The Viking's Skull

by John R. Carling

Cut to the heart by this unfilial act Hilda vowed that she would never reveal to him the hiding-place of the treasure: and so, being banished, she returned to her native Norseland, taking with her the silver altar-ring.

With the lapse of time, however, she began to relent towards her absent son. She yearned to see him again, but was now too old to undertake the fatigues attending the voyage. She resolved to break her oath of silence and to tell him where the treasure lay concealed. To secure herself from treachery on the part of her messenger, who might have appropriated the wealth himself if entrusted with the secret of its hiding-place, she had recourse to the following expedient. She engraved upon the altar-ring a sentence indicative of the exact site of the treasure, making use of runic letters, arranged in such a way that none but Magnus could understand them: for cryptic writing had been one of the many arts she had taught him. This done, she despatched the ring by the hand of a herald.

But Magnus was now dead. His son and successor was Ulric, who, because his lance bore a small pennon decorated with the figure of a raven, was called Ravengar or Raven Spear, a name that became hereditary.

Hilda's messenger entered the hall at the hour when Ulric sat feasting with his warriors. In accordance with the Norse rites of hospitality the herald was given a seat at the board. No question was asked of him, and he resolved to defer his message till the meal should be over. This delay proved fatal to him, for, during the course of the feast, he accidentally drew forth the altar-ring. In a moment the ancient greybeards—old companions of Draco—recognized the sacred relic of Odin, and sternly commanded the stranger to explain how he became possessed of their former chieftain's ring: it had formed a part of the missing treasure: he must, therefore, know where the remainder was.

With a stammering tongue the herald stated that he was a messenger from the Lady Hilda, and pointing to the inscription upon the ring, said that it indicated the hiding-place of the treasure.

Ulric, unskilled in the art of letters, passed the ring on to the sagamen and scalds, who shook their heads over it. Magnus, the only one capable of reading the riddle, was no more. The herald himself was unable to decipher the message that his mistress had caused to be engraved. To the assembled Vikings his words seemed an idle tale: his ignorance was imputed to knavery: swords gleamed in the air: the oaken rafters rang with excited cries.

At one end of the hall on a daïs there stood, as was usual in those days, rude images of the gods. To this spot the herald was dragged and told that unless he revealed the hiding-place of the treasure he should be sacrificed there and then to Odin and Thor.

Vain was his plea of ignorance: vain his appeal for mercy: he was slain by the dagger of Ulric, himself the priest as well as the chief of the clan: the altar-ring was dipped in the blood of the victim, and the red drops were sprinkled on all present. With his dying breath the herald called upon heaven to be his avenger, invoking a curse upon the head of him who should discover the treasure, and praying that the finder might meet with a death as violent as his own.

Afterwards, when Ulric came to clean the ring, he found he could not remove the stain of blood, and the sagamen who examined it declared that the mark would never be effaced till one of the Raven-race should die as an atonement for the death of the herald, whose sacred character had been impiously set at nought.