King Alfred's Viking Part 21

We laughed at him, but he would have it so; and then we ate and drank, and spoke of going to where we had left the horses, being none so sure that we should find them at all.

Now the sun drank up the mists, and they cleared suddenly; and when the last wreaths fled up the hillsides and pa.s.sed, we saw that the horses yet fed quietly where we had left them, full half a mile away up the steep rise down which the stream came.

And it was strange to see what manner of place this was in daylight, for until the mist lifted we could not tell in the least, and it was confused to us. Now all the hillsides glowed purple with heather in a great cup round us, and we were on a little rise in the midst of them whereon stood the dolmen, and the same hands doubtless that raised it had set up a wide circle of standing stones round about it, such as I have seen in the Orkneys. It was not a place where one would choose to spend the night.

There was no sign of the wild folk anywhere outside the stone circle. They had gone, and there seemed no cover for them anywhere, unless they dwelt in clefts and caves of the bare tors around us.

So we feared no longer lest there should be any ambush set for us, and went about to see what they had left.

There were the long line that had noosed me, the earthen drum with its dry skin head, the raw hide thongs we had been bound with, and the food and drink; and that was all save what weapons lay round the slain, and the bodies of the two good greyhounds.

"These are but men, and not trolls as one might well think," I said, looking on those who lay before us.

One whom I had slain had a heavy gold torque round his neck, and twisted gold armlets, being the chief, as I think. Kolgrim took these off and gave them to me, and then he went to the drum and dashed it on a stone and broke it, saying nothing.

"Let us be going," I said. "These folk will come back and see to their dead."

But Kolgrim looked at the drumhead and took it, and then coiled the long line on his arm.

"Trust a sailor for never losing a chance of getting a new bit of rigging," said Harek, laughing; for he seemed none the worse for the things of last night, which indeed began to seem ghostly and dreamlike to us all. "But what good is the bit of skin?"

"Here be strange charms wrought into it," Kolgrim said. "It will make a sword scabbard that will avail somewhat against such like folk if ever we meet them again."

Truly there were marks as of branded signs on the bit of skin, and so he kept it; and I hung the gold trophies in my belt, and Harek took some of the remains of our supper: and so we went to the horses, seeing nothing of the wild men anywhere.

Very glad were the good steeds to see us come, and the falcon, who still sat on the saddle where I had perched her, spread her wings and ruffled her feathers to hear us. I unhooded and fed her; and we washed in the stream, and set out gaily enough, making southward, for so we thought we should strike the great road. And at last, when we saw its white line far off from a steep hillside, I was glad enough.

I cannot tell how we had reached our halting place through the hills in the dark, nor could I find it again directly. It was midday before we reached the road, riding easily; so that, what with the swift gallop of the hunting and the long hours of riding in mist and darkness, we had covered many miles. We saw no house till we were close to the road, and then lit on one made of stones and turf hard by it, where an old woman told us that no party had been by since daylight.

So we turned eastward and rode to meet the king, and did so before long. He had left men at his village to wait for us in case we came back there; but he laughed at us for losing ourselves, though he said he had no fear for sailors adrift in the wilds when Ethelnoth came in without us.

But when, as we rode on, I told him what had befallen us, he listened gravely, and at last said:

"I have heard the like of this before. Men say that the pixies dwell in the moorland, and will dance to death those who disturb them. What think you of those you have seen?"

I said that, having slain them, one could not doubt that they were men, if strange ones.

"That is what I think," he answered. "They are men who would be thought pixies. Maybe they are the pixies. I believe they are the last of the old Welsh folk who have dwelt in these wilds since the coming of the Romans or before. There were the like in the great fens of East Anglia and Mercia when Guthlac the Holy went there, and he thought them devils. None can reach these men or know where they dwell. Maybe they are heathen, and their dance in that stone ring was some unholy rite that you have seen. But you have been very far into the wastes, and I have never seen those stones."

And when he handled the gold rings, he showed me that they were very old; but when he handled the drumhead and looked at the marks thereon, he laughed.

"Here is the magic of an honest franklin's cattle brand. I have seen it on beasts about the hills before now. The pixies have made a raid on the farmer's herds at some time."

Now I think that King Alfred was right, and that we had fallen into the hands of wild Welsh or Cornish moor folk. But one should hear Kolgrim's tale of the matter as he shows his sword sheath that he made of the drumhead; for nothing would persuade him that it was not of more than mortal work.

"Had the good king been in that place with us, he would have told a different tale altogether," he says.

So we went on our journey quietly, and ever as we went and spoke with Alfred, I began to be sure that this pale and troubled king was the most wondrous man that I had ever seen. And now, as I look back and remember, I know that in many ways he was showing me that the faith he held shaped his life to that which seemed best in him to my eyes.

I know this, that had he scoffed at the Asir, I had listened to Neot not at all. But when we came to his place, I was ready, and more than ready, to hear what he had to tell me.

Chapter VIII. The Black Twelfth-Night.

When we came to the little out of the way village among the Cornish hills near which Neot, the king's cousin, had his dwelling, I thought it strange that any one should be willing to give up the stirring life at court for such a place as this. Here was only one fair-sized house in the place, and that was built not long before by the king for his own use when he came here, which was often. And Neot's own dwelling was but a little stone-walled and turf-roofed hut, apart from all others, on the hillside, and he dwelt there with one companion--another holy man, named Guerir, a Welshman by birth--content with the simple food that the villagers could give him, and spending his days in prayer and thought for the king and people and land that he loved.

But presently, as I came to know more of Neot, it seemed good that some should live thus in quiet while war and unrest were over the country, else had all learning and deeper thought pa.s.sed away. It is certain from all that I have heard, from the king himself and from others, that without Neot's steady counsel and gathered wisdom Alfred had remained haughty and proud, well-nigh hated by his people, as he had been when first he came to the throne.

At one time he would drive away any who came to him with plaints or tales of wrong and trouble; but Neot spoke to him in such wise that he framed his ways differently. And now I used to wonder to see him stay and listen patiently to some rambling words of trifling want, told by a wayside thrall, to which it seemed below his rank to hearken, and next I would know that it was thus he made his people love him as no other king has been loved maybe. There was no man who could not win hearing from him now.

It is said of him that when Neot showed him the faults in his ways, he asked that some sickness, one that might not make him useless or loathsome to his people, might be sent him to mind him against his pride, and that so he had at first one manner of pain, and now this which I had seen. It may be so, for I know well that so he made it good for him, and he bore it most patiently. Moreover, I have never heard that it troubled him in the times of direst need, though the fear of it was with him always.

Now what Alfred and Neot spoke of at this time I cannot say, except that it was certainly some plan for the good of the land. I and my comrades hunted and hawked day by day until the evening came, and then would sup plainly with the king, and then sit at Neot's door in the warm evening, and talk together till the stars came out.

Many things we spoke of, and Neot told me what I would. I cannot write down those talks, though I mind every word of them. But there was never any talk of the runes I had offered.

Neot spoke mostly, but Alfred put in words now and then that ever seemed to make things plainer; and I mind how Ethelnoth the ealdorman sat silent, listening to questions and answers that maybe he had never needed to put or hear concerning his own faith.

At first I was only asking because the king wished it, then because I grew curious, and because I thought it well to know what a Saxon's faith was if I was to bide among Alfred's folk. Kolgrim listened, saying nought. But presently Harek the scald would ask more than I, and his questions were very deep, and I thought that as days went on he grew thoughtful and silent.

Then one evening the song woke within the scald's breast, and he said to Neot:

"Many and wise words have you spoken, Father Neot. Hear now the song of Odin--the Havamal--and tell me if you have aught to equal it."

"Sing, my son," the good man answered. "Wisdom is from above, and is taught in many ways."

Then Harek sang, and his voice went over the hillsides, echoing wonderfully; while we who heard him were very still, unwilling to lose one word or note of the song. Many verses and sayings of the "Havamal" I knew, but I had not heard it all before. Now it seemed to me that no more wisdom than is therein could be found {ix}.

So when Harek ended Neot smiled on him, and said:

"That is a wondrous song, and I could have listened longer. There is little therein that one may not be wiser in remembering."

"There is nought wiser; it is Odin's wisdom," said Harek.

Now the old hermit, Guerir, Neot's friend, sat on the stone bench beside the king, and he said:

"Hear the words of the bards, the wondrous 'triads' of old time."

And he chanted them in a strange melody, unlike aught I had ever heard. And they, the old savings, were wise as the "Havamal"

itself. But he stopped ere long, saying:

"The English words will not frame the meaning rightly. I do no justice to the wisdom that is hidden."

Then Neot turned to the king, and said:

"Sing to Harek words from the book of Wisdom that we know. I think you can remember it well."

"I have not rhymed it," the king answered; "but sometimes the song shapes itself when it is needed."