King Alfreds Viking | Page 3

took me to him, and asked him for the sake of old friendship to
give me a place in his ship; for I was fourteen now, and well able to
handle weapons, being strong and tall for my age, as were many of the

sons of the old kingly stocks.
So Einar took me, having had no part in his father's doings towards us,
and hating them moreover. He promised to do all that he might towards
making a good warrior and seaman of me; and he was ever thereafter as
a foster father to me, for my own had died in the hall with Vemund. It
was his wish to make amends thus, if he could, for the loss his folk had
caused me.
Of the next five years I need speak little, for in them I learned the
viking's craft well. We won the Orkneys from those who held them,
and my first fight was in Einar's ship, against two of the viking's
vessels. After that we dwelt in Sigurd's great house in Kirkwall, and
made many raids on the Sutherland and Caithness shores. I saw some
hard fighting there, for the Scots are no babes at weapon play.
Then when I was nineteen, and a good leader, as they said, the words
that my mother spoke to Jarl Rognvald came true, and he died even as
he had slain my father.
For Halfdan and Gudrod, Harald Fairhair's sons, deeming that the Jarl
stood in their way to power in Norway, burned him in his hall by night,
and so my feud was at an end. But the king would in nowise forgive his
sons for the slaying of his friend, and outlawed them. Whereon Halfdan
came and fell on us in the Orkneys; and that was unlucky for him, for
we beat him, and Jarl Einar avenged on him his father's death.
Now through this it came to pass that I saw Norway for the last time,
for I went thither in Einar's best ship to learn if Harald meant to make
the Orkneys pay for the death of his son--which was likely, for a son is
a son even though he be an outlaw.
So I came to my mother's place first of all, and full of joy and pleasant
thoughts was I as we sailed into the well-remembered fiord to seek the
little town at its head. And when we came there, nought but bitterest
sorrow and wrath was ours; for the town was a black heap of ruin, and
the few men who were left showed me where the kindly hands of the
hill folk had laid my mother, the queen, in a little mound, after the

Danish vikings, who had fallen suddenly on the place with fire and
sword, had gone. They had grown thus bold because the great jarl was
dead, and the king's sons had left the land without defence.
There I swore vengeance for this on every viking of Danish race that I
might fall in with; for I was wild with grief and rage, as one might
suppose. I set up a stone over the grave of my mother, graving runes
thereon that should tell who she was and also who raised it; for I was
skilled in the runic lore, having learned much from one of Einar's older
men who had known my father.
Thereafter we cruised among the islands northwards until we learned
that Harald was indeed upon us, and then I saw my last of Norway as
we headed south again, and the last hilltop sank beneath the sea's rim
astern of us. I did not know that so it would be at that time--it is well
that one sees not far into things to come--but even now all my home
seemed to be with Einar; and that also was not to last long, as things
went. How that came about I must tell, for the end was that I came to
Alfred the king.
When we came back to Kirkwall, I told the jarl all that I had done and
learned; and grieved for me he was when he heard of my mother's
death. Many things he said to me at that time which made him dearer to
me. Then after a while he spoke of Harald, who, as it seemed, might
come at any time.
"We cannot fight Norway," he said, "so we must even flit hence to the
mainland and wait until Harald is tired of seeking us. It is in my mind
that he seeks not so much for revenge as for payment of scatt from our
islands. Now he has a reason for taking it by force. He will seek to fine
us, and then make plans by which I shall hold the