The Life and Death of Cormac the Skald Part 8

Said Thorgils with a smile, "Most likely he is better off than we, to-day!"

But before long they came to land in Norway.

CHAPTER NINETEEN. How Cormac Fought In Ireland, And Went Home To Iceland; And How He Met Steingerd Again.

While they were abroad there had been a change of kings; Hakon was dead, and Harald Greyfell reigned in his stead. They offered friends.h.i.+p to the king, and he took their suit kindly; so they went with him to Ireland, and fought battles there.

Once upon a time when they had gone ash.o.r.e with the king, a great host came against him, and as the armies met, Cormac made this song:--

(53) "I dread not a death from the foemen, Though we dash at them, buckler to buckler, While our prince in the power of his warriors Is proud of me foremost in battle.

But the glimpse of a glory comes o'er me Like the gleam of the moon on the skerry, And I faint and I fail for my longing, For the fair one at home in the North."

"Ye never get into danger," said Thorgils, "but ye think of Steingerd!"

"Nay," answered Cormac, "but it's not often I forget her."

Well: this was a great battle, and king Harald won a glorious victory.

While his men drove the rout before him, the brothers were shoulder to shoulder; and they fell upon nine men at once and fought them. And while they were at it, Cormac sang:--

(54) "Fight on, arrow-driver, undaunted, And down with the foemen of Harald!

What are nine? they are nought! Thou and I, lad, Are enough;--they are ours!--we have won them!

But--at home,--in the arms of an outlaw That all the G.o.ds loathe for a monster, So white and so winsome she nestles --Yet once she was loving to me!"

"It always comes down to that!" said Thorgils. When the fight was over, the brothers had got the victory, and the nine men had fallen before them; for which they won great praise from the king, and many honours beside.

But while they were ever with the king in his warfarings, Thorgils was aware that Cormac was used to sleep but little; and he asked why this might be. This was the song Cormac made in answer:--

(55) "Surf on a rock-bound sh.o.r.e of the sea-king's blue domain-- Look how it lashes the crags, hark how it thunders again!

But all the din of the isles that the Delver heaves in foam In the draught of the undertow glides out to the sea-G.o.ds'

home.

Now, which of us two should test? Is it thou, with thy heart at ease, Or I that am surf on the sh.o.r.e in the tumult of angry seas?

--Drawn, if I sleep, to her that s.h.i.+nes with the ocean- gleam, --Dashed, when I wake, to woe, for the want of my glittering dream."

"And now let me tell you this, brother," he went on. "Hereby I give out that I am going back to Iceland."

Said Thorgils, "There is many a snare set for thy feet, brother, to drag thee down, I know not whither."

But when the king heard of his longing to begone, he sent for Cormac, and said that he did unwisely, and would hinder him from his journey.

But all this availed nothing, and aboard s.h.i.+p he went.

At the outset they met with foul winds, so that they s.h.i.+pped great seas, and the yard broke. Then Cormac sang:--

(56) "I take it not ill, like the Tinker If a trickster had foundered his muck-sled; For he loves not rough travelling, the losel, And loath would he be of this uproar.

I flinch not,--nay, hear it, ye fearless Who flee not when arrows are raining,-- Though the steeds of the ocean be storm-bound And stayed in the harbour of Solund."

So they pushed out to sea, and hard weather they tholed. Once on a time when the waves broke over the deck and drenched them all, Cormac made this song:--

(57) "O the Tinker's a lout and a lubber, And the life of a sailor he dares not, When the snow-crested surges caress us And sweep us away with their kisses, He bides in a berth that is warmer, Embraced in the arms of his lady; And lightly she lulls him to slumber, --But long she has reft me of rest!"

They had a very rough voyage, but landed at last in Midfiord, and anch.o.r.ed off sh.o.r.e. Looking landward they beheld where a lady was riding by; and Cormac knew at once that it was Steingerd. He bade his men launch a boat, and rowed ash.o.r.e. He went quickly from the boat, and got a horse, and rode to meet her. When they met, he leapt from horseback and helped her to alight, making a seat for her beside him on the ground.

Their horses wandered away: the day pa.s.sed on, and it began to grow dark. At last Steingerd said, "It is time to look for our horses."

Little search would be needed, said Cormac; but when he looked about, they were nowhere in sight. As it happened, they were hidden in a gill not far from where the two were sitting.

So, as night was hard at hand, they set out to walk, and came to a little farm, where they were taken in and treated well, even as they needed. That night they slept each on either side of the carven wainscot that parted bed from bed: and Cormac made this song:--

(58) "We rest, O my beauty, my brightest, But a barrier lies ever between us.

So fierce are the fates and so mighty --I feel it--that rule to their rede.

Ah, nearer I would be, and nigher, Till nought should be left to dispart us, --The wielder of Skofnung the wonder, And the wearer of sheen from the deep."

"It was better thus," said Steingerd: but he sang:--

(59) "We have slept 'neath one roof-tree--slept softly, O sweet one, O queen of the mead-horn, O glory of sea-dazzle gleaming, These grim hours,--these five nights, I count them.

And here in the kettle-prow cabined While the crow's day drags on in the darkness, How loathly me seems to be lying, How lonely,--so near and so far!"

"That," said she, "is all over and done with; name it no more." But he sang:--

(60) "The hot stone shall float,--ay, the hearth-stone Like a husk of the corn on the water, --Ah, woe for the wight that she loves not!-- And the world,--ah, she loathes me!--shall perish, And the fells that are famed for their hugeness Shall fail and be drowned in the ocean, Or ever so gracious a G.o.ddess Shall grow into beauty like Steingerd."

Then Steingerd cried out that she would not have him make songs upon her: but he went on:--

(61) "I have known it and noted it clearly, O neckleted fair one, in visions, --Is it doom for my hopes,--is it daring To dream?--O so oft have I seen it!-- Even this,--that the boughs of thy beauty, O braceleted fair one, shall twine them Round the hill where the hawk loves to settle, The hand of thy lover, at last."

"That," said she, "never shall be, if I can help it. Thou didst let me go, once for all; and there is no more hope for thee."

So then they slept the night long; and in the morning, when Cormac was making ready to be gone, he found Steingerd, and took the ring off his finger to give her.

"Fiend take thee and thy gold together!" she cried. And this is what he answered:--

(62) "To a dame in her broideries dainty This drift of the furnace I tendered; O day of ill luck, for a lover So lured, and so heartlessly cheated!

Too blithe in the pride of her beauty-- The bliss that I crave she denies me; So rich that no boon can I render, --And my ring she would hurl to the fiends!"

So Cormac rode forth, being somewhat angry with Steingerd, but still more so with the Tinker. He rode home to Mel, and stayed there all the winter, taking lodgings for his chapmen near the s.h.i.+p.

CHAPTER TWENTY. Of A Spiteful Song That Cormac Never Made; And How Angry Steingerd Was.

Now Thorvald the Tinker lived in the north-country at Svinadal (Swindale), but his brother Thorvard at Fliot. In the winter Cormac took his way northward to see Steingerd; and coming to Svinadal he dismounted and went into the chamber. She was sitting on the dais, and he took his seat beside her; Thorvald sat on the bench, and Narfi by him.

Then said Narfi to Thorvald, "How canst thou sit down, with Cormac here?

It is no time, this, for sitting still!"