of the long hall so delighted that he hardly knew whether his feet did
not have wings; and he went straight to the shore of the vik, climbed
up into one of the longships, made his way to the lofty prow and sat
down to think it over. That prow curved upward and over like a great
swan's neck, with a dragon's head carved on the end, and he noted with
curious eyes how here and there could be seen a splintered scar and in
it perhaps still the arrow-head that made it. He dug one out and
looked at it, with a sniff of contempt. He knew he could make a better
one himself. He did not know that that arrow-head was made in a
faraway island, called Britain, where traders went to buy tin. British
arrow-heads have been great travellers.
The sight of the weapon, however, and the hole it had made gave Ulf
just the tail-end of an idea! He began to think, oh, so hard!--to
think and to plan.
Up in a sheltered corner lay the Iron Star, just where it first had
been flung down by its weary-armed bearers on the day when it reached
the vik. Ulf's first free act had been to arrange a few bits of bark
over it to keep it from the weather; and, being out of sight, of
course it was forgotten. But Ulf remembered! That Star had always been
the good fortune of his family. Could it not help him now? So he sat
and planned, till the grey gulls ceased their restless circling over
the waters of the fjord and went to rest. But while he thought his
hardest, still through it all he seemed to hear, like a golden hum
woven in and out of the fabric of his dreamsong of freedom, the voice
of Edith Fairhair.
Of course the young folks of the vik were all in a thrill of
excitement. Such planning, and telling of plans, and not a little
boasting! But Ulf the Silent watched the sheep and kept apart. One
night, however, when the men were leaping, wrestling and trying other
feats, Thorolf the Strong had beaten many, when Ulf suddenly said,
"One thing, Thorolf, I would like to see done. Under yonder bark lies
a black stone. I do not think the man lives who can break it with one
blow of a hammer."
This he said craftily, for he did not know just what spirit might be
angered by the blow, and if evil came of it, it was better that it
came to the captor than the captive.
"Behold the man now!" said Thorolf, loudly, and kicked away the bark,
then looked foolish as he saw the Star, while all the men around sat
down and laughed. But Thorolf brought a hammer and struck a great
blow. Sparks flew, and that was all, except that Ulf caught his breath
and winked. He really could not help it that first time, and felt very
much ashamed. Fortunately, every one was laughing at Thorolf and did
not see him. That strong man tried again, with as little result, and
all laughed harder, even Jarl Sigurd.
This was more than Thorolf could stand. Rushing to a smithy he brought
back the largest hammer in it, swung it twice round his head, then
brought it down with a crash on one of the many lumps that studded the
Star; and this time he broke it clean off. Again and again he struck,
furiously angry, breaking off lump after lump, and when the laughter
became cheers he flung down the mallet and was well pleased when the
Jarl said,
"By the Hammer of Thor! Thorolf the Strong is well named!"
But Ulf was still more pleased; and when all had gone away he stored
in a safe place all the bits of the Star which had been broken off--to
tell the truth, when Thorolf ended little was left of it but bits.
From that time on, Ulf spent all his spare time in the smithy. It was
not regularly in use at that period, and few cared to ask what he was
doing. Now and then a boy looked in, but all he saw was that Ulf was
forging the bits of iron into slender spindles and had a heap already
done. Such spindles made good fish-hooks, when bent and pointed, and
they were well content when he gave them one or two. Much of his time
while sheep-watching he was busy also; and one day Edith Fairhair
found he had not forgotten her. She came running to the Jarl to show
him a great treasure.
Sigurd looked it over curiously. It was the long shank bone of an ox,
polished till it was as white as ivory, and carved in quaint patterns.
Then on one side two figures were scratched in quite skilfully; one
evidently a captive holding out chained hands, the other a girl
holding up a knife. On the other side were the same figures, but the
chain had been cut in two. Something rattled within the bone, and
taking out a pretty stopper the Jarl let fall in his lap five slender,
shining rods of steel, so beautifully round and smooth and glistening
that he cried,
"Well done, Ulf! When the year is ended I think none other will
surpass this."
And, indeed, in all the village round the vik there was not another
such a set of knitting needles.
But Ulf the Silent looked fearlessly up at Sigurd and said,
"Needles are women's tools. The son of a chief is worth a greater
price than that."
And Jarl Sigurd as he looked at him could think of nothing but of how
in his own young days he had caught a baby falcon, and of the scratchy
time he had in taming it. Yet, when he had taught it to love him in
its own fierce fashion, not one of his other good things pleased him
so well as his hawk. Perhaps here was another hawk as well worth
training.
As for Edith, she hugged her new gift over and over again; she was as
delighted a girl as ever stood on one foot because she was too happy
to stand on two, and finally off she rushed to show her treasure to
her mother.
She had dreams of prizes, too! Out in the flock there was a white
sheep which she called hers, since she had brought it up as a lamb
when its mother would not own it, as is sometimes the way with sheep--
silly things! It was shearing-time now and she wanted that wool.
Sheep-shearing is not an easy thing for a girl to do. But she got Ulf
to wash the animal under a near-by water-fall, and to tie its feet,
and after about a day of it she sheared it quite nicely; but it would
be hard to say whether the sheep or Edith was the more weary of it
when the task was done. She could say how she felt, and spoke her
small mind about it with great freedom. As for the sheep, it gave a
bleat, a skip, and went off with a great tail-wagging, and would not
come near Edith Fairhair for a week, which is a long time for a sheep
to remember.
Meanwhile, Edith had the wool.
What a snowy, fleecy pile it made, to be sure! And what fun it was to
take up a handful of it, roll it into a string between her fingers,
then twist one end of it around a spindle which she would throw out in
the air with a twirl that would make it spin. Of course this would
twist the wool into a thread, fine or large, according to whether the
spindle was twirled strongly or not.
All the ladies that Edith Fairhair ever saw had just such spindles and
used them, too. Her mother had one of pure gold, which had been made
for a queen, and which the Jarl had brought from a far country; and in
the long winter evenings, when the storm howled without, and the huge
logs were piled on the fire, it was a beautiful thing to see the
little flashing darts flying out from the white hands toward the
darkness, each held by a white cord; and foot by foot, as the strong
yarn grew in length, it would be wound for safe keeping around the
little cross on the large end of the spindle until it would quite hide
it from sight. Then a slender stick would be bent up like a "U" and
tied so; and the yarn would be wound around the two arms in long
loops, all ready to be dipped in dye to colour it. If any one wanted
still finer thread, they could take this yarn and spin it still more,
and with stronger fingers.
Edith Fairhair's spindle was made out of a bit of that wonderful Star.
Ulf made it, and gave it to her in his silent, boyish way. Many and
many a yard of warm, thick yarn she had spun with it before the early
winter came. Then came out the precious knitting needles; and really
it seemed as though there was magic in them, so all the women said.
The yarn slipped along them so smoothly, never catching and only now
and then dropping stitches! Altogether, it was a very happy winter,
and a very busy one for Edith Fairhair; and if her mother helped her
now and then over the hard places, what then? Is not that what mothers
are for, and what they love to do? Still, the most of the great work
Edith did herself. She only asked to be shown how, and very
contentedly did the rest.
Then, winter was the time for weaving. This Edith could not do, as
yet. She was not quite strong enough. One had to sit in a frame that
had a row of threads stretched across it, with another row running the
same way but so fastened that at one end they could be either raised
up above the level of the first row or dropped beneath it. Sitting at
the tied end her mother would throw a little wooden boat skimming
between the two sets of threads, from one side to the other, the boat
being laden with a spool of yarn and dragging a thread behind it. When
the boat reached the other side, the thread would be drawn tight. Then
with the foot in a strap the loose bar would be drawn down, taking one
set of threads with it, and there would be the boat's thread caught as
in a trap. Then the boat would come flashing back on its return
voyage, up would go the bar again, and that thread would be fast, too,
just as the other was; and so the cloth would grow, by just the width
of the boat-thread, with each trip.
It was slow work, to be sure; but then, one had plenty of time. Then,
too, it was such pretty work! One could have several little boats,
each laden with a differently coloured thread. By using two at a time,
going opposite ways, the cloth would have a "pepper-and-salt" mixture
of colour, as we call it now; or by using one for a time and then the
other, it would make broad stripes of colour, which was thought very
fine. Yet, after all, Edith Fairhair thought nothing could be prettier
than pure white--if only it was kept white. But, white or coloured,
she never tired watching the flying shuttles, as we call the little
boats to-day.
Meanwhile, all through the winter, merrily rang the smithy with clink
of hammer on heated steel. After that gift to Edith the Jarl told Ulf
he might take all the time he needed for his freedom-work; and he took
it. Pounds of steel needles had been made and stored away. He had
tried to remember all he ever heard about how to temper them, and he
already had learned to watch the glowing steel slowly change its
colour from dazzling white as it cooled to rose red, and at just the
right moment to plunge it into water. But he only tried it on one or
two bits, as yet, just to make sure he was right; and these utterly
astonished him by their hardness. No iron that he had ever seen was
like it. Of course he laid it all to the magic of the Star, as many a
warrior did in after years, not knowing that in that kind of iron
there is often a small mixture of nickel, such as our five-cent piece
is made of, and that steel made from such a mixture is harder and
tougher than any other kind. Bicycle-makers have found this out for
themselves, and know the reason of the toughness, but it was a great
mystery to Ulf.
It made him very happy, however; and blithely clinked his small hammer
as he worked away, weaving a strange kind of cloth that was not made
of soft wool, nor was it woven in a loom with flashing shuttle.
Instead, inch by inch of it, as it grew, was thrust into the glowing
coals and heated; first in the shape of slender steel needles, which
were cut off and twisted into tiny rings, dozens of them; then these
were hooked into each other, ring into ring, and hammered while still
hot till each was solid, and as though it had never been straight in
its life or anything else but a ring, without beginning or end. Then
came the great thing--the tempering. How anxiously he watched it! How
carefully he blew the fire as the strip of iron cloth lay in the
coals! Then what a hissing it made and what a shout of triumph Ulf
gave when at last the perfect temper was reached and the strip was
bubbling the water! Many such strips lay piled in a dry place before
spring came, and with it the time for joining them all together.
It was a great day for the young folks of the vik when the contest was
to be decided. Half-a-dozen longships of other jarls happened to be in
port at the time and Jarl Sigurd was not sorry to let his visitors see
what his young people could do. Wonderfully well made were many of the
trials. One boy showed a bow of two great horns joined together, which
only Thorolf the Strong could bend. Another showed an oxhorn, with the
tip cut off and ornamented, and the whole horn carved in spiral
grooves; and raising it to his lips he blew a blast that could be
heard a mile! There seemed to be as many different things as there
were boys and girls to make them; and Jarl Sigurd was pleased indeed
when the other jarls with one voice said that among the works of the
girls the finest and most useful of all was a snow-white garment like
a knitted jersey, made from the sheep's wool by Edith Fairhair. How
her cheeks glowed bright red, and how bright her eyes shone, when she
had to wear it before them and say who made it! What was the value of
the prize compared with the look her father gave her! yet, those
bracelets were of pure gold, and came from far across the seas.
"But where is Ulf?" said Sigurd, suddenly. "The lad is proud, and I
hope he has not failed."
"My thrall does not fail in what he tries to do!" said Edith, and the
jarls all laughed, save Sigurd, who shook his head with smiling
reproof, saying,
"The thrall waits till after the freeman, and that is well. Now, some
one call him."
Then Ulf the Silent stepped forward from behind the throng, and laid
before the jarls a package that was carefully wrapped in deerskin. It
gave a soft, musical tinkle as he laid it down and vanished in the
throng again. With laughter Jarl Sigurd stooped forward, saying,
"The lad was braver when he sent an arrow through my arm than he is
to-day," and untied the package. "It is not light, jarls. What!--by
Thor and Odin, and all the gods of Valhalla! when did man ever see the
like?"
Oh, what a rare sight it was!--thousands of tiny rings of steel,
cunningly woven together by the hand of one whose father and whose
father's father had worked in metal, and who had taught him all they
knew! The light rippled across the folds in flashes like molten
silver; the loose links along the edges rang like fairy bells, and not
one jarl in all his travels had ever seen a more beautiful shirt of
mail. A king of kings might be proud to wear it. Yet it was made by
Jarl Sigurd's thrall!
"No! by Tyr, thrall is he no longer! Stand forward, Ulf. Choose thou;
wilt go back to the Forest? If so, I will send thee with a guard of
honour. Wilt stay in my household? Then thou art as my son, and in
days to come a longship will I give thee to command."
Then Ulf the Silent, with a sidelong look at Edith Fairhair, said, "I
thank thee, Jarl; at the vik I choose to stay." And great was the
laughter and applause.
But when the strangers had sailed away, Jarl Sigurd brought out that
shirt of mail and tried it on, but found it all too small for him, and
said,
"Thou crafty one! Tell me, didst make this small that thou mayst the
younger hope to wear it?"
Then Ulf broke silence, and told the wondering Jarl the story of the
Star, as far as he knew it, and how, as a family matter, it appeared
to be better that Ulf alone should own the mail; to which the Jarl
shudderingly agreed, for, brave though he was, he feared witchcraft.
Then Ulf set the mail on a post and bade Thorolf the Strong send a
spear through it if he could.
Scornfully the giant hurled a javelin at the mark, and gasped as it
fell shivered like glass at the foot of the post. On the armour, not a
scar!
"It is dwarf-worked; elves did it!" he cried. And for a like reason
many a sword and suit of armour has been thought to be made by magic
by men who did not know of nickel steel.
But not all of the Star was used in that suit of armour. Some of it
Ulf kept for sword and battle-axe. Some of it went to gentler uses,
and some of it in the shape of harpstrings in other days sang a song
of liberty to a captive king. But no braver sight the vik ever saw
than the one when 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. Jarl Sigurd was now too old to take the
seas; and Edith Fairhair--was still Edith Fairhair. Ulf the Silent had
still his fame to win. But she knew that he would win it.
SPARK VI.
HOW FRAGMENTS OF THE STAR TRAVELLED TO A FAR COUNTRY.
Ulf 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 upward 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 sagas told most about.
But Ulf was not by birth a Northman. Yet a rover by nature was he, and
chief of all things that he most desired was to explore strange lands,
and especially what lay beyond where the sky dipped downward and
seemed to meet the sea. Ships came from thence, now and then; ships
had gone thence, as he knew, and some had never come back, but perhaps
were sailing still from land to land, through the great unknown.
For weeks his ship sailed onward, over a lonely ocean. Now and then
the misty fountain sprung upward from the waves where a whale was
"blowing," with gulls hovering in the air above his glistening black
back. There were more gulls then than now, and more whales also, and
often the men would finger their lances wistfully and look with
inquiring eyes at their youthful captain. At another time they would
not have looked in vain; indeed, in after days Ulf became somewhat
famous even among the men of the fjords for the number of whales he
brought in. But now his soul was elsewhere. Even the problem of
getting back did not trouble him in the least.
Yet it was one thing to start out a-voyaging, sure of bringing up
somewhere if you only went far enough. It is quite another thing to be
equally sure of finding the way homeward over the trackless sea,
without a landmark from horizon to horizon to steer by for weeks and
weeks. What seems a sixth sense is given to some of us--the sense of
"direction," which the passenger pigeon has and which enables it to
fly straight back to its nest, though set free hundreds of miles from
home. When of old a young man had that faculty, the chances were that
he would become a famous pilot; and sometimes he might be charged with
witchcraft as a penalty for knowing too much! Ulf, a son of the
trackless Forest, had that sixth sense.
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 a couple of whistling
javelins.
Up from their benches sprang the rowers. Twang! sung 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 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 armour?" demanded the other, holding a cloth to
his wounded limb.
"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 homebound. Come thou with me and thou shalt be
as my brother; for a good spearman art thou as ever sailed the seas;
and afterward we will sail together."
"I like it well," said Ulf, frankly, "and homeward will I 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. In sheer strength no two in
both ships were his match in a close wrestle. 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 earthward. 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 southward and westward 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--rover to the marrow--held out his hand in silence, and the
compact was made.