Out through the black wolf’s-mouth of massive cliffs one morning a swift
longship sped, with the early wind rounding the great sail and helping
the rowers with their oars. A line of shields hung along each side,
helmeted heads gleamed here and there, and high in the stern the rising
sun made a form shine like a statue of silver flame as he waved farewell
to those on shore, who cheerily waved and shouted farewells back again.
Ulf, the leader, still had a name to win; but what a glorious thing it
was to stand there in the stern of that swift craft and feel it quiver
with life beneath him in response to the rhythmic stroke of the oarsmen,
as it surged through the heaving water. Brightly the sunlight leaped
along the sea. Snow-white was the foam that flashed upwards underneath
the curving prow, and now and then jetted high enough to come hissing
inboard on the wind when the fitful gusts shifted to the rightabout. The
men laughed, and carelessly shook the drops from their broad backs when
it splashed among them.
What a hardy set of men they were, those Northmen of old! They had no
compass; they must steer by the sun, or by the stars, guess at their
rate of sailing, and tell by that how many more days distant was their
destination. If the weather was fine, well. But if the sky clouded over,
and sun nor star was seen for a week or more, while the wind veered at
its own will, the chances were more than even that they would bring up
on some coast where they had never been, with water and food to get, and
perhaps every headland bristling with hostile spears. All this they
knew, yet out to sea they went as happily as a fisherman seeks his nets.
Trading, starving, fighting, plundering--it was all one to them. On the
whole, they seemed to like fighting the best of all, since that is what
their famous poems told most about.
One morning the dawn-light revealed a black spot on the low horizon. A
speck that grew larger, with twinkling, fin-like flashes along each
side, and in due time it proved to be a galley like their own bearing
down straight for them. Nobody stopped to ask any questions. That was
not sea-style then. But just as naturally as two men now in a lonely
journey would shake hands on meeting, these two captains slipped their
arms through their shield-handles, sheered alongside just beyond
oar-tip, and exchanged cards in the shape of whistling javelins.
Up from their benches sprang the rowers. Twang! sang their war bows the
song of the cord, and the air was full of hissing whispers of death as
their shafts hurtled past. Round and round the two galleys circled in a
strange dance, each steersman striving to bring his craft bows on, so as
to
[Illustration: LEIF ERICSSON]
ram and crush the other, while they lurched in the cross-seas, and
rolled till they dipped in tons of water over the rail.
Up sprang the stranger on his prow; tall and broad-shouldered was he,
with a torrent of ruddy hair floating in the wind. As Ulf turned to give
an order to bale out the inrushing water, up rose a brawny arm, and a
great spear flashed down from the high bow of the enemy and struck
fairly between his shoulders. So sharp was the blow, so sudden, that Ulf
pitched forward on one knee for just half a breath. But the spear fell
clanging to the deck. The ruddy warrior stood looking at it with eyes of
amazement. His own spear, that never before had failed! A flash of light
leaped back like a lightning stroke; back to its master whistled the
brand, for, ere he rose, Ulf snatched it up, and, as he rose, he hurled
it--straight through the unguarded arm of the stranger.
“Hold!”
The shout rang sternly across the water and echoed back and forth from
sail to sail. The shouting hushed. Only the creak of the swaying yard,
the hoarse swash of the water, the panting of deep breathing broke the
silence; then once more from the lofty prow came the commanding voice.
“Who and whence art thou?”
“A son of the Forest am I,” answered the other. “Ulf is my name, Ulf the
Silent my title, Jarl Sigurd my father by adoption. The sea is my home,
from over sea I came, and over sea am I going.”
“What dwarfs made that armor?” demanded the other, holding a cloth to
his wounded arm.
“Ten dwarfs welded it, ten dwarfs tempered it, and the same ten guard
the wearer. Thou best shouldst know what five of them can do,” and Ulf
smiled grimly as he held up his hand with outspread fingers.
“Now it is thy turn. Who art thou?”
“Leif is my name,” said the other, “and Eric the Red is my father. To
the west have I been sailing, searching for a land with lumber for
ship-building. Now am I home-bound. Come thou with me and thou shalt be
as my brother; for a good spearman art thou as ever sailed the seas; and
afterwards we shall sail together.”
“I like it well,” said Ulf, frankly, “and homewards I shall go with
thee”--for that was sea-politeness then. So they set a new course by the
stars that night, and before Leif’s arm had ceased to tingle they saw
the black walls of rock that guarded the entrance to his haven.
Many a night in after years Ulf lay awake and watched the stars,
thinking the while of his visit to Greenland and of all that came of it.
A mighty man of his hands was Leif. None could strike a keener blow. Yet
was he hugely delighted when, one afternoon in friendly fray, Ulf again
and again slipped within his guard and with a lithe writhe of his
slender form twined a bear’s hug around his bulky friend and dashed him
earthwards. And to give Ulf one spear’s length advantage in a hot scurry
across country was never to come up with him again.
“Thou art the man of men I long have hunted for!” Leif cried. “Let your
ship rest for a season;--or, better, let your longest-headed seaman
captain it for a voyage, trading, and come thou with me. Far to the
southwards and westwards lie rich timber lands. Where, we know not, yet
storm-driven ships have seen them. These I mean to find, and for such a
distant quest one ship is better than two.” So sunnily looked down the
great man at the slighter one, so joyous at the thought of that voyage
into the mists of the southern seas that Ulf held out his hand in
silence, and the compact was made.
It did not take long to provision the craft, or to arrange other
matters. Soon they were surging once more across apparently boundless
seas. Three times they came to lands unknown to them, yet not the
country of great trees talked of by old sailors around the winter fires.
At last it loomed up in reality above the horizon, covered with timber
enough to build a great city,--more than ever was seen close at hand by
Northmen before. And right lustily swung the axes among them for days
and weeks, until even the keenest trader among them all was contented
with his share of wealth that was to come to him when back at home once
more. There were not lacking signs, either, that savage neighbors might
be unpleasant neighbors, as more than one stone-headed arrow had
whistled past, heralded by the first war-whoop that ever was heard by
ears of white men.
So, like a careful captain, Leif carried his dried fish, his smoked
deer-meat, his water-casks, and his lumber by degrees all on board. He
lit the watch-fires as usual at sundown; but by moonrise, with the early
tide he and his men slipped quietly out of their stockaded camp and into
their vessel, and silently drifted out to sea before the warm land-wind
that still was faintly blowing. And late that night a savage war party
called at the camp with spear and torch to find it only an empty shell.
And even now, in the entrance to a beautiful park in a great city of
that land where he went timber-cutting more than fifteen hundred years
ago, there, high in air, as though still standing on the prow of his
ship, looms up a brave figure in bronze. A close-knit, flexible shirt of
mail guards his form. One hand rests upon his side, holding his curved
war-horn. The other shades the eyes; for, even in this statue of him,
Leif Ericsson is still the crosser of far seas, the finder of strange
lands, the sleepless watcher forever gazing from beneath his shadowed
brows into the golden west.--JOHN PRESTON TRUE.
_From “The Iron Star,” published by Little, Brown and Company,
Boston._
* * * * *
I would not enter on my list of friends
(Though graced with polished manners and fine sense,
Yet wanting sensibility) the man
Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm.
An inadvertent step may crush the snail
That crawls at evening in the public path;
But he that has humanity, forewarned,
Will tread aside, and let the reptile live.
--COWPER.