THORSTEIN GOES ABROAD.
Young they were, but no fools. They kept their promise. Raineach was a
new creature, anxious to please and amenable to guidance; willing to
learn all that Thorstein’s wife should know. He on his part acknowledged
that there was a deal to do before he could set up house: and when Hundi
sometimes joked him about his castle that was to have been on the shore
of his mere, he would take it quite soberly, and reply, “Aye lad, I was a
bit before-hand: but wait until I have got my gear together, and then.”
“Better come for a trip with me this season, and see what skill we make
at cheaping. With thy goods on my ship, thou and I might do a conny bit
of trade, and see the world: maybe we’d light on luck, and come back able
men.”
Now it was a saying among these people “Homely wit has home-bred barn:”
and no lad was thought much of until he had been awhile abroad. There was
none but Raineach that had a word against it; and she was overborne the
easier because she had made up her mind to be good, and think of her own
wishes last.
So Thorstein busied himself in cleaning all the skins he had got that
winter, and added a good few to his stock: and he packed up everything
he could lay hands on, if only it would turn him a penny, or barter off
against goods that would be useful to him in his housekeeping. And at
last they bade farewell to all, and taking the shipcarles who had been
used to voyage with Swein, they started merrily on a fine spring day,
down the Leven, and stood over the sea for Ireland.
At that time there was an unwonted peace through the coasts of England
and all round about. These were the last few years of king Athelstan’s
life, when he had brought his neighbours under him, or won their good
will. He reigned in great glory and honour, and his realm prospered:
his strong hand, or the fear of it, kept all the lesser kings and earls
of the North in quiet. Folk were glad of a breathing-space after an age
of struggles and the great fight at Brunanburg; and even across the sea
there was a lull, so to say, in the turmoil of the nations. The age of
the vikings was over, and it was now the turn of cooler heads and wiser
counsels to set to rights the new order of things, and to establish the
kingdoms and governments which had arisen out of the disorder and wreck
of the old world.
By these days the Northmen had left being nought but rovers and robbers:
they had become settlers and traders and rulers of realms on the seaboard
of all the northern lands. And not only in the North; for scarce a spot
was there between Greenland and Constantinople where they or their
children were not found, like bees in a garden, at once gathering honey
for themselves, and sowing for others the seeds of new life and strength;
the busiest and brightest of all the kindreds of the age.
But the Northern lands were their homes. On salt shores, where farming
alone could never thrive; on bleak headlands among the seamews’ nests; on
lone islands veiled in the mist or girdled with the surf,—homes where any
but a race of sailors would have hungered slowly to death, or pined into
dismal savagery,—there they bred and multiplied, and sang through the
winter, and strove through the summer; their wit and wisdom and valour
putting to shame (though little they knew it) the follies and the vices
and the idleness of the South. It were long to reckon up all that we owe
them, in thought and speech, in law and custom, in arts and crafts; for
without books, they made themselves learned; without schools, they became
artists; without examples, they perfected laws; and without bigotry,
they found freedom. A wonderful people, and greatly to be gloried in,
even yet, by their inheritors; still more by their own children in the
day of their strength. For a thousand years ago it might well be said
wherever a Northman’s keel strake strand there he found his kin to
hand; be it west-over-sea from old Norway, in Britain or Ireland and
the isles thereabout; or in Greenland or Iceland; or the Baltic coasts,
and thenceaway to the Atlantic, from Finmark and Denmark to Holland and
Valland; everywhere the Northman’s tongue was heard and the Northman’s
hand feared.
It was no wonder then, if lads of the breed, born in this corner of no
man’s land, and nourished up among wild folk and woodland swine, should
long eagerly to see the ways of the world and the dwellings and the
doings of their kindred far and wide. Over and above the need to eke out
the scanty gift of the earth by sea-going trade, there was the same spell
that had beckoned them up the Crake, as boys,—curiosity, and the love of
adventure,—hailing them now from over sea, and waving afar off who knows
what glittering thing, to which reach out they must, whether they would
or no. “Homely wit has home-bred barn”—aye, indeed, if his overword is
always “Elsewhere,” and his day always “To-morrow.”
So it was in the spring of the year, nine hundred winters, thirty and
eight, since our Lord was born, the lads departed and came into Dublin
Bay. And when they were landed, officers of the king stayed them to know
their errand and whence they came. When they said they were chapmen, they
were brought to the palace; for the king’s folk had the right to be
first buyers, and to fix the price of wares.
At the gate who should spy them but Olaf Guthferthson himself. He asked
the name of the bonny boys, and they told him their names and their
father’s name, and that they were from Hougun way.
“What,” said he, “are you the sons of that brave Swein from those parts
who fell at Brunanburg? Ah!” said he, “if we had found but a few more
such men, it’s not in Dublin I’d be sitting now, but holding my court
in London town.” And when he knew for certain that they were the sons
of Swein Biornson the kemp, as he called him, he brought them in to the
queen, and bade her treat them well, for they were the sons of a better
man than any of his.
So for a day or two they had famous entertainment, and thought themselves
made men. But they soon saw ugly looks among the housecarles of Olaf: and
one of their folk bade them beware of a shrewd turn; “for these Danes,”
said he, “there’s no trusting; and stranger’s praise is the surest doom.”
So they came before the queen and told her how their business pressed,
for that they had far to go: and then she bade them farewell, but not
willingly as it seemed; and a fine gift she gave them. And as they
scudded out of Dublin Bay, they thanked their luck, and cursed all kings’
houses for downright wolf-traps.
Then, for the wind was in the South, they went up and cruised about the
Irish Sea to the Isle of Man and the great bights of Galloway. There they
met many of their own people who guested them in one place and another,
and gave them good speed: but little trade they did, for their wares were
such as all men had in plenty. They sailed from Galloway up the firth
of Clyde, and by the Kumreyar or Isles of the Welsh, to Alclyde, which
was also called Dun-breton, where was the chief city of king Domhnaill:
and there Thorstein was somewhat shy of being known lest a grudge might
be owing him for his escape and for the death of Gartnaidh. But nobody
seemed in those parts to know or care for old stories of wild fell-folk.
He asked news of the queen, hoping to hear that his friend Aluinn was by
now wedded to Domhnaill and advanced to be lady of the land. But folk
laughed and wagged their heads, and gave him to understand that there
might be a dozen queens up and down for aught they knew: and he asked no
more, for pity of the poor beauty away in the Cumberland fells, who had
put her trust in the gay raking spark. He said a deal to Hundi, out of
the fulness of his heart: what a shame it was that men should be light of
love, and how he would like to see the blood-eagle carved on Domhnaill’s
back. To which Hundi Snail answered lazily that he talked like a great
guff: and Thorstein was near coming to blows with him.
When they came out of the firth of Clyde they rounded Satiri’s muli, the
Mull of Cantire: and sailed to the Hebrides, which they called Il-ey and
Myl, Tyrwist and Skidh, Iwist and Liodhus; and everywhere they found
Northmen and friends settled, and an open market. So then they came to
the mainland again, in Sutherland, and looked in at the Lax-fiord, and
rounded Cape Hwarf, and so to the Orkneyar.
At this time Turf-Einar the earl was dead, and his sons Arnkel and Erlend
and Thorfin Skull-cleaver had the power. Thorfin’s wife was Grelaug, the
daughter of earl Duncan at Duncansby in Caithness, over the Pentland
firth: and Grelaug’s mother was Groa the daughter of Thorstein the Red.
Thus there was even some far-away kinship between her and the lads; and
when this was brought forward they were taken as the queen’s guests,
and they got protection for themselves and their men, and a good market
for their wares. And as the season was now far spent, and the Northern
seas are stormy when the winter comes on, they asked that they might sit
there in Orkney until the bad weather was over, and offered themselves
to Thorfin to serve him. How they wrought for him at ship-smithying, and
fought for him in raids on the Scots and on rough neighbours, and how
they saw many a roof burnt and many a limb lopped, and how they hunted
and drank and quarrelled and escaped,—all this is not in the story: but
no doubt they saw life as it was lived, both the good and the ill of it,
and hardened into sturdy lads, fit for the give and take of the world
they dwelt in.
When spring was come they took their leave of the Orkney folk, and sailed
for Iceland: for they had a great mind to see what was to be seen, and
to visit all the homes of their kindred, and never come back until they
could give a good account of their voyage.
Now Grelaug of Orkney had a cousin out there, the daughter of her
mother’s brother, Olaf Feilan. The cousin was named Thora, and she was
wedded to Thorstein Codbiter, the son of Thorolf Mostbeard, who built the
great temple at Thorsness and was a powerful chief among the Icelanders.
So Grelaug gave the lads a message to Thorstein Codbiter and a token to
her cousin Thora, nothing doubting that it would get them a good welcome.
When they came to Iceland they asked their way to Holyfell, the homestead
near the temple. It was easy to find, for every one knew the name
and fame of it: and in a few days they came there, sailing Westward
and Northward round the coast and in Breidafiord: but they learned
that Thorstein Codbiter was dead, drowned in fishing a twelvemonth
ago come harvest-time. Thora was still there, keeping house for her
child Thorgrim; and her brother Thord Gellir was a great man in the
country-side. So the lads were in no lack of friends here as well as
heretofore, and made hay while the sun shone.
Their goods were loaded on Thora’s beasts, and brought up to her house.
Thorstein Swart, who kept the temple, and stood as Godi until Thorgrim
the child should grow old enough to take the priesthood of his father, he
fixed the prices, according to custom; and then our lads were free to go
about and trade with their neighbours. They sold their wares to such as
wanted them; and those that would not have them at the price fixed, had
them not at all.
There was much for a stranger to see in Iceland. At Thor’s-ness there was
the new temple, and its high-seats adorned with the old carved pillars
that came from Norway, and that showed the way to Thorolf Mostbeard, when
first he came off that coast and threw them overboard to drift ashore.
And there was the inner house of the temple, rounded like the choir of a
church, with the altar-stall, and the great ring lying upon it by which
all oaths were sworn, and the blood-bowl and sprinkling-rod for the
sacrifices, and the images of Thor and the gods standing round about.
Outside there was the doom-ring with the stone of Thor, where men were
sacrificed.
After they had done their business, the lads went with a party of their
friends from Holyfell, riding to the Iceland Althing; and they saw the
wonderful valley with the precipices around and the deep rifts that seam
it, and the throngs that come together year by year into the midst of
that waste and terrible wilderness of frost and fire.
But when they were safe returned and had taken leave of Thora, they made
ready for their voyage to Norway: for they had a mind to see the old home
of their kin, and to come before king Hakon the good, the fosterling of
Athelstan of England. So in the summer, when the days were long and seas
were fair, they sailed east, and came safely to Throndheim.