Erling the Bold

He went forward and gave the order to relieve the men who had rowed from the land, and when the fresh men were on the benches he returned and bade Kettle go on.

“’Tis a fine country,” said the Irishman, glancing round him with a glowing eye, and speaking in a low tone, as if to himself—“one to be proud of.”

And in truth there was ground for his remark, for the mists had by that time entirely cleared away, leaving unveiled a sea so calm and bright that the innumerable islets off the coast appeared as if floating in air.

“That is true,” said Thorer. “I sometimes wonder, Kettle, at thy longing to return to Ireland. I am in the same case with thyself—was taken from my home in Jemteland, laboured as a thrall, wrought out my freedom, and remained in Haldor’s service, but have never wished to return home.”

“Didst thou leave a wife and children behind thee?” asked Kettle.

“Nay; I was carried away while very young.”

“Is thy father alive, or thy mother?”

“No, they are both dead.”

“Then I wonder not that ye have no desire to return home. My father and mother are both alive—at least I have good reason to believe so—my wife and children are waiting for me. Canst wonder, man, that I long to behold once more the green hills of Ireland?”

“Nay, if that be so, I wonder not,” replied Thorer.

“Come, Kettle, thou forgettest that we wait for the story about old Guttorm Stoutheart,” said Solve Klofe, arranging the corner of a sail so as to protect his back from the sun.

“’Tis an old story now in Horlingdal,” said Kettle; “but as thou hast not been in this quarter for a long time, no doubt it is new to thee. Thorer there knows it well; but I find that it bears telling more than once. Well, it was, as I have said, two years past that Guttorm went south to Valland on viking cruise. He called at Horlingdal in passing, and got some of the dalesmen. Among others, I was allowed to go. He and I got on very well together, and we were fortunate in getting much booty. One day we came to a part of the coast where we saw a strong castle of stone on the top of a hill a short way inland. We also saw plenty of cattle on a plain near the sea, so Guttorm ordered his longship to be steered for the shore, and we began to drive some of the cattle down to the beach, intending to slaughter them there, as our provisions were getting low. On seeing this, a party of men came out from the castle and bade us begone. We told them to be easy in their minds, for we only wanted a little food. We even went so far as to ask it of them civilly, but the men were such surly fellows that they refused to listen to reason, and attacked us at once. Of course we drove them back into their castle, but in doing so we lost one or two of our best men. This angered old Guttorm, who is not a quarrelsome man, as ye know. He would have gone away peaceably enough if he had been let alone to help himself to a few beasts; but his blood was set up by that time, so he ordered all the men on shore, and we pitched our tents and besieged the castle. Being made of stone, there was no chance of setting it on fire, and as the walls were uncommonly high, it was not possible to take it by assault. Well, we sat down before it, and for two days tried everything we could think of to take it, but failed, for there were plenty of men in it, and they defended the walls stoutly. Besides this, to say the truth, we had already lost a number of good men on the cruise and could ill afford to lose more.

“On the third day some of our chief men advised Guttorm to give it up, but that made him so furious that no one dared speak to him about it for another two days. At the end of that time his nephew plucked up heart, and going to him, said—

“‘Uncle, do you see the little birds that fly back and forward over the castle walls so freely, and build their nests in the thatch of the housetops?’

“‘I do, nephew,’ says Guttorm. ‘What then?’

“‘My advice is,’ says the nephew, ‘that you should order the men to make each a pair of wings like those the birds have, and then we shall all fly over the walls, for it seems to me that there is no other way of getting into the castle.’

“‘Thou art a droll knave,’ replies Guttorm, for he was ever fond of a joke; ‘but thou art wise also, therefore I advise thee to make a pattern pair of wings for the men; and when they are ready—’

“Here Guttorm stopped short, and fell to thinking; and he thought so long that his nephew asked him at last if he had any further commands for him.

“‘Yes, boy, I have. There is more in this matter of the wings than thou dreamest of. Go quickly and order the men to make snares, and catch as many of these little birds as they can before sunset. Let them be careful not to hurt the birds, and send Kettle Flatnose and my house-carle hither without delay.’

“When I came to the old man I found him walking to and fro briskly, with an expression of eagerness in his eye.

“‘Kettle,’ he said smartly, ‘go and prepare two hundred pieces of cord, each about one foot long, and to the end of each piece tie a small chip of wood as long as the first joint of thy thumb, and about the size of a goose quill. Smear these pieces of wood over with pitch, and have the whole in my tent within three hours.’

“As I walked away to obey this order, wondering what it could all be about, I heard him tell his chief house-carle to have all the men armed and ready for action a little after sunset, as quietly as possible.

“Before the three hours were out, I returned to the tent with the two hundred pieces of cord prepared according to orders, and found old Guttorm sitting with a great sack before him, and a look of perplexity on his face that almost made me laugh. He was half-inclined to laugh too, for the sack moved about in a strange way, as if it were alive!

“‘Kettle,’ said he, when I came forward, ‘I need thy help here. I have got some three hundred little birds in that sack, and I don’t know how to keep them in order, for they are fluttering about and killing themselves right and left, so that I shall soon have none left alive for my purpose. My thought is to tie one of these cords to a leg of each bird, set the bit of stick on fire and let it go, so that when it flies to its nest in the thatch it will set the houses in the castle on fire. Now, what is thy advice?’

“‘Call as many of the men into the tent as it will hold, and let each catch a bird, and keep it till the cords are made fast; says I.’

“This was done at once, but we had more trouble than we expected, for when the mouth of the sack was opened, out flew a dozen of the birds before we could close it! The curtain of the tent was down, however, so, after a good deal of hunting, we caught them again. When the cords were tied to these the men were sent out of the tent, each with a little bird in his hand, and with orders to go to his particular post and remain there till further orders. Then another batch of men came in, and they were supplied with birds and cords like the others; but ye have no notion what trouble we had. I have seen a hundred viking prisoners caught and held fast with half the difficulty and less noise! Moreover, while some of the men squeezed the birds to death in their fear lest they should escape, others let theirs go in their anxiety not to hurt them, and the little things flew back to their nests with the cords and bits of chip trailing after them. At last, however, all was ready. The men were kept in hiding till after dark; then the little chips were set on fire all at the same time, and the birds were let go. It was like a shower of stars descending on the castle, for each bird made straight for its own nest; but just as we were expecting to behold the success of our plan, up jumped a line of men on the castle walls, and by shouting and swinging their arms scared the birds away. We guessed at once that the little birds which had escaped too soon with the strings tied to their legs had been noticed, and the trick suspected, for the men in the castle were well prepared. A few of the birds flew over their heads, and managed to reach the roofs, which caught fire at once; but wherever this happened, a dozen men ran at the place and beat the fire out. The thing was wisely contrived, but it was cleverly met and repelled, so we had only our trouble and the disappointment for our pains.

“After this,” continued Kettle, “old Guttorm became like a wolf. He snarled at everyone who came near him for some time, but his passion never lasted long. He soon fell upon another plan.

“There was a small river which ran at the foot of the mound on which the castle stood, and there were mudbanks on the side next to it, One night we were all ordered to go to the mudbanks as quiet as mice, with shovels and picks in our hands, and dig a tunnel under the castle. We did so, and the first night advanced a long way, but we had to stop a good while before day to let the dirt wash away and the water get clear again, so that they might not suspect what we were about. The next night we got under the castle wall, and on the fifth night had got well under the great hall, for we could hear the men singing and shouting as they sat at meat above us. We had then to work very carefully for fear of making a noise, and when we thought it ready for the assault we took our swords and shields with us, and Guttorm led the way. His chief house-carle was appointed to drive through the floor, while Guttorm and I stood ready to egg him on and back him up.

“We heard the men above singing and feasting as usual, when suddenly there was a great silence, for one of the big stones over our heads was loosened, and they had evidently felt or seen it. Now was the time come; so, while the house-carle shovelled off the earth, some of us got our fingers in about the edge of the stone, and pulled with all our force. Suddenly down it came and a man along with it. We knocked him on the head at once, and gave a loud huzza as the house-carle sprang up through the hole, caught a shower of blows on his shield, and began to lay about him fiercely. Guttorm was very mad at the carle for going up before him, but the carle was light and the old man was heavy, so he could not help it. I was about to follow, when a man cut at my head with a great axe as I looked up through the hole. I caught the blow on my shield, and thrust my sword up into his leg, which made him give back; but just at that moment the earth gave way under our feet, and a great mass of stones and rubbish fell down on us, driving us all back into the passage through which we had come, except the house-carle, who had been caught by the enemy and dragged up into the hall. As soon as we could get on our feet we tried to make for the hole again, but it was so filled with earth and stones that we could not get forward a step. Knowing, therefore, that it was useless to stay longer there, we ran back to the entrance of the tunnel, but here we found a body of men who had been sent out of the castle to cut off our retreat. We made short work of these. Disappointment and anger had made every man of us equal to two, so we hewed our way right through them, and got back to the camp with the loss of only two men besides the house-carle.

“Next morning when it was daylight, the enemy brought the poor prisoner to the top of the castle wall, where they lopped off his head, and, having cut his body into four pieces, they cast them down to us with shouts of contempt.

“After this Guttorm Stoutheart appeared to lose all his fire and spirit. He sent for his chief men, and said that he was going to die, and that it was his wish to be left to do so undisturbed. Then he went into his tent, and no one was allowed after that to go near him except his nephew.

“A week later we were told that Guttorm was dying, and that he wanted to be buried inside the castle; for we had discovered that the people were what they called Christians, and that they had consecrated ground there.

“When this was made known to the priests in the castle they were much pleased, and agreed to bury our chief in their ground, if we would bring his body to a spot near the front gateway, and there leave it and retire to a safe distance from the walls. There was some objection to this at first, hit it was finally agreed to—only a request was made that two of the next of kin to Guttorm might be allowed to accompany the body to the burial-place, as it would be considered a lasting disgrace to the family if it were buried by strange hands when friends were near. This request was granted on the understanding that the two relations were to go into the castle unarmed.

“On the day of the funeral I was summoned to Guttorm’s tent to help to put him into his coffin, which had been made for him after the pattern of the coffins used in that part of the country. When I entered I found the nephew standing by the side of the coffin, and the old Sea-king himself sitting on the foot of it.

“‘Thou art not quite dead yet?’ says I, looking hard in his face.

“‘Not yet,’ says he, ‘and I don’t expect to be for some time.’

“‘Are we to put you into the coffin?’ I asked.

“‘Yes,’ says he, ‘and see that my good axe lies ready to my hand. Put thy sword on my left side, nephew, that thou mayst catch it readily. They bury me in consecrated ground to-day, Kettle; and thou, being one of my nearest of kin, must attend me to the grave! Thou must go unarmed too, but that matters little, for thy sword can be placed on the top of my coffin, along with thy shield, to do duty as the weapons of the dead. When to use them I leave to thy well-known discretion. Dost understand?’

“‘Your speech is not difficult for the understanding to take in,’ says I.

“‘Ha! especially the understanding of an Irishman,’ says he, with a smile. ‘Well, help me to get into this box, and see that thou dost not run it carelessly against gate-posts; for it is not made to be roughly handled!’

“With that old Guttorm lay back in the coffin, and we packed in the nephew’s sword and shield with him, and his own axe and shield at his right side. Then we fastened down the lid, and two men were called to assist us in carrying it to the appointed place.

“As we walked slowly forward I saw that our men were drawn up in a line at some distance from the castle wall, with their heads hanging down, as if they were in deep grief,—and so they were, for only a few were aware of what was going to be done; yet all were armed, and ready for instant action. The appointed spot being reached, we put the coffin on the ground, and ordered the two men, who were armed, to retire.

“‘But don’t go far away, lads,’ says I; ‘for we have work for ye to do.’

“They went back only fifty ells or so, and then turned to look on.

“At the same time the gate of the castle opened, and twelve priests came out dressed in long black robes, and carrying a cross before them. One of them, who understood the Norse language, said, as they came forward—

“‘What meaneth the sword and shield?’

“I told him that it was our custom to bury a warrior’s arms along with him. He seemed inclined to object to this at first, but thinking better of it, he ordered four of his men to take up the coffin, which they did, shoulder high, and marched back to the castle, closely followed by the two chief mourners.

“No sooner had we entered the gateway, which was crowded with warriors, than I stumbled against the coffin, and drove it heavily against one of the posts, and, pretending to stretch out my hands to support it, I seized my sword and shield. At the same moment the lid of the coffin flew into the air, the sides burst out, and old Guttorm dropped to the ground, embracing two of the priests so fervently in his descent that they fell on the top of him. I had only time to observe that the nephew caught up his sword and shield as they fell among the wreck, when a shower of blows from all directions called for the most rapid action of eye and limb. Before Guttorm could regain his feet and utter his war-cry, I had lopped off two heads, and the nephew’s sword was whirling round him like lightning flashes, but of course I could not see what he did. The defenders fought bravely, and in the first rush we were almost borne back; but in another moment the two men who had helped us to carry the coffin were alongside of us; and now, having a front of five stout men, we began to feel confident of success. This was turned into certainty when we heard, a minute later, a great rushing sound behind us, and knew that our men were coming on. Old Guttorm swung his battle-axe as if it had been a toy, and, uttering a tremendous roar, cut his way right into the middle of the castle. We all closed in behind him; the foe wavered—they gave way—at last they turned and fled; for remembering, no doubt, how they had treated the poor house-carle, they knew they had no right to expect mercy. In a quarter of an hour the place was cleared, and the castle was ours.”

“And what didst thou do with it?” asked Alric, in much excitement.

“Do with it? Of course we feasted in it till we were tired; then we put as much of its valuables into our ships as they could carry, after which we set the place on fire and returned to Norway.”