FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

To battle! The enemy is at the gate.

Crisp snow crumbled under my boots and icy fingers of a northern wind tugged at my cape as I hurried towards the fields. I was cold, freezing, but there was no time to stop and comfort myself by the fire in the longhouse. It was the month of_M__örsugur_and food supplies were limited. We could spare none, yet the howls of starving marauders had reached the bygd. With everyone tending to their duties, the only warrior left to decide between a comfortable winter or months of starvation

• was me.

They were in the fields now - fourteen of them, but I'd fought off an even greater army the week before, and I laughed at them as I balanced along the boulders of the_t_ún.

"Come to steal our supplies, have you?" I flashed an imaginary sword at one particularly menacingly looking ewe.

The sheep gave me an innocent look and bleated twice, which I took for a_yes_, spoken in the terrible tongue of the Danes. I jumped from the_t__ún_and onto the battlefield. Here I retrieved the sword from a fallen warrior; it was only a branch from a birch-tree, but it would serve me well against the wooly hordes.

"Do you not tremble at the sight of the mighty_Askuld of Farybygd_?" I shouted, but the sheep only nudged my hip. I was outnumbered and soon surrounded by an army of hungry, bleating livestock.

"Feeding time, huh?"

Putting our differences aside, the sheep followed me to the hay storage. Then they became nervous and lost all interest in food; there was something in the air - a stench of decaying flesh.

I soon found its source: a young roe deer had collapsed not far from the storage, probably searching for food. It was a few months too old to suckle by its mother, and this would have been its first winter on its own. But the threat of starvation and predators is always present, for human and deer alike. The corpse was bloated and no longer suitable for eating. Its left eye was halfway closed and frosted over while a black raven was busy pecking at the right eye. A sudden sadness came over me: I too was born in the summer, but I had already seen eleven winters, and my stomach was full.

Shoo! I yelled, and the raven replied with an annoyed_KRAH!_

"Leave him alone!" I cried, "or feel the blade of_mighty Askuld_." I charged at the raven with my stick and it took flight, cursing at me until it disappeared among the trees.

I began walking back to the bygd when I noticed someone approach from the south. It was a single rider; a dark figure slumped over a grey mare. He held the reins in his left hand while the whole of his sword-arm was tucked away under many layers of clothes. He looked outlandish and nothing like any villager I had seen. Riding alone and wearing a cape dyed black, he stood out as a moving shadow to the naked, snow-covered birches. His hair was long and as black as his clothes, and it flowed freely down his back like a mane. His eyes were light brown. Not brown like those of the travelling merchants who visit us every Nóttleysa, but almost yellow - like the colour of straw.

"Is this Farybygd?" he said in a voice so exhausted that it was little but a whisper. "Home to Sif Thormodsdottir, wife of Starkodder?"

I nodded. Sif was a friend of my mother.

"Lead me to her, boy. I have news of her husband."

I took his horse by the reins and led the stranger through the bygd to Sif's cottage. He dismounted at great effort while supporting his right arm.

"This is where Sif and Starkodder live," I said.

"Thank you, Askuld" said the stranger, and gave me a heavy silver coin.

I almost fainted where I stood; the coin was foreign and bore the image of a face turned sideways. There were other markings circling the figure that looked like runes; not the kind we use, but those of the tradesmen from the south. Foreign or not, the lump of silver was so heavy that I could now pay Bjarki to forge me a knife.

Then it struck me that the stranger had called me by name, but before I could ask him how he had come to know it, he had already vanished into Sif's house, and I had a feeling that he wished for their conversation to be private.

Moments later I heard Sif cry out, and she began to weep so loud that all of Farybygd could hear her. Runa and Alfwin rushed to her door, but before they could enter, Sif left the house, holding on to the stranger with both hands. She buried her face in his tunic and wept uncontrollably.

"The battle at Svoldr did not turn in our favour," said the stranger. Many strong men were lost, and Starkodder and Bjorn Sigvartson were among them.

There was a hush and a murmur among the villagers that now crowded around the stranger.

"Surely it's a mistake" -it was the voice of Runa.

"Not Bjorn - no one could best Bjorn in a fight," cried Bjarki.

"Bjorn was slain by a Dane and died on the battlefield," said the stranger. "Starkodder took a Swedish spear to the stomach and died the day after. I sat by his side, and he told me of his home in Farybygd, his friends there and of his loving wife Sif. And of course about young Askuld -and how you're a mighty fine boy."

So that's how he knew my name, I thought. It was strange though; Starkodder didn't like me, and blamed me for chasing two of his sheep over a cliff-side during play. So, I doubted very much that he would spend his final moments thinking of me as a_fine boy_, but the words were kind and warming, nevertheless.

"What news of our King?" asked Alfwin, our chief.

The stranger looked to the ground and sighed."Great King Oláfr chose death before captivity and cast himself into the sea while the Danes and the Swedes raged and barked at him."

"Then Norway stands without a King," cried Alfwin. "Have the Gods forsaken us?"

The stranger said nothing, but unfastened a leather bag from his saddle and held it between his teeth, while he searched for something inside with his one good arm.

"Starkodder bade me bring you this, in his final hour." He took out a pouch and let it drop to the ground where it split open, and several coins of silver and gold trickled out. "His wages and valuables looted from the Swedes. He asked that it be shared between his faithful wife and Bjorn's mother Ulva."

"A lesser man would have saddened us with the news, but kept the coin," Said chief Alfwin. "But you have proven yourself a man of worth and we cannot let you ride on, in that condition. Please accept our hospitality until your wounds have healed." The chief then turned to me "-and Askuld will be there to tend to your needs."

I didn't mind being assigned to look after the stranger - it was much more exciting than feeding the livestock, so I led him to a small house we use, when travellers stay with us. It was once the home of old Kirstin the widow, but she died. And some say that her house is cursed, but we never tell the travellers - so they don't mind.

"This is where you'll stay," I said.

"Rafn! Replied the stranger;

"Rafn?"

"That's my name, Askuld."

He took the bags from his horse and carried them inside, one bag at a time, because that was all he could lift with his good arm.

"My mother is a healer," I said. "I can send her over so she can take care of your arm."

"NO!" he snapped, and I winced from his unexpected outcry. "There is nothing your mother can do about my condition."

"She's very good," I insisted, taking pride in my mother's skills as a herbalist. "At the least she could take a look at the wound."

Rafn seemed to calm down and offered me a weak smile.

"Not all wounds should be looked into."

---

Rafn soon became popular in the bygd as a visiting story-teller. In the daytime he taught us new ways of weaving and dyeing cloth, and at night-time he'd join us in the longhouse and tell wondrous tales of his travels and of battles he'd fought. To me, all grown-ups look old but mother said that Rafn had lived some twenty-five summers, but that he seemed older than his age - and looked unwell.

He never dined with the rest of us, but preferred to return to his cabin and eat alone. Every night I brought him a meal of bread and porridge or soup, and he sat by the table and ate in silence by the light of an oil lamp. He would then join us in the longhouse and entertain us with his stories. He was unlike most skjalds and story-tellers I've heard, because they told stories of heroes and victories, but Rafn seemed preoccupied with all those who died in battle, and their final journey to Valhalla.

"Most people believe that King Hrodgar was slain by a Rus at the great battle of Frellesvik," said Rafn one night. "-But this is not so. He galloped his horse so hard into combat that it stumbled and fell, throwing off its rider. Hrodgar flew off his horse like a scarlet eagle, and while the ground broke his fall and his neck, his spirit took flight towards_Hrimrfrostir_where Heimdal gave him the hero's welcome.

This I saw with my own eyes."

Everyone cheered at his story, for the legacy of Hrodgar was favourable. He was a great king and a great warrior, but to have been slain by a mere Rus, somehow seemed below him. Still, I wondered; how could Rafn have been there to see the events when that battle took place more than two hundred summers ago?

"Hush!" said Freyja the weaver. "He's a skjald; they make things up."

"But he's not a skjald," I objected. "He's a warrior, and shouldn't be making stories up."

---

One night I was so busy tending to the sheep, and defending them against invading giants of_Utgaard_, that I forgot all about delivering food to Rafn, right until Helge shouted at me to hurry up. I was so embarrassed that I dropped my pail of feed and ran as hard as I could, back to the bygd and picked up the waiting food. When'I reached Rafn's house, I was breathless and panted

"here's...your...food."

He took the plate and put it on the table. "You've been running?"

I simply nodded and then, without warning, he pressed his hand to my chest and held it there.

"You have a strong heart," he said.

"Thank you?" I panted, not quite knowing how to reply. Rafn kept pressing his hand to my chest. It was a little uncomfortable because he didn't say anything, but only stared at me intensely. I didn't want to appear impolite towards our guest, so I stood still and let Rafn feel my heartbeat, until he finally said

"It's pure."

I didn't understand what he was talking about, but I thought I noticed a hint of disappointment in his voice.

Rafn's strange words stuck in my mind. He didn't make any mention of it again, and I dared not ask what it meant to have a pure heart, but from that day on,Askuld the pure-hearted was the one who defended our sheep against all evil. In a way it sounded better than_Askuld the mighty_.

---

Rafn stayed with us for many days with little improvement to his condition. But one night I walked by his house and happened to glance through the window. Here I found him sitting by the oil lamp as always. He looked into the flame and seemed lost in thought while he ate chunks of bread that he tore off a loaf. Initially I thought little of it and was about to walk on, when I saw that he used both hands to handle the loaf. He held it with his good hand, and tore off pieces with his right hand, with no effort.

His arm must have healed, I thought and crept closer. I knew that he could not see me, for the night was dark and his eyes had adjusted to the flame from the lamp, so I crouched down only a few arms lengths from the window, and watched. I watched how he finished his meal and then began to unwrap the bandages around his arm. Then I saw his wound.

He had suffered a hole that went all the way through his lower arm, front to back.

The hole was so large that I could easily have passed a leek through it without ever touching flesh and so large that no bone or muscle would have remained intact.

And yet he used his right hand as effortlessly as any other man. The hole itself looked black from where I stood, but the edges around it had the colour of healthy skin and I saw no trace of blood or swelling - or any of the signs I see so often, when my mother treats a wounded villager. The wound in Rafn's arm had healed many moons ago.

Later that same night he told stories in the longhouse, and his arm was bandaged up again. He made a display of not being able to use that hand, but I did not trust him, and I didn't know why he kept staying with us. But one thing seemed certain:

the strange Rafn was no child of_Midgard_.

---

TO BE CONTINUED

---

Notes:

M_örsugur -_a month roughly corresponding to december.

Bygd - Village.

Tún - an enclosed field, elevated by a few feet to keep the livetock from eating the crops.

Nóttleysa- the summer period.

The Battle of Svoldr (or Svolder)- A navy battle between Norwegian King láfr and an alliance of Swedish and Danish Forces (Autumn, 999AD).

Hrimrfrostir - The rainbow that serves as entrance to Valhalla.

Heimdal - Guardian of Hrimrfrostir.

Utgaard - The realm of (mostly unfriendly) giants.

_Midgard -_The realm of humans.