It was the custom in the old North that the father would take a child in his lap a few days after it was born and make a declaration to the household that this was his child. If the man did not perform this action, it was a sign that the child was illegit in his opinion and it was left in the forest to die.

Aslaug hushed her crying baby boy. She had not wanted to let go of him, not even when Ragnar had come to bite off the navel string. Finally, Siggy had convinced Aslaug to let go of the boy so that the servant girls could bathe her. Siggy had taken care of the baby while Aslaug had been cleaned, but almost as soon as she was finished she had asked for her son. Once she had recived him back from Siggy she had not let go of him. The child had been crying for an hour. Aslaug could not concive of any other reason but that it was out of pain. She had sung every lullaby she knew, once and again. There seemed to be no end to the child's tears.

"He sure cries alot."

Aslaug looked up from her baby. Ragnar had entered the chamber.

"Has he not cried every for every moment he has been awake?" Ragnar slowly approached his wife.

"Don't they all?" Aslaug returned her attention to the boy child.

"True." Ragnar stepped next to Aslaug. He observed his crying son. Aslaug started to sing to the child once more. As the child slithered in his mother's loving grasp, suddenly he opened his tearsoaked eyes and for the first time Ragnar could see his eyes. They where blue. Not icy as Ragnar often had been told his eyes where, but clearly blue. But the white of his eyes where odd. They appeared to be blue as well, like snow during dusk. Ragnar shivered slightly when he saw it. What kind of eyes where that? Those of a man or those of a troll?

"Aslaug..."

That could not be his child. It was a trollchild. It must be. She had laid with a mountain dweller or a forestward. Aslaug looked up at Ragnar and smiled.

"He has your eyes."

Ragnar looked down at the child once more. He looked at the eyes of the child. Was that really his eyes. Ragnar quickly looked away from the child again and looked at Aslaug.

"Aslaug, this will not do."

Aslaug's smile vanished.

"What are you talking about?"

"This child, he will not survive. Not for long."

Aslaug shook her head.

"I will tend to him. I will see to it that he grows to be a man."

"Aslaug, he will never be a man. Even if he lives to a 100 years old. He is..."

"Useless?"

Aslaug hissed the word.

"He is your son."

"Aslaug, even among wolves and pigs, this poor, weak runt would be discarded."

"We are not wolves and pigs. He deserves a chance of happiness."

Aslaug held her baby even closer to her, as if to sheild him from Ragnar's grasp.

"The lame rides a horse, the handless becomes shepard, the deaf will do in combat..."

"Don't you dare tell me that!"

Ragnar's voice was filled with fury, but Aslaug would betray any fear.

"Those are not my words, those are Odin's."

"Don't you tell me about his words."

"But it seems you have forgotten. Is it all that time you spent with the christians? Was not Hödr blind?"

"Hödr killed Baldr, out of jeaulosy. Do you wish that he will end up like him?"

Aslaug was silent.

"He will never stand in sheildwall, he will not be able to plow, never cut firewood..."

"Servants can do that."

"No one will respect a man who can't fight. A man who could not provide for his family. What girl would want him? Do you want him be alone and despised all his life? Never to know the plesures of love, respect or fame? He will nerver have the happiness you wish him to have."

Tears started to form in Aslaug's eyes. She looked down on her baby boy.

"I know you want him to be happy, but it would be better for him if he was dead. This is a grim world and there is no place for the weak in it. How will he protect himself from all the cruelty in this world?

"I will protect him. I will love him and protect him untill the day he dies."

"I am sure you will. Protect him untill you draw you last breath. And what about then? Who will care for him? Must our other sons carry on the burden of a useless man? Do you wish Ubbe and Hvitsverk that? Our other sons can carry on our blood and take care of our land and have sons of their own who can continue their work when they go to the Gods. This one will never be able to do that. Therefore, it's better that he goes to the Gods right now. Let the great lady beneth the earth tend to him."

Ragnar reached out his hands to pick up the child, but Aslaug leaned away from him.

"No..."

"Aslaug, I know this is hard for you but..."

"You will not kill our son!"

Aslaug looked straight into Ragnar's eyes.

"You will not take my boy away from me, I will not allow it. Not even if Loki's girl came for him in the night. She would have to take me too. And so would you."

Ragnar stood in silence. Aslaug had never had to do ounce of labour in her life. Spinning prehaps and then there was the birthing of children. A woman's work. But she had not fought like Lagertha. She did not have the strenght in her arms like her. Still, Ragnar could see the same ferocity in her words like in the warcries of Lagertha.

"I see..."

Ragnar turned around and left. Behind him Aslaug continued to tend to their boy. But Ragnar had made up his mind. The boy had to die.

Glossary

*Forestward – The Norse belived in various kinds sprits and beings that lived in the mountains, the woods and the lakes. These belifes remained and continued to develop after christianization and still remains on Iceland and the most rural areas of Scandinavia. The forestward was the seductive ward of a forest who was said to steal the heart of both men and women.

*Troll – Trolls are malovent beings in Scandinavian folklore. In the earliest sources, the term is used as a derogatory term for giants.