RIDE OF THE VALKYRIES
PART I, "NOTHUNG"
CHAPTER I
"TO THE HONOR OF ORNOLF THE JYSK"
So began the runic inscription painted on a grey, porous rock of truly magnificent size. It inhabited a forest clearing of bright green grass, which, in turn, was surrounded by a fragrant, verdant sea of pine and spruce. And in the proper season, the whole of this sylvan idyll was accompanied by a cacophonous birdsong orchestra, whose vibrant trills and riffs sounded in dazzling counterpoint to one another. So large and round was the rock, however, that one of the forest's largest brown bears could have lain horizontally across it and managed no particular discomfort. The runes were fit inside the body of a writhing lizard, painted yellow, and continued:
"HIS AXE BROUGHT JUSTICE; HIS PRESENCE BROUGHT MIRTH. SACRED WAS HIS SHIELD AND HOLY WAS HIS HEARTH"
Beside the curve of the lizard's body were drawn the imposing, threatening forms of other beasts – three hounds and an eagle – as well as graceful ornamentation, which so elevated the beauty of the runestone that all who passed by remarked of its artfulness.
Yet, such individuals were not particularly common, as the clearing was deep in the forest's heart, traversed only by traveling freemen and decidedly rambunctious youths. Its sudden appearance in the midst of the dense forest, whose branches nearly blocked out the sun – an appearance enhanced by the bright, warm, shimmering rays of that same unsurpassed entity – caused those dauntless travelers, wanderers and adventurers to be overcome with peaceful emotion. Yet the sentiment was more than peaceful – it was profound, sanctified even – for it seemed to reveal, if ever so briefly, new spiritual possibilities to those normally not predisposed to contemplate them. It was as though some crisis of world-significance were destined to occur there.
Lest our dear reader think this unique quality of the forest clearing were due to the chivalrous language of those mysterious runes, let us continue with their testimony. A second lizard, this one red, also populated the runestone – its mouth facing that of its yellow companion. Inside of its formidable bulk read the following:
"THUS HAS HE SLAIN: 4 UPPLANDERS, 3 TRONDS, ONE DOZEN SLAVS AND THE SAME OF MONGOLS, IN HOLY COMBAT"
As though these achievements of Ornolf's were not prodigious enough, the red lizard's runes concluded with one final witness:
"AT FORKELS' HALF-MOON GATHERING, HE DRANK 20 FULL DRINK-HORNS OF MEAD"
And it was perhaps beneath the moonlight's soft glow that the clearing and its immobile runestone tenant appeared the most alluring – the vividness of the bright green grass augmented by the glittering moonbeams; the runes on the rock standing out from their stony surface in a most luminous way. One could imagine the forest spirits converging upon the wilderness' treeless sanctuary and the ensuing hilarity they would achieve in imitation of our dear friend Ornolf's drunken stupors. Yet the runestone, utterly unfazed by any whimsical jest of what it intended in complete earnestness, had one last solemn declaration to announce; near the top of its façade was an unidentifiable bird – it was not an eagle, yet not a falcon, yet not a swan. Inscribed within the strangely elongated body was the following:
"MAY ALL THE WORTHY DESTINED FOR VALHALLA BEHOLD ITS CELESTIAL HALLS"
And with that the runes concluded their testimony, to last as long as the great rock could weather - to be read by any intrepid soul who so chanced upon it, in sunlight or, more rarely, in moonlight.
Yet the heavens afforded no such light to our forest clearing today – for a dark, mighty storm cloud, billowing from the North, cast its ominous shadow upon the forest and the runestone. Swelling with precipitation and heralded by soft thunder, its southward march quickly silenced the birds' lively symphony.
Not content to stop its advance at the forest's edge, its shadow continued to envelop the green earth beneath, and slowly cast darkness upon a medium-sized town, whose wooden palisade and entrance gate met the forest's border and continued around the perimeter of the whole settlement.
The town's three-dozen or so longhouses looked, from the outside, quite similar to one another. The wooden planks that formed the wall were of a light brown hue, while the roof's countless shingles were quite a bit darker. These roofs were arched somewhat, as though someone had turned the hull of a ship upside-down, and were supported by planks that rose diagonally from the ground. While the floor of the houses were of overall rectangular in shape, many of them had additional entrances that extended from the main body of the structure. They were crowned at roof's apex by either what appeared to be large spear-points, or, conversely, by ram's horns.
Smaller wooden houses with thatch roofs also populated the town. And then, next to each plot of farmland, were great cones made entirely of thatch, as well as wooden fences encasing and separating livestock and crops.
Finally, to one side of the palisade's entrance way was a tall watch-tower with a thatch roof. To the other side, was a truly massive reddish-brown boulder – over twice as big as Ornolf's memorial.
All this did that vast storm cloud cast its threatening shadow on. Its soft rumblings and dark presence were but a prelude; for suddenly, it roared in a giant, earth-shattering CRACK that resounded for miles - and the deluge began.
Though unusually fierce, it lasted only twenty minutes. Naturally the townspeople went out of their homes to see what had been spared Wotan's wrath – which, as it turns out, was almost everything. Cows, sheep, pigs and horses; carrots, parsnip, beans and cabbage – all were alive and intact. Some areas of the palisade were destroyed and many residences experienced leaks which formed puddles on their home's earthen floors – but nothing extraordinary or irrepairable.
Not wanting to waste a minute, some of the town's fresh-faced youths quickly gathered by the large boulder near the entrance gate, and proceeded to throw a ball made of sheep's bladder towards it. On the rebound, they would catch it and throw it again towards the boulder's surface. The coarse, brown fabric of their clothes matched the color of the damp earth they stood on, while the red and blonde mops of hair synchronized with the sun that was beginning to peek through the opaque sky. When the ball hit the great rock, it made a mild "pop" sound that echoed throughout the town, before bouncing forcefully back into the hoard of young folk.
Directly across from the entrance gate was a stone bench from which a handful of spectators could watch the informal sport. And on this day, there did indeed sit three townsfolk, enjoying no less the weather than the recreation happening before them.
"I say!" said an old man, with a truly prodigious mustache that seemed too large for his moderate-sized face. "I say, whatever happened to wrestling? With this stupid game there is no winner, no loser, I say! It's all just a bunch of silliness! Ludicrous, I say, ludicrous!"
"My husband," replied an old woman with a great mane of grey hair, "Who never won a wrestling match in the entirety of his existence, suddenly wants for the sport which so humiliated him?" Her amusement could be seen in a pair of huge, glassy blue eyes.
"Balderdash, I say, balderdash!" scolded the old man. "One can indeed appreciate what one does not excel in…why, have you witnessed the expression of mighty Beigarth's face when watching the ice skating? Yet he has no talent for it! Let there be games that have strength and intellect…..not this senseless rubbish!" He sniffled in a way that was humorously loud. The third man sat completely silent and expressionless, seeming to register nothing.
"Ivar, my husband, all that is stubborn originated with you!" the woman said, and cackled with delight.
"Listen, the youth of today, they have no brains!" exclaimed Ivar excitedly. "Look up there, at the guard tower," he said, pointing. "That oaf Bjorn…..he couldn't spot the ocean from the shore! I say, I reckon one could throw a pebble at his head and he'd never notice it, I say!" He sniffed once again. Then he urged: "Look, Dalla, look I say!"
She turned her head to observe the muscular, blonde-haired young man standing at the guard tower. He did indeed have an absent-minded look about him.
"Forgivable," she answered. "Wouldn't you say it's forgivable, my dear brother Ragi?" she asked the third man, the silent one. He said nothing, but continued his catatonic gaze. Then she proclaimed: "Forgivable, because he is handsome!" At this Ivar discontentedly grumbled, and made one of his loud sniffing noises. "But you should rejoice," Dalla continued, "since, after all, 'one can appreciate what one does not excel in!'" She then relaxed her posture and looked out towards the panorama of forest and mountains that was just beyond the palisade, accompanied by the popping sound of the sheep's-bladder ball being thrown against the invincible boulder.
Over an hour of silence passed before Ivar stirred: "I say, that party of fifteen or so who left yesterday…..what happened to they? Encountered fierce fighting no doubt, that they should stall this long in returning!"
"Perhaps, and the storm cannot have made matters easier," Dalla said. "Is it true that Holfi went with them? My prayers that he return…..a wonderful musician, that one!" Ivar grunted in a way that did not signify approval nor disagreement.
"On the other hand, let Toki 'the Strong' be served his own", she said, delivering that reputable name and title in a manner dripping with mockery. "Killing a foe's brother, is that honorable to any?" she continued. "And a clumsy sword-fighter, if I may say!"
"Wife, enough!" Ivar interjected. "You speak of kinsmen! "
"Fair enough, fair enough," she complied. "After all, in this world, the wicked and talentless are exalted, and the truly great are left in shame to suffer! That's how it is, this world!" Ivar was silent. "Yet I have come to believe, over the course of my years" she continued, with a far-off look in her eyes, and a solemn air about her, "that the agony of those noble ones may not be for naught; for it is as the seers say, say they, 'the Norns sew each life with a thread of gold'."
Intruding suddenly upon her words was a brief, muffled cry. It came, in fact, from the silent man next to Dalla. "Ragi, my dear brother, what startles you?" she asked, her tone one of surprise. Ragi, the grey, wrinkled elder with huge dark circles under his eyes, then made efforts to point in a certain direction – one-hundred yards down the earthen path that cut through the town was a longhouse with the peculiarity of having a huge ash tree rise through the summit of its roof. But it was not this ash tree, which had been present for centuries, nor was it the house built around the tree, to which Ragi pointed.
Leaning against the longhouse, in a manner that signified utter exhaustion, was a man. His clothes, exceedingly dull in color and coarse of texture, looked torn and tattered. His hair, though matted, was an unusual platinum-blonde color that shined with uncommon luster, and his skin was several hues darker than a normal man's. He was not at all large and for all practical purposes appeared emaciated. The most curious thing about him, however, was that he had never been seen in the village heretofore – at least, as far as the elderly eyes that spotted him could tell.
"My graces, who is that man?!" Ivar said with almost comical indignation. "He looks as though he has never eaten! What more, I don't believe to have ever sighted him before!"
"My husband is baffled, and I cannot pretend to be otherwise!" responded Dalla. With this, another muffled cry came from her otherwise mute brother. As the three pairs of ancient eyes could discern, a woman, with a long dress of green linen, which had a large brown apron over it, came out of the longhouse and helped the weakened man to his feet. Carefully, she brought him inside.
"Sieglinde comes to bring him harbor!" Ivar narrated with surprise. "And how alike they look! It's unnatural, the resemblance, I say!"
It was true, even if only from that considerable distance, that the dejected man and his rescuer could be seen to mirror each other's features – specifically the platinum hair and tanned skin. But our dear elders could not gawk for long, as Sieglinde had the haggard stranger inside within a minute.
"Ah, Sieglinde," mused Dalla with a wistful tone. "There is something strange, quite strange, about her. It's her face, if I may speculate, it is an unusual face – almost as if it came far from the East. But great beauty always must have something strange about it – and that is what hers is! Great beauty!" Ivar vocalized one of his neutral grunts.
"Nay, if I were more proficient in the Seior," she continued, "I would take some of that beauty for myself! Am I jealous, you may ask? Yes, quite, I respond! And I am not ashamed! For, as I reckon it, to not be jealous of greatness is to be content with mediocrity; complacent, I should say. Jealousy, true jealousy that runs deep within one's veins, amounts to a frustration – and frustration, the kind that penetrates through to every facet of one's existence, amounts to passion – and passion is the noblest thing to dwell within the breast of humankind!"
"How you prattle, my wife!" Ivar interjected gruffly. And with that the trio fell silent for another half-hour as the pink-orange sun fell over the mountain-range in the West.
As the snow-peaked horizon glowed ravishingly with those final blazing beams, the town filled with the charming smell of meat cooking over hot coals. The daytime forest chatter ceased, to be replaced by the occasional hooting of an owl and snickering of some other of the forest's nocturnal inhabitants. Yet retiring for the evening simply eluded the sense of the cantankerous elders, who continued to sit on their stone bench, preferring to wait until all other public human activity in the town had ceased, therefore ensuring that no deed with the potential to be experienced vicariously was left un-encountered.
Nor did it appeal to the young ballplayers, whose youthful restlessness couldn't be tamed by the descent of darkness. Yet the popping sound of the ball had stopped – not for any of the aforementioned phenomena, but for another reason entirely. Not far in the distance, the pattering march of men and horses could be discerned. It was slow and unhurried, yet betrayed a sense of sheer dis-satisfaction that commanded attention.
Soon, through the entrance gate, ten or so horses and several dozen men crossed over the threshold and into the town. The men's garb was distinctive – a one-piece that was cut at the knees, made of fabric that was furrowed with elaborate patters, each dyed one of a variety of colors. The helmeted fellows carried axes, spears, shields and swords – as any honorable platoon, they avoided such abominations as the bow and arrow. They wore brown leather boots and belts, with buckles whose metalwork included some of those same writhing animal figures to be seen on their ancestor Ornolf's runestone.
"Ah, so they have returned, finally!" Ivar exclaimed, with the first notes of genuine joy to be heard in his voice all evening. "Will Hunding, a man of honor, be content to receive a stranger as his guest?"