The Sentimental Vikings

by R. V. Risley

So, seemingly for years and years, we sat there, with the water lapping against the side of the ship, and the sound of the straining of leather and the shuffling of feet as the men sleepily put on their arms on the fore-deck. Then, more years passed, and the maiden shivered and crept closer, and I put my great skin-cloak around her.

So we sat and waited; and the moon sailed grandly overhead throwing flakes of white on the dancing water to seaward; and save for the lapping of water and occasional sounds from the fore-deck, there was stillness—out of which an owl cried, thrice, with its long, strange, mournful note, and then ceased; leaving the silence more silent.

Then, suddenly, from out the darkness, seemingly miles away, there rose, and rose, and hung on the air, and slowly died away, a great cry in a man’s voice. Then there was silence once more for a moment. And now began a confused dull rabble of sound that I knew well enough; with a skin-moving swish in it like the whetting of knives. And there were far sounds of voices, and sometimes a curious hollow drubbing, like a hammer on the side of a ship; this, I could tell, was the sound of my Lord Snorē’s great axe as it beat on the door, and when it ceased presently I knew that the door was down.

Now, for a long time only the far sounds and the occasional voices came to us; and the years grew long again, and I heard the water lapping against the side of the ship.

Suddenly, out of the darkness and into the strip of moonlit beach that lay between the edge of the black forest and the silvery ship, came running a man, silently, and swaying as he ran, and just midway in the moonlight, he stopped, ran round uncertainly twice in a little circle, and then pitched forward with his face in the sand and lay still. The maiden by me gave a little cry and hid her face on the edge of the bulwark. Then we waited again and listened to the barking of dogs in the distance; and so more years passed, and the lapping of the water grew loud again.

Now began to come wounded men in pairs, stumbling groaningly over the side, and soon with these began to come back other men out of the darkness, unwounded, but bloody enough, and these waited in a little crowd outside the ship panting, and wiping the sweat from their foreheads, and leaving the prints of their hands on the planks where we found them next morning. And, last, with a little knot of unwounded men around him, came Lord Snorē walking heavily, swinging his axe, with the blood dripping from his shaggy foretop and from the ends of his hands. He stood while the men slowly shoved off the ship, then plunging through the water like horses and splashing it over their red armour and faces, they all came clambering aboard, and throwing off their steel hoods and sword-belts, sat them down to the oars to get the ship out of shoal water. But my Lord Snorē came to the gunwale, and taking the maiden’s hand drew her to him, wrapped in the great wolf-skin, and lowered his head on her shoulder.

Thus we left that shore; and when far out, we saw first a flicker and then a glow of fire, and the burning of Lord Rudolf’s castle lit up the sea, and we heard the cocks crowing over the water as we turned our prow homeward, while the oar-blades rose and fell, dripping silver.

Now, as we sailed homeward the maiden was given the after-part of the ship, save for the steersman, and because, that, loving Lord Snorē, she was afraid of him; yet ever looking towards the forward part of the ship where he sat with his men: thus she would have me come and harp to her and tell her sagas and tales; and she told me many things in return.

And then Lord Snorē would come to the edge of the raised deck and leaning upon it, talk to her, while my harp made low music.

In the years that have passed, O king, a mist like the autumn mist that lies white on the earth in the morning has grown between my eyes and the past, so that only the hill-tops break through it.