Styrbiorn the Strong

To my brother Colin
I dedicate this book

Note

When Biorn came out over the sea, he went south to Denmark, and then south further to Jomsburg, and in those days was Palnatoki captain of the Jomsburg vikings. Biorn entered into covenant with them, and was called a champion there. He was in Jomsburg when Styrbiorn the Strong won it and he went to Sweden when they of Jomsburg gave aid to Styrbiorn, and was withal at the battle at Fyrisfield where Styrbiorn fell, and fled thence to the woods with the other Jomsburg vikings. (Eyrbyggja Saga, transl. William Morris and Eirikr Magnússon: Ch. XXIX.)

Then Harald Gormson laid Norway to his own realm and revenue, and yet we deemed King Harald Gormson as of lesser might than the Upsala kings, inasmuch as Styrbiorn, our kinsman, cowed him, so that Harald became his man; but Eric the Victorious, my father, strode over the head of Styrbiorn when they tried it out between them. (Heimskringla, same transl.: Vol. 2, Ch. LXXI: speech of Olaf the Swede-King to Hialti Skeggison.)

In the old Northern tongue ei is pronounced as in the English “rein”: v like the English w: and j like the English y: g is always hard. The final i in proper names (e.g. Helgi) is short. Moldi is pronounced “mouldy”: Jomsburg, “Yõmsburg.” The y in Fyrisfield and in Thyri is short as in “syrup.”

I

On King Olaf’s Howe

Eric the Victorious was in that time King in Upsala, the son of Biorn the Old, the son of Eric, the son of Emund, and had dominion over the Up-Swedes and over the folk of Nether-realm and Southmanland and East and West Gautland and over all countries and kingdoms eastaway from the Elf to the main sea. King Eric was as now in his old years, and was held for a man of mickle might and worship, sitting in that state and stead whereas his forefathers aforetime sat from the days of Ragnar Hairy-breeks; and in their veins was the blood of the kin of the Ynglings, even from that far time when the Gods came first from Asgarth of ancient days, and Yngvi-Frey dwelt among mankind in kingdom in Upsala.

Now when King Biorn the Old was come to die, he left his two sons Eric and Olaf joint Kings in Sweden, and forty years they reigned together in good brotherly love and friendship. King Olaf Biornson had to wife Ingibiorg, daughter of Earl Thrand of Sula. Their children were Thora and Thurid and Asdis and Aud. Ungainly it seemed to King Olaf that he should get none but girl-children. Howso, in the end it befell that Queen Ingibiorg was brought to bed of a man-child, and he was sprinkled with water and named Biorn after his father’s father. But the Queen lived not long, but died the third year after this; and when the lad was but five winters old, then was King Olaf his father fallen down dead of a sudden, where he sat at ale-drinking in his hall. And it was the talk of men that there was venom in the cup, and that that was the bane of King Olaf. So he was laid in howe at Upsala. Thereafter was Eric taken for sole King in Sweden, and he brought up the lad and put him to fostering with Earl Wolf, his mother’s brother. No children of King Eric born in wedlock were as then alive, and his wife now ten years dead. Dearly he loved his brother’s son, and tendered him as he had been his own bairn. And the lad waxed up the goodliest to look on and strongest and likeliest of lads, tall and great-sinewed beyond his years. And because the lad was somewhat grim and stubborn of will and hasty and sudden of anger and very fierce and proud, even now in his tender youth, King Eric let lengthen his name and let call him Styrbiorn.

Against the coming of winter, when Styrbiorn was now fifteen winters old, Eric the King made great blood-offering in the temple at Upsala for the goodness of the year, as was his wont and the wont of his fathers before him from time immemorial. Thither were come together lords and great men of account from up and down the land, and there was great drinking toward. But Styrbiorn came not to meat that day, and came not to the King’s hall. So the King sent men to seek for Styrbiorn. In a while they returned, and a man of the King’s bodyguard said, “So it is, Lord, that we found him sitting on his father’s howe, King Olaf Biornson’s.”

The King’s brow darkened. He said to Earl Wolf, “Must this thing be, every autumn feast of sacrifice? Well, ’tis now the third time and the last; and yet it goeth nigh to anger me. Or will he not swallow my plighted word, that I will give him all, but not until he be sixteen year old?”

“I looked not for this again, King,” said the Earl. “And truly I’m sorry for it.”

The King made them go again to bid him to the drinking. But back they came empty-handed. “Did he answer you naught?” asked the King.

At that, they were silent, looking one at the other. Then answered one for them all and said, “Naught, Lord, save this: that he would waste no breath on the King’s thralls.”

“Like as his father was,” said the King, “so is this young whelp. Go thou, Earl, if that might fetch him.”

Earl Wolf stood up and went betwixt the benches and the fires and forth of the main door into the King’s garth, and forth of the garth past the houses of men and the Thing-stead and the temple till he was come to the open field. It was murk and wild weather, and evening drawing in. Like a high house in bigness, Olaf’s howe reared against the fading light. It was all overgrown with rank grass, and the tufts and tussocks of the grass ducked and paled and rose and ducked again, slapped this way and that by the blustering squalls that charged and paused and swept again about the howe, ceaselessly as the ceaseless rush of vapours in the iron-gray windy lift of the sky overhead.

Styrbiorn sat on the top of the howe, unmoved as it, face to the wind. The Earl came up to him, fain to steady himself with a hand at whiles, what with the sudden squalls and the slippery grass. When he was up, “This is ill doing,” he said, shouting in his ear.

Styrbiorn moved not at all. He was muffled in a close-woven mantle of woollen stuff dyed purple and worked with black threads at the border in rich designs. Close as he held it about him, it puffed and flapped like a ship’s sail in a storm when the rudder is broken. His head was bare, and the thick short curled yellow hair on it leapt to the wind’s piping like the grass on the howe. He wore a heavy collar of pure gold, soft and bent to lie about his throat where neck and shoulder join, and worked by the goldsmith’s art with rich enchasements, and a dragon’s head at either end. He sat with his chin in his hands, frowning upwind so that his eyes watered.

The Earl sat down and put an arm about him. “The King withholdeth not thine inheritance, Styrbiorn. He hath promised, and he will give it thee, as well thou knowest. But time is not yet. Thou art yet but fifteen winters old.”

Styrbiorn shook him rudely off. “Little men’s redes, foster-father, shall not serve my turn. ’Tis not in my blood.” He spoke, as was ever the way of him, with a little stuttering here and there, as if the great and eager spirit of him in its haste tripped and stumbled over the slowness of his speech.

“No jot less of that blood,” answered the Earl, shouting in his ear for the wind sake, “runneth in thine uncle’s veins. He loveth thee. Wilt thou bite the hand that feeds thee? Go in with me. Or why neededst thou put that shaming on free men, to put the name of thrall upon them?”

Styrbiorn leapt up a-laughing. “Did Aki’s nose swell at that?” he cried. “Of age, saidst thou! Come off, and back me.”

“Hold,” said the Earl. But the lad was away: three bounds down the steep to the rough pasture, and away toward the King’s hall. Earl Wolf was a handy man, but he scarce overtook him in the great hall door.

Lamps were kindled in the hall, and the ruddy firelight mingling with their colder beams pulsed and flickered, betwixt rush-strewn floor and the uncertain darkness of the roof-timbers, on bench and board and the many-coloured raiment of that great company and worshipful that there were set. Eric the King sat in his high seat on the upper bench. That other on the lower bench over against him was empty. He wore a Greek cloak of scarlet silken stuff and a blue kirtle done about with needlework. Gold rings that weighed twelve ounces each were on his arms above the elbows, and a crown of fine gold was on his head. King Eric was of all men the fairest to look on; and for all he was well nigh threescore winters old he was neither bent nor wrinkled, but fresh-looking and stark and stalwart as any man in his prime age, and his hair and beard most fair and thick, albeit something dashed with gray, and the voice of him deep and strong and pleasant to hear, and his eyes of a gray colour and speckled, and very bright.

Styrbiorn came and stood before the King betwixt the fire and the board. The King pointed to the high seat over against him, and said, “Take thy place, kinsman.”

Styrbiorn eyed him squarely, then answered and said in his hasty stuttering way, “That was in my mind, King, that I should be no more a burden unto you nor a kept person, now that I am come to man’s estate. In token whereof, I would not come to your board today, but abode by my father’s howe.”

“ ’Tis wearisome,” said the King, “if this old mummery must be acted anew each year. Imagine my part spoke: so, ’tis done. And now, no more on’t.”

Styrbiorn said, “If, King, you will do me right now. Render up to me my father’s heritage: that share of the lordship of the Swedes which belonged to the King my father. Then I will sit in yonder seat. But not otherwise. Not as your guest, King.”

“Kinsman,” said the King, “thou art, of all folk I ever did know, man or woman, the most thrawart and stubborn of will. I say unto thee, as last year I said and the year before last: when thou shalt be sixteen winters old I will give thee thine inheritance.”

“Waxed is the bairn, but not the breeks,” said Styrbiorn, and his face was red as blood.

“When thou shalt be sixteen winters old,” said the King. “Till then, be quiet. For stubborn-set as thou art, I am as stubborn; and I, not thou, will rule in this matter, as is but just and right.”

“Seldom recovers Kings their dominions,” said Styrbiorn fiercely, “but with hewing of swords.” But when he had spoken those words he looked up at the King his uncle and met his gaze; and there was that in the King’s countenance that stayed his violent mood, as a draught of cool water in the mouth stays the burning of an over-hot mouthful of meat. There was fallen a sudden silence in the hall, for all that men were well feasted and much game and jesting was toward. And Styrbiorn, that had been red with anger, flushed yet darker even to his brow and neck; and he stood shamefaced before the King. He said in a low voice, “Some devil drew the tongue out of my mouth to speak an ill word. And now I will sit at your board, as well it befitteth I should do. But if it please you, King, I will come and talk more hereof tomorrow.”

“Let us give thanks,” said the King, “for a little respite.”

The cup had by then gone many a time about the tables, and men’s bellies were well bulked with ale and their wise discretion and judgement something befogged withal. And as in such a season a man will oft say that which tumbleth quickliest to his tongue, so Aki of the King’s bodyguard (bethinking him not at all that he should as well tickle a wolf under the chin as fret Styrbiorn now) plucked him by the kirtle as he came walking by the lower bench, and asked when he should have amends for the scurvy words Styrbiorn that day had given him.

“Hold thy tongue, King’s thrall,” said Styrbiorn; and, with the word, cast off the cloak from his shoulders and smothered it over Aki’s head. Now Aki had in his hand a great silver-rimmed drinking-horn all full of ale, and it spilt all down the neck of him. He leapt up and cast away the cloak and drave the horn at Styrbiorn’s nose so that the blood gushed out of his nose and he staggered back and well nigh into the fire. Aki ran out, but Styrbiorn overtook him in the doorway and caught him by the collar and jerked him backwards. Young as he was, Styrbiorn had yet the strength of an ordinary man full-grown. He was mad wroth, and he drove the man down under him with fist and knee. Aki had by now pulled out a sax-knife and aimed to smite him withal. Styrbiorn rived it out of his hand and drove it into Aki’s neck and down into the man’s body, clean up to the heft of the knife. Aki needed no other blow but was dead at once.

Now was turmoil in the King’s hall, and much carping and high talk this way and that; for Aki was a man of good kin among the bonders, and many were there who would have done vengeance for him on Styrbiorn without more ado, but that the place and the King’s majesty put them in awe. In the end was all quiet again, and the dead corpse carried out, and men fell again to drinking, yet something less blithely than afore.

The next morning was Styrbiorn up betimes and betook him once more toward his father’s howe. For, albeit he was well agreed with the King his uncle after last night’s doings to sit quiet yet another year and thereafter be received into kingdom, yet him-seemed there should be no place where he should be more at ease when he had naught to do than there on the howe.

There was a spring in his step as he walked. He went not straight to the howe but took a sweep out into the open country, looking this way and that as searching for something. He was come within about a hundred paces from the howe when he espied that whereof he stood in need: a dark and shaggy body, four-legged, sturdy, high-shouldered, tailless, with a marvellous long and hairy coat that trailed well nigh to the big cloven hooves of the beast, and with great curly horns like a ram’s, and hairy face and nose, grazing some way off from him in the rough pastures that went down to Fyriswater. Styrbiorn halted on his way and gave a low call. The thing stopped grazing, lifted head and looked and saw him. It stood still at gaze: he called again. It lifted its nose and gave an answering bellow; then, like a coyly playful girl that will be wooed but must provoke, turned about and walked away from him, casting a look behind every four or five paces to make sure it was being followed. Styrbiorn was upon it ere it had gone twenty yards, and caught it by the horns. “Moldi,” he said, “how durst thou, when I want thee?” It was a yearling musk-ox, littler than common oxen, but heavy enough and strong enough to do with most men as it would; but with Styrbiorn, as was well seen as they tussled and strove together, it was very nicely matched. Round and round they swung for a while, trampling the ground, swaying and staggering back and forth, puffing and snorting both the one and the other, till Styrbiorn broke off the game and leaped backward several paces and there stood panting and laughing, facing his little ox. “Come on,” he shouted; and it put down its head and charged. Styrbiorn braced his whole frame to bear the onset, and by the sheer strength of him stood his ground. This bout they played over not twice nor thrice but a dozen times; wherein three times was Styrbiorn thrown, but all other times he was victor in their encounter. But whenever Styrbiorn was thrown, his little ox was careful not to trample nor hurt him, but shoved its nose into his face, breathing its sweet breath all about him, and then stood back for the charge as soon as he was gotten on his feet again. At length they stopped both. Styrbiorn sat on the ground propped on his two hands behind him, breathing hard. Moldi stood over him, nuzzling his hairy nose into Styrbiorn’s neck between jaw and collarbone. Styrbiorn rubbed his cheek on Moldi’s nose like a cat. In a minute he stood up. “To the howe,” he said. Moldi turned and set off the contrary way. Styrbiorn caught him, and with less violent tussling now, (for they were now both well blown and desired no longer sinew-testing in earnest but some show of it only to mind them of their sport), half dragged half coaxed him to the howe. There they rested together an hour or more, the one fitting heads to his arrows, the other chewing the cud. A mile or more eastward, on their left, rose the scree-slopes of Windbergsfell: southaway from beneath their feet wound Fyriswater amid the flats below Upsala, and there lay spread the far-stretching low country toward Sigtun and the sea, and westward the far mountains of Upland shadowy-gray in the light of morning.

When Moldi had taken his fill of chewing the cud, he stood up and butted Styrbiorn gently from behind. Styrbiorn sprang up and caught him by the horns, and again they fought and wrastled on the howe top, till Styrbiorn forced Moldi’s head round sideways and threw him down and held him there by main force, his face against his. A long time they lay so, Moldi ever and again putting forth spasmodic efforts to rise, Styrbiorn holding him down with all his might and laughing the while in his brown and furry ear.

At length Moldi lay quiet, as if to grant he was mastered as for this time. Styrbiorn let go, and rolled over on his back. His eyes were closed, his great and shapely arms flung out a-stretch on either side, his right hand burrowing and fondling among the warm soft depths of woolly hair under Moldi’s jowl, his left opening and shutting as if to ease the stiffness in his fingers after so much clutching on the horns. His chest, broad and deep as few men’s of full age, mounted and sank with slow regular and profound breaths. So he lay, with shut eyes and with lips parted a little like a dreamer’s who smiles in his sleep; and all the while knew not who was stolen up quietly behind him on the howe, and had all the while stood there looking down on that rough and tumble, the hard panting of boy and ox, the splendour of Styrbiorn’s strong limbs with every sinew strained and hard in the struggle: and stood there still, watching him in silence.

A tall lass she was, standing there over him, her dark gown gathered in one hand so that her shapely ankles showed below it. Her hair, tawny red, braided with gold cords into two thick trammels, reached to her knee at either side. High-bosomed she was, light of flank, clean-limbed, and with somewhat of almost manly presence and stature, yet graceful beyond all telling. The carriage of her was like the dragonhead of a ship of war treading turbulent seas, and the face of her (albeit she was yet scarce grown woman), of that kind and seeming which belike Queen Brynhild’s had of old, or Gudrun’s of Laxriverdale, and other women’s faces that were born to be the bane of men.

But this was not the lady Gudrun come from Iceland, nor yet Brynhild, Budli’s daughter, returned from her Hell-ride in these latter days and back from the dead, that stood with proud grave mouth and unsounded dark-brown eyes gazing on the might of Styrbiorn while he struggled with Moldi on his father’s howe; but Sigrid, Skogul-Tosti’s daughter out of Arland, the mightiest and noblest of all men of Sweden who lacked title of dignity, and she some few days since ridden from home with her father for feasting and guesting with King Eric Biornson.

Opening his eyes at last and seeing her, Styrbiorn sat up a little sullen-looking and shamefaced and gave her greeting. He gave Moldi a flick on the nose with the back of his hand, who forthwith lumbered up to his feet and down from the howe and away.

“This is a strange sport,” said Sigrid. “What manner of cow is this?”

“ ’Tis not a cow,” said Styrbiorn. “ ’Tis my bull. He cometh from the northlands, many days’ journey beyond Helsingland. His name is Moldi.”

He began tinkering again with his arrows, fitting heads to them. Sigrid watched, bending over his shoulder from behind. Styrbiorn took no more note of her than if she had been his musk-ox. “Shall I sit here awhile?” she said at length.

“As thou wilt,” answered he.

Sigrid sat down beside him with the grace of a seabird alighting on the wave. His shoulder was turned towards her. He went on with his work. Herself unobserved, she sat there quiet, looking on what he did, but most on him.

“Arrows is women’s weapons,” said Styrbiorn after a while, looking along the shaft to see he had fitted it true. “I know not why I fash myself with such things.”

Sigrid said nothing, watching the ripple of the muscles beneath his skin of arms and neck and shoulder, the great clean-modelled knees, and the yellow hair of his head so close and thick.

“It is a wonder thou shouldst like to sit all by thyself in this place,” she said.

He made no answer. She was so near that the breath of her, sweet like kine’s breath, mixed with his own.

“There be few men so strong as to hold down that bull,” said she.

“He getteth me down now and then,” said Styrbiorn.

Sigrid’s shoulder touched his, lightly as a moth. He shifted away a little, laying down one arrow and choosing another. She shifted too, the other way. Her face flamed red on a sudden, and turned fierce and hard so as it was a wonder to see in a girl so young and tender. For a long time they were silent. Then she said, “I did never see a man slain till last night.”

“Wast afeared to see it?” asked Styrbiorn.

“Not afeared,” she said. “Thou hast ta’en to the work young.” She was looking at him somewhat strangely, her eyes a-sparkle.

“I slew him not sackless,” said Styrbiorn. “ ’Would have stabbed me first. Thou knewest that?”

“I knew it truly,” she answered.

“And I’ll pay no boot for his slaying,” said Styrbiorn, turning to look her in the eye. “I’ll learn these bonders’ sons to bear them more quietly in kings’ houses,” said he.

She said nothing.

“It is good to be a king,” said Styrbiorn after a little.

Sigrid seemed as if she heard him not. She was gazing with an altered countenance south over Fyrisfield. Styrbiorn looked up and saw her so stare, wide-eyed, as if in fear: as if in those silent water-meadows she saw some strange matter, hidden until now.

“Wouldst not thou be a queen, Sigrid,” said he, “and ’twere offered thee?”

Still she spoke not. A cloud in that instant hid the sun. The girl shivered.

“Wouldst thou not?” said Styrbiorn.

“Not what?” said she, shivering again and turning to look at him. “I marked not what thou saidst.”

“Be a queen?” said Styrbiorn.

“Yes,” she said.

“Why dost thou look so, as if thou hadst seen something?”

“ ’Tis nothing,” she said. But seeing in his eyes that her looks belied her words, “Nothing,” said she again. “Thou art but a child, Styrbiorn, for all that thou didst slay a man last night.”

“Something too childishly,” said he, scowling, “goeth mine affair. It needed not thee too, to thrust that down my throat.”

Sigrid shivered and said, “Come from this place. I am three years older than thou, and can see things thou canst not see. The dead be in this place. Come away.”

But Styrbiorn budged not from his seat. He took another arrow, then smiling scornfully said to her, “Thou art a woman, Sigrid. Women are ever afeared of bugs and bogles. The living be in this place: thou and I: not the dead. And well I love this place. ’Tis a place of Kings. And if any dead man be hereabout, it is the King my father.”

He looked up at her again. Her eyes were fixed on him, but as if she saw him not. She looked ghastly. He leaped up and took her by the arm, being bit with remorse a little for his churlishness, and a little touched with the infection of her strange speechless dread; even as it is a man of rare coolness, who, sitting alone with his dog in a desolate house at nighttime, seeth the dog stare and growl as if at some unseen presence in the room and feeleth in himself no answering tremor. “Come,” he said, “I’ll go in with thee. There’s naught to fear. Come.”