King Gylfe ruled his hand over all the land of Svithjod.*

Of him they tell that he gave to a wayfaring woman, as a gift for her stories, a plow-land in his realm, as large as four oxen could plow for a day and a night. But she was of the asa-race, Gefjun was her name.

She came from the north, from Jotunheim, and the oxen were the sons of her and a giant, she took them to plow. The sons had been raised well, and they went the plow so deep and roughly, it tore up the land, and the oxen drew it westward into the sea until it stood still in a sound. There, Gefjun set the land and named it Seeland.* The scar in Svithjod they named Logrinn.

"Gefjun glad
drew from Gylfe
the excellent land,
Denmark's increase,
so that it reeked
from the working beasts.
Four heads and eight of eyes
bore the oxen strives.
As they went before the wide
robbed land of the grassy green isle."*

….

"Have they all stilled at the harbor?"

"Yes, all the boats of Eysteinn Beli are here."

Kattegat was alive.

Every single one of the villagers were working, bearing chests and pots, bags and logs, cooking food and storing it away in barrels and wrappings, all of them swarming over the paths of Kattegat, snaking around each other like ants in the ground.

With the clear skies and a warm air blowing down over them, it was as if Kattegat had grown a heartbeat of its own, a slow and rhythmic pulse that snaked through the village and onto the beach that exploded with vigor and salty sprays.

Anticipation was thick in the air.

Frida felt it when she breathed in the incredibly moist air that the warm breeze carried, she even felt it on her tongue, a damp and drowsy taste spreading over it as she made her way down to the harbor.

She already had a stale taste in her mouth, and a couple of tears had left their marks on her cheeks. She had just placed the last kisses of this summer on her children's small foreheads. They had only smiled innocently at her, at their mother, as they did not understand that she was leaving them behind with the servants and Helga. But she had waited for this.

She gasped when her eyes finally took in the sight of the many boats in the harbor. There were so many, she could not even start to count them. Like small logs in the waves after a storm, the longships were huddled together in the fjord with black and blue banners, the Dane and the Geat side by side.

She felt like she was staring at an enormous sea faring army of boats, with sails instead of horses and oars instead of feet. The people made way for her as she crossed the marketplace, and she soon found herself on Kattegat's beach, hesitating with a short breath.

She let her eyes fall to the sand below her feet.

Solid yet damp. She moved her feet in the sand, carving a little edge in its bleakness.

She did not like to leave these lands.

She felt the sorrow harden something inside her heart, earning her to stand still there in the middle of all the commotion. People running back and forth, words thrown in the air, the water ever waving.

She closed her eyes and enjoyed the sensation of having her two feet on the earth. She had to remember this.

The journey that lay ahead was long and maddening, she knew it. She had already done it one time before. Though, Frida felt as though some of the memories of her journey from Northumbria to Kattegat had been erased from her mind. As if they had been too heavy for her to carry.

This time, however, the journey would be on her own terms.

She had chosen to go, she had chosen how to go, and she had chosen who to go with.

Even though every part of her body pulled her towards the boat where Ragnar was, she knew that she had to go with the boat that carried her antlers. She could feel the burning in her heart, however strange and misplaced that burning could sound to so many people.

She knew that her feelings for the man with the dark-circled eyes had changed, but she also knew that they were not of desire.

She somehow felt drawn to him in a much more intelligent way, as if her mind was yearning for his understanding of the world. The burning she felt was like the burning she had felt so many times before when being in the presence of the gods, warm and hopeful, determined and real.

Frida opened her eyes and let them travel to Ragnar down at the boats, talking with the Geat king Eysteinn. He seemed very spirited, with adventure shining from his eyes.

Frida quickly let her eyes roam over the crowd of people before she rested them on Bjørn's back. She smiled when she saw that he and princess Ingeborg had already found each other.

A sudden hand on Frida's shoulder had her gasping out in surprise, and she turned around in a small jump, only to see Lagertha smiling beside her. Frida noticed that she had lifted her hands to her chest, and she quickly let them drop down to her sides.

Lagertha smiled apologetically before turning her eyes to the harbor like Frida had before.

Frida followed her motion. Silence prevailed between them for a short moment, before Frida chose to break it.

"I remember," she started out, keeping her eyes on the boats before them. "That you told me of a bad feeling you had a long time ago. Of this trip."

Frida could feel Lagertha's eyes on her. She turned her face to look at her, and she sensed how her heart pumped.

Her question tingled her tongue with soft warnings. "Do you still feel it?"

She could see Lagertha's stare shifting from her one eye to the other. Her chin trembled slightly. She turned her eyes to the harbor once more, before nodding. "Yes."

Frida let her eyes stay at the beautiful blonde woman next to her, before she too turned her glare to the fjord. "I'm glad that you are going with Ragnar, Lagertha, if things go wrong. He will protect you,"

Frida said into the air, and she sensed how her blood rushed.

They were to move soon.

She heard Lagertha chuckle, and she soon breathed in a giggle: "Or I will protect him. You will be safe too, Frida. I know it."

Not long passed before the horns sounded and the many boats turned towards the clear sky before them, with the open water ahead, calling them to sea. The last farewells sounded through the air, and tears and hearts bleeding thickened the air between the land and the ocean, a thin mist falling over the many boats.

Frida narrowed her eyes at the thin line in the horizon where the sea touches the sky, leaning against the front stem of the boat, her arms hugged around it. Antlers hovered proudly above her.

The moving speed of their vessel surprised her, and when she finally dared to look around, Kattegat was only a dark spot in the land behind them, her heart sinking a little in her chest. But soon, a beautiful female voice was heard from somewhere in the mist, one of the shieldmaidens singing a loud and encouraging verse, resounding between the boats:

"Awakens not to the wine,
nor awakens he to the speech.
Rather, we awake for Hilder's
tough game and teach."*

The boats soon left the seas of Denmark, and rushed into the dark openness with light hearts.

Little did they know what lay ahead of them, as they drew closer to a black storm that was raging over the big waves of the ocean.

Little did they know that their journeys would not all lead them to the same grounds.

But they would soon come to see it with their own eyes.

* Svithjod: old way of saying Sweden (this name covers all parts of Sweden)

* Seeland: in Danish 'Sjælland' (this only goes for this isle, which is where our capital Copenhagen is placed)

* This is a story from the Younger Edda (more specifically in "The Fooling of Gylfe") One can say that it is 'the birth of Denmark', or at least the 'increase of Denmark' when Seeland was carved out from Sweden (or maybe conquered?) :)

* Inspired by a stanza from the Sagas. This is often shown to portray the Vikings' views on war/fighting.