Ulric the Jarl: A Story of the Penitent Thief

"Glad am I," said Ulric, "that if I meet one of these gods I can speak to him fairly well in his own tongue. How else, for instance, could I question this Jew god? We shall sail all around the coasts of the Middle Sea before we come home."

"What couldst thou ask him?" replied Knud. "And what thinkest thou he might tell thee?"

"One thing that Hilda knew not," said Ulric. "I am curious if the gods of those lands know the gods of the North. I would know if this Jew god hath ever met with Odin and Thor, and whether or not they are friends. If they have fights, as do our own gods, which of them is the stronger? I have thought that if I were a god, I would bring all the others under me. It is not managed well."

"I would not have land gods meddling too much with the sea, save in battles," said Tostig. "It is well as it is. But the Middle Sea is wide; we may not look upon all of its coasts. There are deep bays and many islands."

"They say," responded Ulric, "that there is an open water leading southward, and that if one can find it and will sail into it boldly, fearing nothing, he may follow its leading until he shall find the city of Asgard and the home of the gods. Moreover, there are lands which no foot hath trodden. I would see some of them if they are to be found by sailing not too far."

So said they all, and there were other tales to tell concerning seas and lands.

They still were talking of these things when a loud shout from one of the watchers summoned them, and they rushed out to the gunwales and the decks. The rain was no longer falling and the sky was clear, so that they saw well what was doing. The ice king had not at all lost his grip upon his own floes, but southward was a vast rift in the ice pack. Wide and blue was the open water, but it was not very near them, and as they were looking at it from their icy anchorage the watcher shouted again:

"O Ulric the Jarl, whales! They will come up again from under the floes. I saw them. A great herd!"

Loud voices replied, inquiring, but they ceased, for the herd quickly showed itself. Many and huge were the whales that emerged, and some of them sprang half their length out of the water.

"They are pursued!" exclaimed Knud the Bear. "I have seen them spring in that manner when the swordfish troubled them. But see them flounder now!"

Strange indeed was the confusion and the tumbling about of this herd of the sea. They were beating the waves into foam, and they were plunging hither and thither as if wildly affrighted.

"I think that it is neither the swordfish nor the thrasher," said Tostig the Red, for he had halfway climbed the mast and he was leaning out to see. "O jarl, it is one of the monsters that Hilda hath told us of. She sayeth that only a few are left, for the gods destroyed them lest they should eat up all the whales. Look yonder!"

They were near enough to see, but could not note clearly until a great fragment broke away from the field of ice which carried The Sword. Through that chasm at its outer border there came up a shape which was not the head of a whale. It was long, with vast jaws, and in them were pointed saws of long white teeth, with which it tore terribly the side of a tremendous bull whale that was nearest. But the bull whale turned and fought him, and there was a vast whirling of foamy water, as the two sea creatures struggled against each other, beating with heads and fins and tails, but the vikings could none the better discern the form of the whale's enemy.

"He is a comrade of the ice king," said Wulf the Skater. "Never before was he seen in these waters. He is somewhat like a snake, but with a vast belly. I saw his head once before, long ago. Ten more were with me in the ship, and we had been long storm-driven. The old men told me much about him."

"He could upset a ship," said Tostig. "I am glad we are here on the ice. But thou mayest have seen another like him."

"Not so said the old men," replied Wulf. "He is alone. There! He showeth again!"

"I am glad we have seen him," said Ulric. "But I am more troubled concerning the ice king. See ye not that he is fast melting? I have thought that he is beginning to lean this way. We are drifting, truly, but we do not get away from him. We are his prisoners."

They well understood that there might be deadly peril for them in aught that should change the position of the iceberg, but there was naught that they could do, even if sure death were coming. So they preferred to gaze after the herd of whales, and every now and then they thought that they caught fresh glimpses of the monster from the under sea, the terror of all other monsters. Few of them but had heard and could tell old sagas of such creatures, the remnants of the forgotten days, and they agreed that this one was the world-snake that Hilda had sung of as the destroyer.

"He eateth men joyfully," said one, "when he can get them."

"Hilda said," replied Ulric, "that he cometh among men no more. He cannot live in any sea that is plowed by the keels of ships. The gods are against him. But now the whales have fled and he hath followed."

Then turned they to stare at the ice king, and he seemed as strong as ever. Far away at his right they saw the bears, walking to and fro, and the wind brought from them a sound as if they were moaning.

CHAPTER VI.

The Fall of the Ice King

When the sun arose upon the fifth day of the week, the day of Thor, the glittering pinnacles of the ice king still towered high above the floes, and these covered the sea as far as the eye could reach. All the white mass was evidently in motion and the drifting was rapid, but it seemed to the vikings as if their danger were striving to push nearer to the ship. She was now lying almost within his reach, if he should choose to strike her – and she was but a very small thing. Her crew, going and coming around her, were but so many specks upon the ice. From her masthead still fluttered bravely out her White Horse banner, and she was yet altogether unharmed, but the rowers were at their places continually.

A prudent captain was the jarl, for, although the men were impatient, he forbade their going far from the ship. He held them back even when the remaining white bears appeared near the feet of the ice king.

Knud was almost angry that he was not permitted to go forth and slay them.

"One man for each bear, Ulric the Jarl," he said. "It is our right. We may not ever meet them again, and the chance for honor were lost. Thou hast won thy pair of claws."

"Thou hast slain bears enough," said Ulric. "Were I to let thee go, thou mightest perchance be left behind on the ice, or under it. Small honor in that. I promise thee the next chance to get thyself killed fairly."

"I obey," growled the grim old hunter, "for thou art my jarl. But when we return from this cruise I will go with Wulf the Skater into the winter of long night and we will find them there. I will not go to Valhalla until I have slain one as large as thine."

"Mind not thy bears now," responded Ulric. "Seest thou not? Art thou blind?"

He blew his horn sharply, and all who were on the ice around the ship sprang on board in haste.

"Mark!" he shouted. "Between us and the foot of the ice king there is a chasm that widens. We know not when the field may break away. Then he will be upon us. Every man at his place this day!"

They who saw could understand, and there was no more talk of hunting. Even when a white fox came and looked at them, within bowshot, no arrow went after him.

"Let him go free," said Tostig. "He hath wild fowl enough for the catching, but he will swim far before he runneth on land again."

It was a time of doubt and of waiting, but the drifting ceased not. There was much discussion at intervals, among even the elder seamen, as to precisely in what part of the sea they now might be, for there were no guidings. Toward the sunset, after long hours of idleness that brought weariness, Ulric went and stood by the hammer of Thor on the fore deck. Tostig the Red came and stood by him and laid his hand upon the hammer, for Tostig was a smith, as had been his fathers before him. Not only could he smelt iron out of the right rock, but he could harden it for cutting and for bending and springing. The secret of that art was his inheritance, and Hilda had said that it was a thing that the old gods who were dead had brought with them from the east before Asa Thor's time. It was from a rising-sun land, but a cold one, that Odin led his children, said some, and there were runes on the rocks to prove it, if they might be read by any now living.

"We go faster," said Tostig. "We have already gone far this day. If the gods were against us, I think they would not so swiftly bear us forward without wind or work."

"Who knoweth the will of the gods?" replied Ulric. "Not thou or I. They puzzle me greatly. I would they might come at times and show themselves. How can one know what to think of a god he hath never seen! I mean to look upon one of them, if I may, before I sail back to the Northland. That were a thing worth telling of a winter evening by the fire in the hall."

"And have all men answer thee that thou wert lying?" laughed Knud cheerily, from behind Tostig. "I believe that Hilda seeth them at an hour that cometh to her, but I would rather let them alone. I will think well of them if they will but shove us along in the right direction. They work finely now, it seemeth, but the sun goeth down. Thor hath been friendly to us during all his day, but I doubt if we are as safe after he is gone. The morrow will be Freya's day, and she meddleth not overmuch with seafaring matters. Ægir is the god of the sea, and of him we know but little, nor of Ran, his wife, nor of his nine daughters. They must at this hour be all under the ice doing nothing."

The saying of Knud was a thing that it was hard to dispute, but it was in Ulric's mind to wonder whether or not he and his vikings were drifting altogether beyond the help of the old gods of the North.

The wind began to blow strongly, and the men listened with eager ears, for they thought that they could now and then hear shrill and angry voices from the neighborhood of the ice king. Some of them were like shrieks, but these may have been made by the gale itself, blowing among the crags and chasms.

"We will both eat and drink," commanded Ulric. "Let every man be hearty, that he may have his full strength for that which may be before him."

After he himself had eaten he went to the after deck, putting his hand upon the tiller. From that place he might best watch the ice king, and there came others to stand with him, waiting.

"He is very tall," said Ulric, at last. "I doubt if we shall ever look upon his like again. But saw ye ever such moonlight? I have known days when I could not see so well as I can this night."

"Aye," said Wulf. "I know this moon. It is not such light as ours, for he hath brought it with him. It is the light which the gods make instead of sunlight in his own place, and it will not go south any further than he goeth. But mark the bears!"

"Something troubleth them," said Ulric.

All could see them plainly, and they were like ghosts wandering to and fro among the rugged heaps of the ice floes. They were much scattered and they moved as if they were hunting for something which they could not find, and they were calling often to each other, moaning as if they were in pain or in great discontent. Sometimes as they did so they lifted up their heads toward the moon, but oftener toward the ice king.

"Look at him now!" exclaimed Ulric. "The moon is shining upon him wonderfully.

"It is so," said Tostig, "but I think not of that. Wilt thou note this, that whenever there cometh a boom of the rending ice the bears call out to their mates? More than we do they know of such matters. All such creatures have gods of their own, and we may have offended them. I like it not."

"The gods of the bears will care for the bears!" said Knud. "They have naught to do with men."

Nevertheless, it was a time for men to speak softly concerning such things when powers whom they saw not and knew not were dragging them and their ship along so helplessly. There are times when one feeleth that he can get along well enough without the gods, but this was a different matter. All the vikings talked soberly and they were glad that their jarl was a son of Odin.