Читать книгу The Long Ships: A Saga of the Viking Age - Michael Meyer - Страница 17

Orm entered the imperial bodyguard at Cordova in the year commonly reckoned as the eighth of the reign of the Caliph Hischam, that is, three years before Blue Digre and Vagn Akesson sailed with the Jomsvikings against the Norwegians. He remained in Almansur’s service for four years.

The men of the imperial bodyguard were greatly respected in Cordova, and were more finely attired than the ordinary citizens. Their mail-shirts were light and thin, but more resilient and of finer workmanship than any that Orm and his men had ever previously seen. Their helmets shone like silver, and on occasion they wore scarlet cloaks over their armour; and their shields were engraved round the edge with an arc of lettering, cunningly worked. This same legend was sewn upon Almansur’s great banners, which were always borne at the head of his army when he marched to war, and the meaning of it was: ‘Allah alone is victorious.’

The first occasion on which Orm and his men entered Almansur’s presence, to be shown to him by the commander of the guard, they were surprised at his appearance, for they had imagined him to be of the proportions of a hero. He was, in fact, an unprepossessing man, pinched and half-bald, with a yellow-green face and heavy eyebrows. He was seated on a broad bed among a heap of cushions, and tugged meditatively at his beard as he addressed rapid commands to two secretaries seated on the floor before him, who took down everything he said. On a table beside his bed there stood a copper box and, next to the box, a bowl of fruit and a large wicker cage, in which several tiny monkeys were playing and leaping round on a wheel. While the secretaries were writing down what he had just said, he took fruit from the bowl and put it between the bars of the cage and watched the monkeys fighting for the gift and stretching out their dwarfish hands for more; but, instead of smiling at their antics, he stared at them with sad eyes, and pushed more fruit between the bars and began again to dictate to his secretaries.

After a while, he gave the secretaries permission to rest, and bade the commander of the guard approach with his men. He turned his face from the cage and gazed at Orm and the other Vikings. His eyes were black and as though grief-stricken, but it seemed as if something burned and glittered deep down in their depths, so that the men found it difficult to meet his gaze for more than a few seconds. He studied them critically, one by one, and nodded his head.

‘These men have the bearing of warriors,’ he said to the commander. ‘Do they understand our language?’

The commander indicated Orm, and said that he understood Arabic, but that the rest knew little or none, and that they regarded him as their chieftain.

Almansur said to Orm: ‘What is your name?’

Orm told him his name, and added that, in his language, it meant Serpent. Almansur then asked him: ‘Who is your King?’

‘Harald, the son of Gorm,’ replied Orm, ‘and he is the lord of all the Danish kingdom.’

‘I do not know of him,’ said Almansur.

‘Be glad of it, lord,’ replied Orm, ‘for, whithersoever his ships sail, kings pale at the sound of his name.’

Almansur gazed at Orm for a few moments; then he said: ‘You are quick-tongued, and deserve the name you bear. Is your King a friend of the Franks?’

Orm smiled, and answered: ‘He was their friend when his own country was disturbed by insurrection. But, when fortune smiles upon him, he burns their cities, both in Frankland and in Saxony. And he is a King whom fortune dotes on.’

‘Perchance he is a good King,’ said Almansur. ‘Who is your god?’

‘That is a more difficult question to answer, lord,’ replied Orm. ‘My gods are the gods of my people, and we think them strong, as we ourselves are. There are many of them, but some of them are old, and few men trouble to worship these, apart from poets. The strongest of them is called Thor. He is red, as I am, and is held to be the friend of all mortal men. But the wisest of them is Odin, who is the god of soldiers, and they say that it is thanks to him that we Northmen are the best warriors in the world. Whether, though, any of our gods have done anything for me, I do not know; certain it is that I have not done much for them. And they seem to me to have little sway in this land.’

‘Now, listen carefully, infidel,’ said Almansur, ‘to what I am about to say. There is no god save Allah. Say not that there are many, nor that there are three; it shall be well for you on the Judgment Day if you do not say these things. There is but one Allah, the Eternal, the Sublime; and Mohammed is His Prophet. This is the truth, and this you shall believe. When I wage war against the Christians, I wage it for Allah and the Prophet, and ill betide any man of my army who does not honour them. From henceforth, therefore, you and your men shall worship none but the true god.’

Orm replied: ‘We men of the North do not worship our gods except in time of necessity, for we think it foolish to weary them with babbling. In this land, we have worshipped no god since the time when we sacrificed to the sea-god to bless our homeward voyage with luck; and that proved to be of little use to us for, not long afterwards, your ships appeared, and we whom you see here became your captives. Perchance it may be that our gods wield but little power in this land; therefore, lord, I for my part shall willingly obey your command and worship your god while I am your servant. If it be your pleasure, I shall ask my comrades what is their feeling in this matter.’

Almansur nodded his assent, and Orm said to his men: ‘He says that we must worship his god. He has only one god, who is called Allah, and who dislikes all other gods. My own belief is that his god is powerful in this country, and that our gods are weak so far away from our homeland and theirs. We shall receive better treatment if we follow the custom of the people in this matter, and I think it would be foolish of us to go against Almansur’s wishes.’

The men agreed that they had little choice, and that it would be madness to anger so mighty a lord as Almansur; at length, therefore, Orm turned to Almansur and informed him that they were all willing to worship Allah and promise to invoke no other god.

Almansur then summoned two priests into his presence, together with a magistrate, before whom Orm and his men were made to repeat the holy creed of the servants of Mohammed, as pronounced to Orm by Almansur: namely, that there is no God save Allah, and that Mohammed is his Prophet. All the men save Orm found difficulty in enunciating the words, although they were carefully spelt out to them.

When this ceremony was completed, Almansur appeared to be well pleased, and told the priests that he felt that he had thereby done a good service to Allah, with which they agreed. Then, putting his hand into the copper box that stood on the table, he took from it a handful of gold coins, and gave fifteen pieces to each of the men, but thirty to Orm. They thanked him, and were conducted by the commander back to their own quarters.

Toke said: ‘Now we have bidden farewell to our gods. This may be a right thing to do in a foreign land, where other gods reign; but, if I ever reach home again, I shall bother more about them than about this Allah. Still, I dare say he is the best god in these parts, and he has already provided us with gold. If he can manage to provide a few women too, he will rise even higher in my estimation.’

A short while afterwards, Almansur declared war against the Christians and set out northwards with his imperial bodyguard and a mighty army. He plundered for three months in Navarre and Aragon, during which time Orm and his men won both gold and women, so that they declared themselves well satisfied to serve such a master. Each subsequent spring and autumn, they found themselves in the field under Almansur’s banners, resting in Cordova during the worst of the summer heat, and during those months of the year which the people of the south call winter. They did their best to accustom themselves to the habits of the country, and found little cause for complaint in their employment, for Almansur often rewarded them with rich gifts, to secure their loyalty, and everything that they won by storm or plunder they were permitted to keep for themselves, apart from one-fifth, which they had to yield to him.

Sometimes, however, they found it somewhat irksome to be followers of Allah and servants of the Prophet. Whenever, on their expeditions, they found wine or pork in the Christians’ houses, they were forbidden to enjoy either commodity, though they longed for both. This decree, which appeared to them more extraordinary than any they had previously heard of, they seldom dared to disobey, for Almansur punished any disobedience very strictly. In addition to this, they found themselves having to pray to Allah and abase themselves before the Prophet far too often for their taste; for, every morning and evening, when Almansur was in the field, the whole of his army would fall to its knees, facing the direction in which the City of the Prophet was said to lie, and every man had to bow several times, pressing his forehead against the earth. This seemed to them a debasing ridiculous thing for a man to have to do, but they agreed that there was nothing for it but to conform to this custom as best as they could, and do as the rest of the army did.

They excelled in battle, and won a great name for themselves in the bodyguard. They held themselves to be the best men in it and, when the time came for the dividing up of booty, no man challenged their right to whatever they chose. There were eight of them, all told: Orm and Toke, Halle and Ogmund, Tume, who had rowed with Toke, Gunne, who had rowed with Krok, Rapp, who was one-eyed, and Ulf, who was the oldest of them. Once, long before, he had had one of the corners of his mouth split at a Christmas feast, ever since when he had been known as Grinulf, because his mouth sat awry and was broader than other men’s. Their luck was so good that only one of them lost his life during all the four years that they were in Almansur’s service.

They travelled far and wide; for, the more Almansur’s beard became flecked with grey, the more vehemently he harried the Christians, spending less and less time peacefully at home in his palace at Cordova. They were with him when he marched far northwards to Pamplona, in the kingdom of Navarre, where twice they attempted vainly to storm the city; but the third time, they took it and gave it to the sword. Here Tume, who had shared Toke’s oar in the galley, was killed by a stone from a catapult. They sailed in Almansur’s own ship to Majorca, when the governor of that island had shown himself refractory, and stood guard while his head was struck off, together with those of thirty of his kinsmen. They fought in dust and heat a grim conflict at Henares, where the Count of Castile’s men pressed them hard but were at length encircled and annihilated. There, on the evening following the battle, the dead Christians were piled together and built into a great mound of corpses, from the summit of which one of Almansur’s priests called the servants of the Prophet to prayer. Then they marched on a huge expedition to the Kingdom of Leon, where they harried King Sancho the Fat so sorely that, in the end, his own men found him dispensable (for he was so fat that he could no longer sit on a horse, and deposed him, and came with tribute to Almansur.

Throughout all these campaigns, Orm and his men never ceased to marvel at Almansur’s sacrifice and power, and at the great luck which always attended his enterprises; but most of all they marvelled at the extent of his fear of Allah, and the variety of measures that he was for ever devising to placate his God. All the dirt that gathered on his shoes and clothing when he was in the field was carefully scraped off each evening by his servants and placed in a silken bag; and, at the conclusion of every campaign, this bagful of dirt was brought back to Cordova. He had ordained that all this dirt that he had collected in his wars against the Christians was to be buried with him when he died, because the Prophet had said: ‘Blessed are those who have trodden dusty ways to fight against the unbelievers.’

Despite all this, however, Almansur’s dread of Allah no whit decreased, and finally he decided to undertake a mightier enterprise than any that he had yet attempted, namely, to destroy the holy city of the Christians in Asturia in which the apostle James, the great miracle-worker, lay buried. In the autumn of the twelfth year of the reign of the Caliph Hischam, which was the fourth year that Orm and his men spent in Almansur’s service, he assembled an army larger than any that had ever before been seen in Spain, and marched northwards, proceeding through the Empty Land, which was the old dividing barrier between the Andalusians and the Asturian Christians.

They reached the Christian settlements on the far side of the Empty Land, which no Andalusian had penetrated in mortal memory, and each day saw them engaged in hard fighting, for the Christians defended themselves cunningly among the mountains and ravines. Then, one evening, when the army had pitched camp and Almansur was resting in his great tent after evening prayer, the Christians launched a surprise attack. At first they threatened to overwhelm the Mohammedans, for a troop of them broke into the camp and created a panic, the air becoming wild with war-cries and shrieks for help. Hearing these, Almansur hastened forth from his tent, wearing his helmet and carrying his sword, but without his armour, to see what was afoot. Now, that evening, Orm and two of his men, Halle and Rapp the One-Eyed, were standing guard at the entrance to the tent. As Almansur emerged, several of the enemy’s horsemen appeared, galloping towards the tent at full speed. When they saw Almansur, they recognized him by his green helmet-veil (for he was the only man in the army who wore that colour), and, yelling triumphantly, cast their spears at him. It was a dark night, and Almansur was old and could not have evaded them; but Orm, who was standing nearest to him, flung himself suddenly at his back, bowling him over on to his face and taking two of the spears on his shield and a third in his shoulder. A fourth grazed Almansur’s side as he lay on the ground, and drew blood. Halle and Rapp rushed forward to meet the enemy, casting their spears at them and bringing one man from his horse; then, others swarmed to their assistance, from all directions, and the Christians were killed or put to flight.

Orm pulled the spear out of his shoulder, and assisted Almansur to his feet, wondering dubiously how his master would feel about being knocked face downwards on to the ground. Almansur, however, was hugely pleased with his wound. It was the first that he had ever received, and he reckoned it as a piece of great good luck that he had been allowed to spill his blood for Allah’s sake, without sustaining any serious injury in the process. He ordered three of his cavalry commanders to be summoned before him, and rebuked them publicly before his assembled officers for not having kept better watch over the camp. They prostrated themselves at his feet, and confessed their negligence; whereupon Almansur, as was his wont when he was in a good humour, allowed them time to say their prayers and bind up their beards before being led to execution.

To Halle and Rapp, he gave a fistful of gold each. Then, while all the officers of the army were still drawn up before him, he bade Orm step forward. Almansur stared at him, and said: ‘Red-bearded man, you have laid your hand upon your master, which it is forbidden for any soldier to do. What answer have you to make to this charge?’

Orm replied: ‘The air was alive with spears, and there was naught else to be done. But it is my belief, lord, that your honour is so great that what has happened cannot harm it. Besides which, you fell with your face towards your enemies, so that no man can say that you shrank from them.’

Almansur sat fingering his beard silently. Then he nodded and said: ‘It is a good answer. And you saved my life; and I have work yet to accomplish.’

He ordered a neck-chain to be brought from his coffers; it was of gold, and heavy. He said: ‘I see that a spear found your shoulder. Perchance it may prove painful. Here is balm for the pain.’

So saying, he hung the chain around Orm’s neck, which was an exceedingly rare honour for him to grant. After this incident, Orm and his men stood even higher in Almansur’s favour than before. Toke examined the chain, and expressed his delight that Orm had won so rich a gift.

‘Without doubt,’ he said, ‘this Almansur is the best master that a man could wish to serve. All the same, I think it was lucky for you, and for the rest of us, that you did not push him on to his back.’

Next day, the army continued its march; and at length they came to the holy city of the Christians, where the apostle James lay buried, with a great church built over his grave. Here there was heavy fighting, for the Christians, believing that the apostle would come to their aid, fought to the limit of their endurance; but in the end, Almansur overcame them, and the city was taken and burnt. Hither, Christians from all parts of their country had brought their most valuable treasures for safe keeping, for the city had never before been threatened by any enemy; consequently, an enormous quantity of booty was captured, together with many prisoners. It was Almansur’s especial wish to raze the great church that stood over the apostle’s grave, but this was of stone and would not burn. Instead, therefore, he set his prisoners, aided by men from his own army, to pull it down. Now, in the tower of this church, there hung twelve bells, each one bearing the name of an apostle. They had a most melodious note, and were greatly prized by the Christians, in particular the largest of them all, which was called James.

Almansur commanded that these bells should be taken back to Cordova by the Christian captives, there to be placed in the great mosque with their mouths facing upwards, so that they might be filled with sweet-scented oil and burn perpetually as great lamps to the glory of Allah and the Prophet. They were enormously heavy, and great litters were built to hold them; sixty prisoners were set to carry each bell in one of these litters, working in shifts. But the James bell was so heavy that no litter could be built to take it, and they knew it would not be possible to convey it by ox-cart across the mountain passes. Almansur, however, was very unwilling to leave it behind, for he regarded it as the finest item of spoil that he had ever won.

Accordingly, he had a platform built for the bell to be placed upon, in order that this platform might be dragged on rollers to a nearby river, whence it and the bell could be removed to Cordova by ship. When the platform was ready, and the rollers had been placed beneath it, iron bars were passed through the hasps of the bell, and a number of men tried to lift it on to the platform; but the southerners lacked either the strength or the enthusiasm for the work; and, when longer bars were tried, so that more men might help with the lifting, the bars broke and the bell remained on the ground. Orm and his men, who had come to watch the work, began to laugh; then Toke said: ‘Six grown men ought to be able to lift that without much trouble,’ and Orm said: ‘Four should be able to manage it.’

Then he and Toke and Ogmund and Rapp the One-Eyed walked up to the bell, ran a short bar through the hasps, and lifted the bell up and on to the platform.

Almansur, who had been riding past on his horse, stopped to watch them do this. He called Orm to him, and said: ‘Allah has blessed you and your men with great strength, praised be His name! It would seem that you are the men to see that this bell is safely conveyed to the ship, and to guard it on its passage to Cordova; for I know no other men capable of handling it.’

Orm bowed, and replied that this task did not appear to him to be difficult.

Then Almansur had a body of good slaves chosen from among the prisoners, and ordered them to draw the bell down to the river at a point where it began to be navigable, after which they were to serve as oarsmen on a ship awaiting them there, which had been captured from the Asturians. Two officials from Almansur’s staff were sent with them, to be in charge during the voyage.

Ropes were tied to the platform, and Orm and his men set off with the bell and its slaves, some of the prisoners drawing it, and others placing rollers before it. It was a tedious journey, for the path they had to follow led, for the most part, downhill, so that sometimes the bell slid forwards under its own momentum, and in the early stages some of the slaves who were changing the rollers were crushed. Orm, however, made them fasten a drag-rope to the rear of the platform, so that they might be able to control it where the going was steep. Thereafter, they made better progress, and so eventually came down to the river where the ship lay at anchor.

It was a merchant ship, smallish, but strongly built, with a good deck, ten pairs of oars, a mast and a sail. Orm and his men lifted the bell aboard, and made it fast with ropes and chocks; then they put the slaves in their places at the oars, and moved off down the river. This river ran westwards, north of that river up which Krok’s ships had rowed on their way to the margrave’s fortress; and the Northmen were happy to find themselves once again in charge of a ship.

The Vikings took it in turns to keep an eye on the rowers, whom they found mulish and very clumsy at their work. They were disappointed to find that there were no ankle-chains in the ship, for this meant that someone had to keep watch throughout the night; and in spite of this, a couple of the prisoners, who had felt the whip, managed to escape. Orm’s men agreed that they had never seen such miserable rowing before, and that, if it went on like this, they would never reach Cordova.

When they came to the mouth of the river, they found there many of Almansur’s great warships, which had been unable, on account of their size, to sail up the river, although most of the soldiers from them had marched inland to join in the general plundering. Orm’s men were glad to see these ships, and he immediately sent both the officials to borrow as many ankle-chains as possible from the various captains, until he had obtained all that he needed. Then the slaves were fettered to their places. Orm also took this opportunity of laying in stores for the voyage, for it was a long way to Cordova. Having done this, they lay at anchor by the warships in a sheltered bay, to wait for good sailing weather.

In the evening Orm went ashore, together with Toke and Gunne, leaving the rest of his men to guard the ship. They walked down the shore in the direction of some small warehouses, in which traders had established themselves for the purpose of bargaining for the loot that had been won, and to sell necessaries to the ships. They had all but reached the first warehouse when six men from one of the ships entered it, and Gunne suddenly halted in his tracks.

‘We have business to transact with those men,’ he said. ‘Did you notice the first two?’

Neither Orm nor Toke had observed their faces.

Gunne said: ‘They were the men who killed Krok.’

Orm paled, and a tremor ran through his body.

‘If that is so,’ he said, ‘they have lived long enough.’

They drew their swords. Orm and Toke still carried those which the lady Subaida had given to them, and Toke had not yet succeeded in finding any name for his sword as good as Blue-Tongue.

‘Our duty to Krok comes before our duty to Almansur,’ said Orm. ‘All of us have vengeance to reap here. But mine comes first, because I am his successor as chieftain. You two run behind the warehouse, to stop them escaping that way.’

The warehouse had a door in each of its shorter walls. Orm entered through the nearest, and found the six men inside, talking to the trader. The latter, when he saw Orm enter with his sword drawn, slunk away behind some sacks, but the six men from the ship drew their weapons and shrieked questions at him. It was dark and confined in the warehouse, but Orm at once picked out one of the men who had killed Krok.

‘Have you said your evening prayer?’ he cried, and hewed at the man’s neck so that his head flew from his shoulders.

Two of the others immediately attacked Orm, so that he had his work cut out to defend himself. Meanwhile, the other three ran to the back door; but Toke and Gunne were there before them. Toke felled one of them on the spot, crying out Krok’s name, and aimed a savage blow at the next man; but there was little room to manoeuvre, because the warehouse was small and crowded with goods, to say nothing of the men who were fighting in it. One man jumped up on to a bench and tried to aim a blow at Orm, but his sword caught in a rafter, and Orm flung his shield into the man’s face. The spike on his shield entered the other’s eye, and he fell on his face and lay still. After that, the fight did not last much longer. The second of the two men who had killed Krok was felled by Gunne; of the others, Orm had killed two and Toke three; but the trader, who had burrowed himself almost out of sight in his corner, they allowed to escape unharmed, because he had nothing to do with this affair.

When they came out of the warehouse with their swords all bloody, they saw men approaching to discover what the noise had been about; but, on seeing the Viking’s aspect, they turned and ran. Toke held his sword erect before his face; thick blood ran down its blade and fell from the hilt in large drops.

‘Now I name thee, O sister of Blue-Tongue!’ he said. ‘Hereafter shalt thou be known as Red-Jowl.’

Orm stared after the men from the ships as they ran away into the distance.

‘We, too, must make haste,’ he said, ‘for now we are outlaws in this land. But it is a small price to pay for vengeance.’

They hastened to the ship, and told the others what had happened. Then, at once, although it had by now grown dark, they weighed anchor and put out to sea. They rejoiced in the knowledge that Krok had been avenged, though at the same time they realized that they had no time to lose in getting clear of this country and its waters. They did their best to whip up a good pace from the slaves, and Orm himself took over the steering-oar, while Almansur’s two secretaries, who were unaware of what had happened, hurled questions at him but received scant reply. At last, the ship came safely out of the bay into the open sea; and a wind sprang up from the south, so that they were able to raise a sail. They steered northwards and away from the land, until the day broke; and there was no sign of any ship pursuing them.

They saw a group of islands off their larboard bow, and Orm put in to one of them. Here, he sent both the secretaries ashore, bidding them convey his greetings to Almansur.

‘It would be churlish of us to quit the service of such a master,’ he said, ‘without wishing him farewell. Tell him, therefore, on behalf of us all, that it has been our fate to have killed six of his men in revenge for Krok, who was our chieftain; although six men’s lives are a small return for his death. We are taking this ship with us, and the slaves that man it, for we think that he will scarcely notice its loss. Also, we are taking the bell, because it makes the ship ride stable, and we have dangerous seas ahead of us. We all think that he has been a good master to us and, if we had not had to kill these men, we should gladly have remained longer in his service; but, as things have turned out, this is the only course left open to us, if we are to escape with our lives.’

The secretaries undertook to deliver this message, word for word as Orm had spoken it. Then, he added: ‘It would be well, too, if, when you return to Cordova, you could bear our greetings to a wealthy Jew called Solomon, who is a poet and a silversmith. And thank him from us for having befriended us so generously; for we shall never see him again.’

‘And tell the lady Subaida,’ said Toke, ‘that two men from the north, whom she knows, send her their thanks and greetings. Tell her, too, that the swords she gave us have served us well, and that their edges are yet undented, despite all the work that they have done. But, for your own sakes, do not deliver this message when Almansur is within hearing.’

The secretaries had their writing materials with them, and noted all this down; then, they were left on the island with enough food to sustain them until such time as some ship should find them, or they should manage to make their way to the mainland.

When the slaves working the oars saw that the ship was putting out towards the open sea, they made a noisy clamour and complaint, and it was evident that they wished to be left on the island with the secretaries. Orm’s men had to go round with switches and rope-ends to silence them and make them row; for the wind had dropped, and they were anxious to lose no time in getting clear of these dangerous waters.

‘It is lucky we have them fast in foot-irons,’ said Gunne, ‘or we should have had the lot of them overboard by now, for all our swords. It is a pity we did not borrow a proper scourge when we took the fetters. The teeth of these switches and rope-ends are too blunt for mules like these.’

‘You are right,’ said Toke, ‘strangely enough; for we little thought, in the days when we sat on the galley benches, that we should ever come to mourn the absence of an overseer’s whip.’

‘Well, they say that no back is so tender as one’s own,’ replied Gunne. ‘But I fear these backs will have to itch somewhat more sharply, if we are ever to escape from here.’

Toke agreed, and they went round the benches again, flogging the slaves smartly to make the ship move faster. But they still made laboured progress, for the slaves could not keep the stroke. Orm noticed this, and said: ‘Rope-ends alone will never teach men to row, if they are not used to oars. Let us see if we cannot persuade the bell to lend us her aid.’

As he spoke, he took an axe, and struck the bell with its blunt edge as the slaves dipped their oars. The bell gave out a great peal, and the slaves pulled in response. In this way, they soon began to keep better time. Orm made his men take turns in sounding the stroke. They found that if they struck with a wooden club padded with leather, the bell pealed more melodiously; and this discovery pleased them mightily.

After a while, however, a wind sprang up and they had no further need to row. The wind gradually increased, blowing more and more gustily, until it approached the gale strength; and things now began to look dangerous. Grinulf remarked that this was only what was to be expected if men put out to sea without first propitiating the people of the water. But others spoke against him, recalling the sacrifice they had offered on a previous occasion and how shortly afterwards they had encountered the ships of Almansur. Gunne ventured the opinion that they might perhaps sacrifice to Allah, for safety’s sake, and a few of the men supported this suggestion; but Toke said that, in his view, Allah had little pull in what went on at sea. Then Orm said:

‘I do not believe that any man can be certain just how powerful this or that god is, or how much he can do to help us. And I think we should be foolish to neglect one god for the sake of not offending some other. But one thing we know, that there is one god who has served us well on this enterprise; I mean, St James; for it is his bell that keeps our ship from turning turtle and, apart from this, it has helped the rowers to keep time. So let us not forget him.’

They agreed that this was well spoken, and sacrificed meat and drink to Agir, Allah and St James, which put them in better heart.

By this time they had little idea where they were, save only that they were a good way from Asturia. However, they knew that, if they held their course northwards, in the direction in which the storm was driving them, and avoided diverging too far to the west, they would be sure to strike land eventually, either in Ireland or in England, or perhaps in Brittany. So they screwed up their courage and rowed out the storm. Once or twice they managed to discern familiar stars; and they trusted that they would find their way.

Their chief worry concerned the slaves, who, although they now had no work to do at the oars, became poorly with fear and sea-sickness and the wet and cold, so that all of them were green and their teeth chattered; and a couple of them died. They had little warm clothing on the ship, and each day it blew colder, for the autumn was by now far advanced. Orm and his men pitied the wretchedness of the slaves, and tended them as well as they could; and, to such of them as had stomach to eat, they gave the best food; for they knew that these slaves would be valuable booty, if they could bring them safely to land.

At last, the storm died down, and for a whole day they enjoyed fine weather and a good wind, and held their course to the north-east; and the slaves perked up, encouraged by the sun. But, that evening, the wind dropped completely, and a fog descended on them and began to thicken. It was cold and damp, so that they all trembled with the cold, the slaves most of all; no breath of wind came, and the ship lay tossing in a heavy swell. Orm said:

‘This is a pretty pass we have come to. If we stay here and wait for the wind, the slaves will die of cold; but if we make them row, they will die just as surely, in the wretched state they are in now. Though we have precious little to row on while we can see neither sun nor stars.’

‘I think we should make them row,’ said Rapp, ‘to warm them up a little. We can steer with the swell, for that gale was blowing from the south; and we have nothing else to guide us while this fog holds.’

They thought Rapp’s advice good, and the slaves were made to take up their oars, which they did amid much grousing; and indeed, they had little strength for the task. The men took turns again at beating time on the bell, and it seemed to their ears to sound more sweetly than before, with a long peal following each stroke, so that she was of good comfort to them in the fog. At intervals, they allowed the slaves to rest awhile and sleep; but, apart from this, they rowed the whole night through, steering with the swell, while the fog hugged them closely and incessantly.

When morning came, Ogmund was at the helm, with Rapp sounding the bell, while the others slept. Suddenly the two men listened, and stared at one another, and then listened anew. A faint peal had sounded from far away. Much astonished, they roused the others, and all strained their ears. The note was repeated several times, and it seemed to them to come from forward.

‘It sounds as though we are not the only sailors who are rowing to a bell,’ said Toke.

‘Let us proceed softly,’ said Grinulf. ‘For this may be Ran and her daughters, who seduce men at sea with music and enchantments.’

‘It sounds to me more like dwarfs at an anvil,’ said Halle: ‘and it would be no fun to make their acquaintance. Perhaps we are near some island where trolls hold sway.’

The peal still rang out faintly from the distance. All of them were now in a cold sweat, and they waited to hear what Orm should say. The slaves, too, listened, and began to chatter eagerly amongst themselves; but the tongues they spoke were unknown to Orm and his men.

‘What this may be, no man can tell,’ said Orm. ‘But let us not be frightened at so small a thing. Let us row on, as we have done up to now, and keep our eyes skinned. For my part, I have never heard of witchery practised by morning light.’

They agreed with this, and the rowing continued; meanwhile, the distant note began to grow clearer. Light puffs of wind stirred their hair, and the fog thinned; then, suddenly, they all cried out that they spied land. It was a rocky coast, and appeared to be either an island or a promontory. They could not doubt that the sound had come from this spot, although it had now ceased. They saw green grass, and some goats grazing; also two or three huts, beside which men stood staring out to sea.

‘These do not look to me like trolls,’ said Orm, ‘or the daughters of Ran either. Let us go ashore and find out where we have come to.’

They did so; and the men of the island showed no fear at seeing armed men ashore, but came cheerfully towards them and greeted them. They were six in number, all old men, with white beards and long brown cloaks: and no one could understand what they said.

‘To what land have we come?’ asked Orm. ‘And whose men are you?’

One of the old men understood his words, and cried to the others: ‘Lochlannach! Lochlannach!’¹ Then he answered Orm in the latter’s tongue: ‘You have come to Ireland, and we are the servants of St Finnian.’

When Orm and his men heard this, they were overcome with joy, for they thought they must be nearly home. They could now see that they had landed on a small island and, beyond it, they could discern the Irish coast. On this small island there lived only the old men and their goats.

The old men conversed among themselves eagerly and in amazement; then the one who understood Norse said to Orm: ‘You speak the tongue of the Northmen, and I understand that tongue, for in my young days I associated much with the Northmen before I came to this island. But certain it is that I have never seen men from Lochlann dressed as you and your men are dressed. Where do you come from? Are you white or black Lochlannachs?² And how is it that you come sailing to the sound of a bell? Today is St Brandan’s day, and we rang our bell to pay homage to his memory; then we heard your bell reply from the sea, and we supposed that it might be St Brandan himself answering us, for he was a great sailor. But in Jesus Christ’s name, are you all baptized men, that you come sailing with this holy sound?’

‘The old man can gab,’ said Toke. ‘There is a mouthful for you to answer there, Orm.’

Orm replied to the old man: ‘We are black Lochlannachs, men of King Harald’s land: though, whether King Harald still lives, I do not know, for we have been a long while from home. But our cloaks and garments are Spanish, for we have come from Andalusia, where we served a great lord named Almansur. And our bell is called James, and comes from the church in Asturia where the apostle James lies buried, and it is the biggest of all the bells there; but how and why it has accompanied us on our journey is too long a story to be told now. We have heard of this Christ you speak of, but where we come from he is held in no great honour, and we are not baptized. But since you are Christians, you may be glad to hear that we have Christian men at our oars. They are our slaves, and come from the same place as the bell; but they have been badly knocked about on our journey, and are worth but little now. It would be a good thing if they could come ashore here and rest for a while before we continue on our journey homewards. You need fear nothing from us; for you seem to be good men, and we use no violence towards those that do not try to oppose us. We could make use of a few of your goats, but you will suffer no other loss, for we do not intend to stay long here.’

When it was explained to the old men what he had said, they wagged their heads and whispered among themselves; and their spokesman said that they often welcomed seafaring men on their island, and that no man did them harm.

‘For we ourselves do harm to no man,’ he said, ‘and we have no possessions apart from these goats and our boats and huts; the whole isle else is St Finnian’s Isle, and he is powerful in the sight of God and holds his hand over us. This year he has blessed our goats generously, so that you shall not lack for sustenance. Welcome therefore to the little we can offer you; and for us old men, who sit here year after year in loneliness, it will be a joy to listen to the story of your travels.’

So the slaves were brought ashore and the ship was beached; and Orm and his men rested on St Finnian’s Isle, living in peaceful harmony with the monks. They fished with them, making fine catches, and fed the slaves so that they looked less wretched; and Orm and the others had to recount all their adventures for the monks to hear for, although they had difficulty in following his words, the old men were eager for news of distant lands. But most of all, they marvelled at the bell, which was larger than any they had heard of in Ireland. They acclaimed it as a mighty miracle that St James and St Finnian had spoken to each other with their bells from afar; and sometimes at their holy services they smote the bell of St James instead of their own, and rejoiced aloud as its great clang echoed out across the sea.