The Path of the King | Page 6

of the chiefs of the Shield-ring. Biorn was
happy on such occasions, for he himself came into the songs, since it
was right to honour the gentle lady, the Queen. He heard how on the
distaff side he was sprung from proud western earls, Thorwolf the
Black, and Halfdan and Hallward Skullsplitter. But on the spear side he
was of still loftier kin, for Odin was first in his pedigree, and after him
the Volsung chiefs, and Gothfred the Proud, and--that no magnificence
might be wanting--one Karlamagnus, whom Biorn had never heard of
before, but who seemed from his doings to have been a puissant king.
On such occasions there would follow a braggingmatch among the
warriors, for a recital of the past was meant as an augury for the future.
The time was towards the close of the Wicking-tide, and the world was
becoming hard for simple folk. There were endless bickerings with the
Tronds in the north and the men of More in the south, and a certain
Shockhead, an upsetting king in Norland, was making trouble with his
neighbours. Likewise there was one Kristni, a king of the Romans, who
sought to dispute with Odin himself. This Kristni was a magic-worker,
who clad his followers in white linen instead of byrnies, and gave them
runes in place of swords, and sprinkled them with witch water. Biorn
did not like what he heard of the warlock, and longed for the day when
his father Ironbeard would make an end of him.
Each year before the coming of spring there was a lean season in
Hightown. Fish were scarce in the ice-holes, the stock of meal in the
meal-ark grew low, and the deep snow made poor hunting in wood or
on fell-side. Belts were tightened, and there were hollow cheeks among
the thralls. And then one morning the wind would blow from the south,
and a strange smell come into the air. The dogs left their lair by the fire
and, led by the Garm the old blind patriarch, made a tour of inspection
among the outhouses to the edge of the birch woods. Presently would
come a rending of the ice on the firth, and patches of inky water would
show between the floes. The snow would slip from the fell-side, and
leave dripping rock and clammy bent, and the river would break its
frosty silence and pour a mighty grey-green flood to the sea. The swans
and geese began to fly northward, and the pipits woke among the
birches. And at last one day the world put on a new dress, all steel-blue

and misty green, and a thousand voices woke of flashing streams and
nesting birds and tossing pines, and the dwellers in Hightown knew that
spring had fairly come.
Then was Biorn the happy child. All through the long day, and through
much of that twilight which is the darkness of a Norland summer, he
was abroad on his own errands. With Grim the Hunter he adventured
far up on the fells and ate cheese and bannocks in the tents of the
wandering Skridfinns, or stalked the cailzie-cock with his arrows in the
great pine forest, which in his own mind he called Mirkwood and
feared exceedingly. Or he would go fishing with Egil the Fisherman,
spearing salmon in the tails of the river pools. But best he loved to go
up the firth in the boat which Leif had made him--a finished,
clinker-built little model of a war galley, christened the Joy-maker--and
catch the big sea fish. Monsters he caught sometimes in the deep water
under the cliffs, till he thought he was destined to repeat the exploit of
Thor when he went fishing with the giant Hymi, and hooked the
Midgard Serpent, the brother of Fenris-wolf, whose coils encircle the
earth.
Nor was his education neglected. Arnwulf the Bearsark taught him
axe-play and sword-play, and he had a small buckler of his own, not of
linden-wood like those of the Wick folk, but of wickerwork after the
fashion of his mother's people. He learned to wrestle toughly with the
lads of his own age, and to throw a light spear truly at a mark. He was
fleet of foot and scoured the fells like a goat, and he could breast the
tide in the pool of the great foss up to the very edge of the white water
where the trolls lived.
There was a wise woman dwelt on the bay of Sigg. Katla was her name,
a woman still black-browed though she was very old, and clever at
mending hunters' scars. To her house Biorn went with Leif; and when
they had made a meal of her barley-cakes and sour milk, and passed the
news of the coast, Leif would fall to