Wulfric the Weapon Thane: A Story of the Danish Conquest of East Anglia

by Charles W. Whistler

Now my father came aft, and sitting down by the Dane, asked him how he came to risk sailing in the little boat.

"I know not if you can believe me," answered Lodbrok, "but I will tell you in a few words. I have been blown from off the Jutland shore and have won through the gale safely. That is all. But it was by my own fault, for I must needs take the boat and put out to sea with my hawk there to find fresh sport. It seemed to me, forsooth, that a great black-backed gull or fierce skua would give me a fine flight or two. And so it was; but I rowed out too far, and before I bethought myself, both wind and tide were against me. I had forgotten how often after calm comes a shift of wind, and it had been over still for an hour or so. Then the gale blew up suddenly. I could have stemmed the tide, as often before; but wind and tide both were my masters then.

"That was three days and two nights ago. Never thought I to see another sunset, for by midday of that first day I broke an oar, and knew that home I could never win; so I made shift with the floor boards, as you saw, for want of canvas. After that there is little to tell, for it was ever wave after wave, and gray flying clouds ever over me, and at night no rest, but watching white wave crests coming after me through the dark."

"Some of us thought that you were a Finn, at least," said my father as the Dane paused.

"Not once or twice only on this voyage have I wished myself a Finn, or at least that I had a Finn's powers," said Lodbrok, laughing; "but there has been no magic about this business save watchfulness, and my sons' good handicraft."

Then I asked the jarl how he called his sons, with a little honest envy in my heart that I could never hope to equal their skill in this matter of boat building, wherein I had been wont to take some pride of myself.

"Three sons have I in Jutland, Wulfric, my friend, and they, when they hear my story, will hold you dear to them. Ingvar is the eldest, Hubba, the next, and the third, Halfden, is three-and-twenty, and so about your own age, as I take it, as he is also about your equal in build and strength. Yet I would sooner see a ship of mine steered by you than by him, for he is not your equal in that matter."

Now that praise pleased me well, as it did also my father. For we hold the Danes as first of all peoples in the knowledge of sea craft; and we had seen that this man was a master therein. But though at this time I thought of naught but the words of praise, hereafter I was to remember the words that Jarl Lodbrok spoke of the way in which these sons of his would hold me when the tale was told them.

At last we hailed the shore through the creeping dusk, and the shore lines were thrown out. Then were we alongside our staithe ^{[iii]}, and Lodbrok the Dane had come to Reedham.

Now it may seem but a little thing that a seafarer should be driven to a strange coast, and be tended there in friendly wise by those who saved him from the breakers, for such is a common hap on our island shores. Yet, from this day forward, all my life of the time yet before me was to be moulded by what came of that cast of line to one in peril. Aye, and there are those who hold that the fate of our England herself was in hand that day, though it seems to me that that is saying overmuch. Yet one cannot tell, and maybe those who will read this story of mine will be able to judge.