not always without visitors.
For the most part, however, the villagers avoided the forest wilds and feared what superstition had taught them since the cradle—whispers of witches and trolls and other strange monsters.
Baudr could not deny that they were wholly unfounded; he’d had moments of unease himself. Once, some years back, he’d found a man’s skull, badly battered, with no explanation of who he might have been or how he came to be there. Another time, more recently, he had glimpsed in a glade what he thought was a woman, tall and proud-breasted, beautiful, naked… but he remembered stories of sorceresses and did not call out or approach her.
Thinking on fables of old, Baudr dozed into a deep sleep, but he woke to his mutts, tails tucked, hackles raised, whining while staring at the door.
Baudr rose from his bed, troubled. These were hunting dogs, fierce and fearless, harriers of boar and bear alike.
Then he heard a loud rustling and thrashing, a crashing through the brush. He judged by the direction that something had fallen into one of his snares, something large.
He secured his bow and knife and walked around the trembling dogs. When he
opened the door, they did not rush out barking and baying but scrambled backward with piteous yelps.
A pale full moon shone down through the boughs, guiding him toward the source of the disturbance. A musky, pungent, wild scent hung in the air.
Before him, tangled in the snare, was a great beast, a wolf larger than any he had ever seen. Enormous. Immense. Bunched with powerful muscle beneath a thick coat. Its eyes glowed like embers. In its struggle to escape, it had only become further ensnared.
He could hardly believe his luck. The pelt off this brute would be a cloak fit for a king, and the story alone would ensure that he never lacked ale or mead.
As he stepped forward, nocking an arrow, the wolf’s ember eyes found him, burning, searing in their heat and hatred. Baudr faltered at the keen intelligence he saw there.
As he moved closer, the snare broke, leather cords snapping like twine. With a heave, the wolf righted itself and shook off the tattered restraints. It growled, a low and furious noise that Baudr felt vibrating through his breastbone.
He loosed the arrow. It landed in the wolf’s side, buried fletching-deep between ribs. But he might as well have just pricked the beast with a thorn; it lunged at him before he could make another move.
A sharp, slashing agony opened his belly. His entrails tumbled out in a slippery, stinking tangle, slapping wet and heavy against his thighs. He fell hard to the ground, clutching at his insides to try and hold himself together. From some vast distance, his dogs wailed.
As his life flooded out of him to darken the forest floor, the wolf’s muzzle lowered. The burning-ember eyes seemed to drink in his pain. Then its jaws closed on Baudr’s throat, and he saw nothing more.
***
“Old Father?” asked Ferilke, looking up from her spindle.
Vjan, warming his bones by a hearth where bread baked on flat rocks in the coals, met her eyes. “Hmm?”
Even at such a tender age, how like her mother she was becoming—the same chestnut hair and clear gaze. She would be as beautiful, but if she proved even half as spirited, she would have a tough time finding herself a husband able to withstand such willfulness.
“Will you tell us a tale, Old Father?” Ferilke asked.
Vjan learned forward. “A tale?” He stroked his white beard.
“Please?”
The others in the room took up the clamor, voices rising in excitement. “Please, Old Father, please!”
“A tale, a tale,” Vjan said, still musing. He asked the air before him, “Are these good and diligent little workers deserving of a tale?”
“Yes!” came a begging chorus.
He glanced beyond the circle of their eager faces, seeking objections from his fellow eldern but finding none. “What manner of tale would you have?”
“Freya and her Cats!” Kjarte cried, her golden, tousled curls bouncing.
“That’s a girl’s story,” said Tygg, his plump face twisting into a sneer. “I want battles and blood!”
“Sigurd and the Dragon!” another voice called out.
“Longships and Plunder!”
Once the commotion died down, Ferilke whispered, “What of wolves?”
At her words, the clamor arose anew, led by Hrugar, Gottar’s son. He often took to his half-sister’s suggestions as if they were his own.
Vjan hesitated and frowned. He glanced around. Bjolf snored, drooling onto his scrawny chest. Uma, swaddled in blankets, coughed weakly. Deaf Lindis hummed to herself while she carded fleece. Neunn was oblivious to all else as she cradled her precious new grandson. Thura, kneading dough, nodded at him. So did Suthor, his gnarled fingers coaxing the shape of a horse’s flowing mane from ivory.
“Wolves, yes, wolves!”
“Old Father, please?”
“Tell us of wolves!”
“Yes, a scare-story!”
“With blood!”
“And killing! Lots of killing!”
Vjan lifted his hands to calm them. “As you will, as you will,” he said, relenting with a laugh. “Sit now and hush. Hear me well as I tell The Saga of the Fenris-Wolf.”
***
Once it was that Loki, the wicked god-tricker
Made a visit to Jotunheim, land of the giants
There, with Angrboda, she who brings sorrow
He sired three children foretold of great mischief
These were their names, that monstrous brood:
Jormungandr, the Serpent of Midgard, world-circling
Hel, flesh-hued of one half and ash-black of the other
And Fenrir, the Fenris-Wolf, ever-hungry for fame
By prophecy, the three offspring boded ill for the gods
From the nature of their mother and their father worse still
So the Aesir resolved to do what they could
To fend off this end fate and delay the destruction
The Serpent, they cast into the depths where Njord rules
And wave-maidens polish the bones of the drowned
Hel was made queen of the cold grey corpse-halls
Hunger upon her table and sickness for her bed
Fenrir, they took to Asgard, high home by the Ash-Tree
To be raised under watch of the All-Father’s eye
Fed and cared for by Tyr, who alone of the gods
Could stand safe his ground in the very wolf’s lair
Odin saw with concern how each day Fenrir grew
The muscle, the sinew, the breadth of his chest
Becoming a larger and more fearsome brute
Destined to cause all the Aesir much harm
It was then decided that the wolf must be bound
Tethered and fettered to tame his fierce temper
Something to which they knew he would not consent
So they sought instead to snare him with wile and guile
First they brought Leyding, of leather, greatly strong
“Try yourself against this,” said the gods,
“For one such as you, famed as you would be,
A simple strap such as this should pose little challenge.”
And Fenrir, judging it not beyond his strength
Gave the gods leave to bind fast his four legs
At his very first kick did Leyding break and snap free
Loosening him easily from the fetter’s grasp
Next they brought Dromi, the iron-forged chain
Twice as strong as Leyding had been at the least
“True fame,” the gods told the wolf, “cannot be had without risk.
If these bonds will not hold you, then nothing will.”
Well, Fenrir saw that this chain was strong, of stout make
But he knew as well that his own strength had grown
So he again let them bind him, four legs fettered
And the wolf set himself once more to the test
He pushed and he pulled and Dromi still held
He clawed and he kicked until foam flecked his lips
He heaved and he strained with all of his might
Then the iron links shattered, the pieces flew high
Now, bolder in boasting than ever before
He went with the Aesir across the dark lake
To Lyngvi, the island, the place thick with heather
For a feast-day as the fresh wind blew
There, he was shown Gleipnir, the silken band
Slender and fine, finer than Freya’s fair hair
The gods passed it about amongst themselves
Marveling that they could not rend such thin cloth
“Oh, but the Fenris-Wolf could,” some of them said,
“For did he not snap Leyding, the stout strap of leather?
And did he not shatter Dromi, the iron-forged chain?
This wisp, this mere ribbon, this would be nothing!”
The other gods, laughing, said, “If even we, even Thor,
Odin’s son, thunder-maker, cannot break this thin band,
Then surely it is beyond the wolf Fe
nrir’s famed strength
And we need have no fear of him for evermore.”
“I will consent that my legs be bound again,” Fenrir said,
“If one of you, high Aesir, great gods and wise,
Will set his hand whole within my mouth
And let it rest there as a pledge of good faith.”
For although the Fenris-Wolf’s pride felt the sting
He suspected deception, some clever craft
Demanding this proof against any misfortune
Which, of course, none of the gods were eager to do
At last there stepped forth the brave god of glory
Settler of duels, justice’s champion, bold Tyr
Who placed his hand between the wolf’s jaws
To hold as Fenrir’s legs with Gleipnir were tied
This then was when the trickery came revealed
The fine band had been in Svartalfheim dwarf-made
Fashioned by them from six impossible things
So Gleipnir would be just as impossible to break
Of the beard of a woman and the breath of a fish
Of a bear’s sinew and a bird’s spittle and a mountain’s roots
And the sound of the footfall of a cat was it forged
Which is why these things are found nowhere in the world
The stronger the wolf fought, the stronger the band grew
Until Fenrir lay helpless, well and fully bound
The gods, relieved at this, made joy and celebration
All save Tyr, whose hand had been in one bite taken off
They brought next a stone slab pierced with holes
And strung a cord through it, anchoring it with a deep peg
Gjoll, was the slab named, and the anchor-peg Thviti
The Raven's Table: Viking Stories Page 18
