The North Star/Chapter 7
VII
THE FLAME OF THOR’S ALTAR
Harrying and plundering as they went, the sixty high, full-sailed ships of the Jomsvikings’ fleet drove to the North. As they neared Hjornungavaag, in the province of Sundmore, the greater fleet of Earl Haakon, one hundred and eighty in battle array, was there to meet them. In the centre of the great battle line stood Earl Haakon’s own ship. His oldest son, Earl Erik, commanded the right wing of the line, and his second son, Earl Sweyn, the left. With the old earl was his youngest son, the beautiful boy Erling. Facing Sweyn on the enemy’s line was the most intrepid and most feared of all the Jomsvikings. It was the giant Vagn, who had sworn at the feast for the head of Thorkell Leira. Vagn commanded the left wing of his chief’s fleet. Face to face on the central ships were Earl Haakon and Earl Sigvalde. When the ships had been lashed together for battle, a fiery shower of arrows and spears announced that the combat had begun. Earl Haakon was not full sure of victory, although his ships were three to one of the Jomsvikings, and he had three warriors for every one in Earl Sigvalde’s galleys.
“Erik! my son!” shouted the overlord, as pressed by his mighty opponent, Vagn, Sweyn’s ship began to waver. “See the danger of the boy, thy brother.”
But no need to call upon Erik. Through the arrows and spears that rained like leaves in the autumn storms, Erik rowed to the side of his brother. Vagn was close at hand, and when the champions met the slaughter grew terrible. Earl Haakon’s mighty coat of linked steel was pierced as it were a maiden’s silken robe. He threw aside the shirt of mail with a hundred arrows hanging upon it, and stood, fearlessly, in his leathern jacket and tunic, his brawny arms bared and his full-muscled throat unbound.
From the higher ships of the Jomsvikings the arrows fell down in pitiless showers, speeded and sharpened in their descent, to the lower decks of Earl Haakon’s fleet. Surely the horde of Earl Sigvalde, the fierce, wild warriors from the banks of the Oder, were gaining upon the dauntless Erik.
The old earl wavered. Fear shook his heart, and he cried out: “The gods are angry, my son! O Erik! my son, the old gods have turned from us; the great, strong gods have scorned us that we have given their land, the hills and the seas of Odin and Thor, to the White Christ; that we have hung up a pale, bleeding Nazarene who died in silence and in meekness, in the sight of the Norsemen, whom they have taught to reach Valhalla by the fierce path of war.”
“Father,” answered the brave voice of Erik, “the day will yet be ours.”
“But see, my son, our ships fall back! Our men are dying and flying!” He pointed to the long line of swimmers, who had jumped over the sides of his vessels.
“Nay! nay!” the young earl replied, “let the cravens go.”
The beautiful boy Erling, fair-haired, fair-browed, and blue-eyed, came up beside his father. Earl Haakon gazed down at the boy. “Thou art too young for the fight—but not too young— Come, Erling! Come with me! The gods are angry! They have turned their faces from us and are calling for a sacrifice. They are asking for a rich sacrifice, before they will give us victory. Come, Erling! Come with me!”
“What wouldst thou do, my father?” Earl Erik asked, seeing the wild light in the old man’s eyes.
“Nothing, my son, but strive to appease the gods, the great, strong gods, who love strong men and are scornful of the weak.”
A movement of Vagn’s ship caused Erik to look closer after the battle, and as he turned away, Earl Haakon, taking Erling’s hand, sprang with the boy into a small boat and rowed swiftly for the shore. As they passed beyond the rain of spears and arrows, the little lad turned and laid his head upon his father’s breast. “I am weary and I would sleep.”
Earl Haakon pushed the golden curls away. “And so thou shalt, my son, a good long sleep. The day is done, Erling, but the darkness comes not. Yon sun sits high through all the hours that the moon should claim. The midnight sun and the undying day, and the battle is not won!”
The drowsy lad looked up. Sleep-heavy were his deep blue eyes, and the sea damp curled his long, fair hair. “It is near unto midnight, my father, and yon sun still sails gloriously through the sky. O! but it will be fair to see it sink on the very edge of dawn, a blood red sun and the sky all flame, and the sea like a pool of all the world’s blood.”
“Blood! blood! my lad—that is it. It must be all blood! Blood in the sun that will not sleep; and the flame of Thor’s altar burning on the hills and the sea full—full to overflowing, till it washes up the land in blood! Come my little lad, my last, my dearest! The gods, the terrible strong gods are angry! They cry out for a sacrifice, a precious victim, ere they will give us victory!” Earl Haakon sprang from the boat to the beach, and Erling, silenced and terrified, followed his father into the woodland that fringed the shore.
Not the note of a bird nor the cry of a beast smote the stillness. The sky wore the glory of the noonday, but the soft silence of the night lay upon the earth. The battle cries came from afar, and seemed to urge Earl Haakon on, as he hastily cut the branches of the trees and laid them one upon the other to build an altar. Like Isaac on the olden mountain, the boy wondered where was the victim; and as he wondered, the wild earl seized him. Erling cried out in terror of the blazing eyes bent upon him, but he was hushed and bound and hurled upon the altar. No pitying tone came through the parted sky to stay the father’s hand, as came the voice of Jehovah to Abraham of old.
Earl Haakon laid his left hand over Erling’s eyes, shutting out their bright beauty that seemed to stab his soul. Then raising his right hand, with one swift blow of his unerring dagger he cut off the fair young life. Placing the dripping weapon in his belt, he lighted the funeral pyre, and turned to leave. The midnight sun shone down, and to the wild earl it seemed floating upon a sea of blood.
When Haakon returned to the combat, he found his foes weakened and ready to retreat. He leaped upon the deck of his own ship. Holding aloft the blood-stained dagger, he pointed to the shore. The smoke of his sacrifice was rising to the sun. It seemed as another Riukard, when the vapor of the cataract ascends, smoky and mysterious.
“Victory! Victory!” shouted the earl. “The day shall be ours. See ye not the smoke of the sacrifice? See ye not the groups of Valkyries that stand at the prow of my ship, to lead us to victory?”
As he spoke the sun grew black in eclipse. A storm of hail-stones beat down from the sky. The sun came forth again, blood-red, black-veiled, terrible as in anger.
The Jomsvikings were seized with fear. Had the old gods truly been avenged? Then Earl Sigvalde cried aloud, “The angry gods have forsaken us,” and he turned his vessel to fly. Earl Erik sprang upon the deck of Vagn’s ship. The great Jomsviking, finding he had but thirty men, gave himself up.
So ended, in disaster and defeat for Earl Sigvalde and his wild followers, the sea-fight of Hjornungavaag. Earl Sigvalde was no longer their chief, and he retired in sullen mood to Nidaros.
As they sat upon the shore after the battle, Vagn and his thirty men, the prisoners of Earl Erik, Thorkell Leira determined that he would not be cheated out of his vengeance on Vagn, because of any soft-heartedness Earl Erik might feel for the valiant Jomsviking. Seeing Vagn stretched out upon a log, at rest, Thorkell sprang forward to cleave him with an ax. One of the Jomsvikings, to save Vagn’s life, threw himself in Thorkell’s way, and as Thorkell stumbled and fell, Vagn seized the ax that was aimed at his own head, and clove it through the neck of Thorkell Leira into the very earth.
Jarl Haakon’s anger was great; but Erik spared Vagn’s life to be his friend for many years.
After the battle, Earl Erik asked his father, “And the boy Erling? Thou didst leave him in safety when the fight was on?”
The old earl was silent. Then Erik, in angry tone, “If aught of harm has come to Erling, I am thy son no more.”
“The gods were angry, my son. They had to be sued for victory. They were dearly sued, but we won—we won, by the sacrifice.” The old earl’s voice was full of pleading.
“O my brother! My brother! My little lad! Thou whom I loved as my life!” Earl Erik cried in the sharp anguish of his soul, and Earl Haakon dared not answer, Erik turned fiercely to his father: “It shall be thy ruin! This victory to-day shall be thy death, for as thou didst cut off his tender life, for this shall Norraway cut thee off from thy kingdom;” and Earl Erik went sorrowing to his province in the South.
It was as Earl Erik foretold. The news of the sacrifice of Erling, his murder by his own father to propitiate the gods, spread horror over all Norway. Although the Jomsvikings were now subdued, and the country peaceful and prosperous, a cloud of distrust hovered around Earl Haakon, that broke a few years later in storm and disaster.