THE ARVALE FOR SWEIN BIORNSON.
Grand doings were at Greenodd house. There was a table set out before
the door and drinking horns upon it, and a vat of ale in the porch.
Rosy-cheeked lasses, in their feast-day kirtles and kerchiefs, served all
comers by way of a welcome and a foretaste of the supper. For this day
was the Arvale made for Swein Biornson who had fallen at the battle of
Brunanburg.
It was their custom to bid to the funeral feast all their neighbours and
friends, not only that they might do honour to the dead, but also that
they might bear witness to the incoming of his heirs according to law and
the wonted order of kinship. This they called Arv-ale, which is as much
as to say Inheritance-ale: as they said Bride-ale for the wedding-feast.
And still in these parts the name is given to cakes they make at
funerals, which they call Arval-cakes.
Now when Thorstein came up to the door, guests were in the act of
arriving: namely a good neighbour whom he knew for Master Asmund, whose
land was Asmundar-lea, away over the back fell: he had come now and then
to feasts and meetings at Greenodd and the Legbarrow. He was finely
dressed in a new kirtle and hose of the best homespun: he wore a broad
felt hat, and leather riding-boots with bright spurs to them: and when he
lit down from his horse, he stood in the porch with a seasonable sadness,
and drank his ale to the good luck of the house, and hemmed, and sighed,
and wiped his beard, and walked in.
With him was a bright little slip of a lass, who must be his daughter,
for one could see that her nag was well groomed and well fed: and though
she was covered from head to foot with a great hooded riding-cloak of
dark blue and somewhat splashed with mud, such a merry grey eye looked
out from the hood and such a dainty foot stood in Thorstein’s hand as he
helped her from the saddle,—for he happened to be the nighest,—that there
was no doubt of it, who she was. She just put the horn to her lips, cast
her eye round with a little grimace, and mimicking the grave gait of her
father, stepped in after him.
Thorstein looked at the servant-lasses, but they were strange to him. He
saw that a feast was forward, and guessed well enough the reason why: for
the fell-folk had already heard tidings of a great defeat, and he knew
his father had passed him, that night of evil luck, on the way to the
battle. He could put two and two together now. And as he stood in the
porch, glad to be home again, it came over him suddenly that this was
no more his father’s house, and that his three-years’-long desire was
unfulfilled after all: and the tears came into his eyes.
Just then stood forth a couple of finely dressed young men, returned to
the porch after bestowing neighbour Asmund and his daughter within.
“Now, my good fellow,” said Orm roughly, “no loitering here with the
lasses and the ale. The thrall’s quarters are yonder.”
“Hold hard,” said Hundi. “This is none of Asmund’s folk. He is more like
a wild lad from the fells, with his long naked sword. Nay now, he is a
queer one. What is thine errand, friend?”
Thorstein said nothing. Words failed him. To think his own brothers knew
him no more!
But just then the mother came out, wet-eyed, but bustling over her
guests, and anxious that all should be rightly seen to. Nay, never ask if
she mistook him, or bade him begone.
Well, the guests had come and the supper was ready. The hall was hung
with its finest tapestries, and the floor new strewn with fern. After
a fashion that was sometimes followed then-a-days, men and women were
paired off to eat together. Unna sat in her own high-seat, with Asmund
as honoured guest beside her. On her left hand was Raud her brother, who
had taken land just across the water at Roudsey. One place was empty, the
high-seat of the master of the house: but in all others men and women
sat according to their rank, for the women’s thwart-bench was not yet
come into fashion, but if for weddings. As it fell out, Thorstein was
given for his partner the young lass Asmund’s daughter, Asdis by name.
Folk nodded and patted the table with hard fingers when they two sat
down, as if to say “Welcome back!” and as though they would add, “Well
matched, lad and lass!” For Asdis came out of her cloak like a butterfly
from its shell; and Thorstein, when his mother had bathed him and trimmed
his hair and dressed him—and little else she did before supper-time
from the moment she set eyes on him—why then he was quite another lad,
and they all said as much. Hundi was quite friendly, and Orm was civil
enough; though he whispered to Hundi “Why couldn’t the fellow have come
to-morrow?”
“Eh?” said Hundi, bluntly. “Why to-morrow?”
“Only that half is more than a third, thickhead.”
Then Hundi went over to Thorstein and kissed him, and gave him a good
slap on the back, saying “How about that whale, lad?” At which they all
laughed, for they knew the story well: but sobered themselves of a sudden
and fell to business, namely their supper. Asdis, the roguish lass, ate
off Thorstein’s plate and drank out of his cup, for at feasts when guests
outnumbered the household goods, that was their way. And between the
mouthfuls she chattered in a low voice, for it was not seemly to speak
loud at a feast for the dead.
“So, neighbour Thorstein Sweinson, ye’ve been seeing the world?”
“Aye.”
“And maybe you’ve set eyes on a deal of grand folk, kings and queens and
such like?
“Aye.”
“You don’t say so. Hark to him. Happen you’ve been faring to Micklegarth,
and aboon?”
“Nay.”
“What then? Not over seas? Well, maybe over the fells and far away?”
“Aye.”
“And clean forgotten thy mother tongue; or more like grown a peacock,
that has never a word for such as us?”
“Nay.”
“I thought as much. Tell me, neighbour, didst thou see a ragged lad in
the porch this afternoon?”
“Nay.”
“Good. Then I’ll tell thee. He was a scarecrow, he was. Who’d have
thought of a prince in disguise?”
And so she went on teasing and bantering him, while he could not but spy
at her round the corners of his eyes, so pretty she was in her low-cut
kirtle and gold necklace on a white smooth neck, with the locks of
her unbraided yellow hair brushing his sleeve, and the dimples in her
little soft knuckles coming and going, as she handled and turned the cup
before him. She was so dainty that he was fairly abashed, and never knew
how to answer her, and hardly dared touch the trencher with his rough
paws. There she was laughing softly, and joking in a whisper, with her
apple-blossom chin over his shoulder; and folk staring at him too, till
he was fit to sink under the table. Then he drank up all the ale, and
held out the cup for more, and drank that: and then he felt more blate
than ever, and sat stock still, for fear he should do something foolish.
For ale-drinking was strange to him; he got little stronger than milk on
the fell, at the best of times.
When they had eaten, healths were drunk; a cup to Thor, and a cup to
each of the gods. At each health they all rapped the tables and shouted.
Then one stood up and hemmed and coughed,—it was Master Asmund their
neighbour; and he spoke in a loud sing-song voice:—
“Friends all, and neighbours, here we are met together under this kindly
roof-tree on a joyful errand—nay, what say I? Joyful is the day that
brings the wanderer to his home” (at which they shouted “Hear him,
welcome Thorstein Sweinson!”) “And joyful it is to find a hearty welcome
from our worthy hostess, even in the midst of her great sorrow” (“Well
said,” they cried all.) “And right and meet it is to come together to
cheer the widow and the orphan, and to speak a word of praise for him
that is gone.” (“Speak on!” they cried.) “Aye, friends and neighbours,
he was a good man, was Swein Biornson. When I bethink me of the days
he used to come home, ten and twelve winters it is and more, from
summer-leading, before ever this new order of things began, when there
was none of the nonsense that’s talked nowadays about folk-right and
king’s law and the like: I say when I bethink me of our good neighbour
that was, and him coming home by harvest-time as regular as the swallows
in spring, with a shipload of fine wares that had cost him many a hard
knock in the gathering, and many a long cruise on strange coasts, and
through stormy seas: I can see him once again in his seat over yonder,
at the feast he used to give for his home-coming and the harvest of the
sea, and well I mind his hearty voice; ‘Take thy time, neighbour; make
thy choice,’ he would say: for he had a gift in the heap for every
guest, and a good word with it. And when I look round on the land he
stubbed, bonny corn-riggs and lea land it is now, and few of ye can call
to mind as well as I the rough spot this used to be, before ever he set
to work upon it: when I come over the fell and look down on this fine
house he raised, fit up it is with every comfort, and nothing awanting to
suit his lady, highborn as she may be, what with householding gear and
servants out-doors and in, dairy fit for a king’s daughter and byres of
the best, and all the stock so well managed,—for there’s a deal more in
managing, mind you, than some folk allow, that are always blaming their
luck for every beast they lose, and every load of hay that they let rot
in the rain: I say he was a grand man, and long will it be or we see the
like of him again. It is not his friends only that say so, mind you:
they tell me the very king of England himself offered our neighbour to
make him a thane, and set him over the country-side to take scat of the
folk: but ‘Nay,’ says Swein Biornson as proud as a prince, ‘Nor thane of
thine nor thrall of thine will I be,’ says he to the king. ‘I am a free
statesman, and a good neighbour to all,’ said he: ‘and ye kings may lait
your tools otherwheres.’ That was a grand speech, friends: and many’s the
grand word we have had from him over yonder at our meetings, and many a
time folk have been ruled by his rede. For look you, friends, there was
never a man of us but kenned right well that Swein Biornson spoke his
mind, and every word came out of a good heart, and honest; though maybe
we could not all of us go as far as he did, in some matters. And now,”
said Asmund, bringing his speech to end, “He is gone, and we shall see
him no more. Over the fells in the great battle-play, hewing down his
foes as a lad haggs weeds with his wand, leaping through the spears of
the English and shouting to the cowards who dared not follow him: the
kemp and captain of the little band that backed him, until the Saxons
faltered and fled, so they tell the tale that saw it. Aye, and if Owain
and Constantine and Olaf the Dane had but found a handful such as he,
there would have been another tale to tell of the doings at Brunanburg.
But it pleased the Allfather to send for him, and take him to himself.
Right glad we should have been to have laid our neighbour in his own
howe, to overlook the lands he has won and the house he has planted; but
afar on the Winheath he lies, and Odin has spared him the sorrow of a
straw-death. Let us be glad, friends, and rejoice for him: for the deeds
he has done in his life, and for the glory he has gathered in his death.
Drink with me this cup to him: drink to Swein Biornson.”
Standing up, they drank in silence: and in silence they sat down again.
Then Orm Sweinson, as being the eldest son of his father, stood in his
place to drink the Bragi-cup. It was their custom at Arvales to leave the
dead man’s high-seat empty until his health had been drunk, and honoured
with some fitting speech or vow made by him who should be the chief heir
to the name of the dead: and not until then might he sit in the empty
high-seat, and by that token take the rule over the house of his father.
So Orm’s cup was filled, and he rose and came into the middle of the
hall, and stood with one foot on the stone curb of the hearth. “I drink,”
he cried aloud, “this cup to Bragi; and I vow hereby to do vengeance for
the dead, and justice to the living.” Then they cried out that he had
vowed well; could say no less and need say no more: and they made room
for him to take his place upon his father’s seat, as master of the house
thenceforward.
Then far into the night they sat to drink, and each man told his tale
of him that was gone, or sang a song in honour of him. But long before
they were done with their feast, Thorstein’s eyes were closed, for he was
heavy with travelling, and with the joy and sorrow of home-coming, and
maybe also with the strong ale he had drunk. So he slept where he sat,
long after Asdis, pouting and vexed, had gone off to her chamber with the
rest of the women-kind.
Thus ended the first day of the Arvale for Swein Biornson. And all
the while, in the dark night, Raineach clung to the branches of the
wild apple tree by Crakeford, weary and hungry and sick at heart, and
listening for Thorstein. And when she slept for very weariness, she
dreamed that he was dragging her among proud strangers who scorned
her: and then that he was saying “Off, off, ugly paddock.” And she
awoke weeping, and listened for him, in the patter of the rain upon the
drenched leaves in the dawning.