The Sentimental Vikings

R. V. RISLEY
JOHN LANE THE BODLEY HEAD NEW YORK AND LONDON 1897
To E. F. C.
And now this is the story of Witlaf the harper, that he told in the great hall of Gorm, the king of all Denmark, ten centuries ago, waving his handless arms in the flickering glow of the firelight.
I tell the tale of Snorē, the lord of the north of the island of Zeeland, years ago; and of how he swept his hall as the day broke.
First, as to his birth. Men say that the heavens were darkened, and that tumultuous clouds swept low over the battlements, and that voices were heard, meaningless, in the air. I do not know—wonders are kind to great names when they have been memories a little time.
But this much is true, that we in the hall of the castle were told by a white-faced woman, just as the sun set—I remember how red its light fell on the rush-covered floor, and how the woman leaned half through the door and told us, holding the curtain—that the child was born, and was strong, and a man; but that the mother was dead, and that the Lord Sigmund was with her.
That night in the hall, by the light of the fire, as we men were talking in whispers, and telling kind deeds of our lady (for she was ever about in the cottages, and she and her women made soft-sewed clothes for all the men of the ship-crew), came, from behind the curtain that is to my lady’s chambers, a long, low wail of a child, strong and insistent, and then a man’s tread for a few paces, and then silence again, save for the men’s whisperings and the sound of the squeaking of their leather-belts as they moved, and the gentle rubbing of the wooden shields on the walls as the wind blew through under the rafters.
And afterwards, when the fire burned low, the men departed for their beds and left the hall empty, and then I also went, because I did not like the shadows, but to the battlements, not to my sleep, for I felt that this night meant something, and I was not yet enough settled in my mind to lie and think in the darkness. So, lonesomely, I paced the battlements, while the moon rose, and all around me lay the great forest reaching almost down to the edge of the moat, and throwing its shadows over the silver water and on the white walls of the house. And in the distance, the long, still, snake of the fjord stretched out under the moon, till it curved and a black point of trees cut it off suddenly.