Whilst watching his joyous course, Sigurd exclaimed musingly: “All life is ephemeral! Man and woman, like this butterfly and the flower, are but the creatures of a day in the immensity of time and in the world which the gods have made. What a beautiful life is that of the butterfly! He lives in the air; his life is that of love and immortality. He spends his days in caressing and kissing flowers, and becomes intoxicated with their sweetness. Like love, he feeds on love. As soon as he has fulfilled his destiny, and filled brimful the cup of love and drunk it, he dies as a brilliant meteor that burst into life for an instant, like the twinkling of a star that never returns. Thus the flower is born to show her tempting beauty, her sweetness, and intoxicating nectar to the butterfly. The flower was created for the butterfly, and the butterfly for the flower; so were man and woman created for one another, and to love each other, and, like love, their minds are immortal. Short is the life of the butterfly and of the flower, but their existence in the immensity of time is apparently not shorter than that of man. If the lives of the butterfly and the flower are ephemeral, so also is the life of man. In the immensity of time since the ‘Great Void,’ the lives of all created things appear to the gods of the same duration. Man is born, ushered into the present, and then into the future, and thenceforth belongs to the past. We are tossed,” said Sigurd, “on the sea of life, like a rudderless ship, and we sail from day to day towards the unknown called by us the future, not knowing where we are going, nor how the Nornir have shaped our lives; always hoping and hoping for something we have not been able to grasp.”
In this reflective mood of mind, Sigurd left the mound, under which lay two hearts which had been bound together by love during their lives, and returned to his ship, wondering what were the number of days the Nornir had decreed at his birth he should live, and also if he would ever find a woman that he would love so much as to be impelled to ask her to become his wife.
Then he sailed for Dampstadir, and there met Ivar and his two foster-brothers waiting for him.
CHAPTER XIII
A VOYAGE TO THE CASPIAN
The following spring, Ivar and his foster-brothers made preparations to go to the Caspian Sea, by the Volga. They had sent word to several of their young kinsmen, asking them if they would join them in their voyage. The proposal had been accepted with eagerness by them all, for most of those to whom the invitation had been sent had never gone so far south, and they longed to see the lands of which they had heard so much, or from which so many costly things came; but two or three among those invited had been there before to trade, and had made on their return great profits on their goods, and they wished to try their luck again.
It was not a small undertaking to make a voyage to the Caspian, for it was tedious, and took a long time. Ivar chose three vessels of very light draught, that could sail easily on the rivers of the present Russia, leading to that sea. Special vessels were built for such voyages, and the models of these craft were beautiful, and could not even to-day be improved upon for that sort of navigation. One vessel, very much like those of Ivar, was found at Tune, in Norway, and can be seen at Christiania to-day.
Provisions were collected, among which was a great deal of hard bread, very much like that used to-day in Scandinavia. Various articles necessary for barter were also collected, such as scales and weights; a great quantity of gold spiral rods of certain size and weight, which were to be cut into smaller or larger pieces if necessary, and then weighed, for the Norsemen had no coins, and these rings or pieces were the medium of exchange. Their scale of value was according to weight. Their intercourse with Rome, however, had made them acquainted with Roman coins of gold and silver, and they knew exactly their worth, and often brought them home and kept them until they visited again the Roman province. They also had a measure called an ell, two feet in length, to measure the beautiful fabrics they intended to buy, and also a measure for wine, for they were to bring back wines with them.
A man named Ulf was to go with them. He was familiar with the navigation of the Dnieper, the Don, and the Volga, and had sailed several times from the Baltic to the Black Sea. He had lived chiefly upon the River Don, where he had a large trading establishment. He was a great trader and sea-farer, whose business was to go on trading voyages to various countries. Sometimes he went by sea, at other times by land. He was an old friend of Hjorvard, who often ordered him to buy goods for him, and had been very often to Gotland. Ulf was just the man for such an expedition, and the foster-brothers and their friends congratulated themselves on his going with them.
In the beginning of June, as soon as the ice allowed them to sail, they left Dampstadir, and sailed through the Gulf of Finland; thence, after a difficult navigation through lakes and rivers, and some hard rowing, they reached the great River Volga, and, descending the stream, they came to a place called Novgrad, a great mart, where a fair was held once a year in summer. Novgrad was in the great realm of Holmgard, and they found there many friends, for the people were of the same kindred. Many Vikings had married the daughters of the Holmgard people, and much intercourse took place between them and the Norsemen. Both peoples had in common the same religious belief.