The Bamburgh Sword, forged in the 7th century, excavated in 1960 and rediscoverd in 2001, is possibly the finest sword ever made, being made of six strands of pattern-welded iron. An extraordinary weapon like this was the work of more than one man.
The blade, the hilt and the scabbard were made by different people, each a master of his craft. The technology that went into creating a pattern-welded sword is extremely complicated and takes a lifetime to perfect. The men who had this skill were venerated and rewarded richly. However, the technology was jealously guarded, so bladesmiths were not free to leave the king who employed them. In a time when science was a thousand years in the future, the creation of a perfect blade was a process of magic and ritual.
The very best Early Medieval blades had wootz steel (crucible steel imported from India) alloyed into the pattern welding. It raised the technology hugely.
The hilt was made up of precious metal and precious stones. Garnets were a favourite; each one was hand shaped by cutting and laboriously polished with a mix of fat and crushed stone loaded onto a leather pad. The goldwork was extraordinary and the level of minute detail huge. How this was done without magnification is a mystery still.
The sword was the first tool made solely to kill. Other early weapons of war – bows, axes, spears – had uses outside battle but the sword was made for one reason only: to leave an enemy dead on the ground.
The first swords were made of bronze and their origin is obscure. As first essays in the craft of swordmaking, some of these original swords have unusual designs, such as the sickle-shaped khopesh buried with the pharaoh Tutankhamun. But, despite the khopesh being buried with the boy pharaoh in 1327 BC, by then, swords were already old.
Swords were first produced as status items around the Mediterranean basin, from around 3000 BC, once the alloying of bronze allowed for the creation of blades. To start with they were extraordinarily rare, highly prized and a sign of immense wealth. But as bronze technology spread, blades became more common and armies, such as that of the Minoans, were soon well enough armed to carve out an empire with these short, bronze blades.
But the arrival of iron and steel brought a revolution. Iron is strong, durable and readily available, unlike bronze (which needed tin – a relatively rare metal). Once the Hittites had demonstrated iron’s utility when carving out their empire from 1600 BC, the general adoption of iron weapons became inevitable.
In the first millennium BC, the Etruscans began to alloy iron and steel to gain better tensile strength. They made blades that had good edge strength while being flexible enough to absorb shock during combat.
The Romans used and developed Etruscan technology, combining it with carburisation (combining iron or steel with carbon to make it harder), case hardening (hard on the outside, soft within) and plain steel blades. Armed with the gladius, the short, stabbing weapon of the legionary, the Roman war machine carved out an empire. However, it was the spatha, the longer sword of the Roman cavalry, that outlived the empire. The spatha was often employed by the barbarians serving as Roman auxiliaries and, after the western Empire fell, the spatha gave rise to the Anglo-Saxon and Viking blades that are the pinnacle of western sword making.
However, the massed Viking armies of the tenth and eleventh centuries led to homogenised weapons and quality gave way to quantity. In the following centuries, the sword evolved to fit the particular fighting styles of the era.
The gladius was a short Roman sword used for thrusting, particularly by the legions of the Republic and early Empire. Roman legionaries used it as part of the weapon set that included their scutum (shield) and pilum (javelin). The blades were steel or case-hardened iron. Very rarely the blades were composites of iron and steel. The Roman army made these in vast numbers, the work probably being commissioned to retired soldiers (gladiarii). Being mass produced, and with Roman smiths not completely understanding the properties of iron, the weapons were often of mediocre quality. But there were always replacement weapons to be had.
Anglo saxon/Viking sword
The swords of the Anglo-Saxon and Viking eras were developed from the spatha, the long cavalry sword of the Roman auxiliary. These swords were used for hand-to-hand fighting in the melee after the shieldwall broke . The early Saxon and Viking smiths took pattern welding to dizzying new heights, making some of the finest blades ever forged.
However, with the arrival of massed Viking armies from the 10th century onwards, sword quality declined markedly. There were simply too many swords required to devote the thousands of man hours required to forge the best weapons, although the Ulfberht swords, made and signed by a family of smiths in the 9th and 10th centuries, were an exception to the trend towards mediocrity: they remain unparalleled.
Claymore
The famous claymore sword was a two-handed broadsword. It was wielded mostly in Scotland during the incessant clan and border warfare between 1400 and 1700. A later weapon, a smaller basket hilted sword, also came to be known as a claymore, but this was a later sword. The terminology is confusing as is often the case with swords. But here I am talking about the early claymore.
The two-handed claymore was a constant in the medieval wars between England and Scotland, as well as being wielded in internal Scottish clan fights. Being a two-handed weapon, the claymore had a unique style of fighting associated with it, utilising the long, heavy blade, the cross guards to trap and break enemies’ blades and the heavy pommel to strike. The sword could also be easily reversed to make a very effective hooking weapon.
Rapier
The rapier, a long, one-handed, thrusting weapons, was not primarily a soldier’s sword. The rapier developed in the 16th and 17th centuries largely as a civilian self-defence weapon. As such, it was a personal sword, carried every day, and one meant to be used in the brawls, fights and duels that plagued Renaissance Europe’s cities. The rapier required a fighting style based on thrusting rather than slashing – modern sport fencing styles have developed from rapier duelling.
Sabre
The popular image of the sabre is a sword with a curved, single-edged blade, used by cavalrymen, in particular during the Napoleonic Wars. The image, depicted in many illustrations of the time, was of horsemen slashing with their sabres, often with devastating effect, on routing infantry formations. But in fact, Napoleonic era sabres were just as often straight blades, used for thrusting attacks by charging cavalry. The sabre remains part of the dress uniform of many military units, while modern sport sabre fencing is alone in counting slashing strokes as hits, although the sword itself is straight, not curved.
The favourite weapon of the housecarls of King Harold’s army was the Dane axe. This set them apart from their Anglo-Saxon predecessors, who had generally preferred a spear and sword weapon set. Housecarls also made use of the teardrop shaped ‘Norman’ shield much more than the traditional round Anglo-Saxon shield. As the king’s personal retinue and in common with all Anglo-Saxon warriors, housecarls fought on foot, although as high-status warriors they rode to battle, forming up as the front rank of the shield wall and the personal bodyguard of king and earls.
The Dane axe was a formidable weapon. The haft, usually between three and four feet long (although display weapons had longer hafts), was held in both hands. The axe head was relatively light and forged with a reinforced, carbon-steel cutting edge. Although it was not heavy, when swung with the axe at full extension it would build up a terrifying cutting momentum.
Wielding the Dane axe required both hands. To do so the housecarl had to step out from the line of the shieldwall. This was what produced the shift to ‘Norman’ shields. With its pointed end, the shield could be jammed in the earth in front of the housecarl, providing some protection against arrows. With both arms free, the housecarl could build momentum by swinging the Dane axe in circles. With so much stored energy, an enemy coming within cutting distance ran the risk of being cut in two. The Bayeaux Tapestry shows a housecarl cutting the head of a Norman knight’s horse in half: in the battle itself, that housecarl could probably have cut right through the knight riding the horse as well.
Arms and the man – the weapons and armour that made the housecarl the most feared footsoldier of late Anglo-Saxon England.
Helmet
According to the Bayeaux Tapestry, the Norman-style helmet was common to both armies at the Battle of Hastings. Only elite warriors wore metal helmets. The noseguard provided a degree of facial protection without compromising vision.
Mail coif
Mail was expensive. A mail coif protected the head, neck and shoulders; together with a helmet and the hauberk it provided great protection to the housecarl’s upper body.
Mail hauberk
Mail was one of the best gifts a housecarl might receive from his lord. If a mail-clad warrior fell in battle, there would be a great struggle to strip the armour from the body. Mail provided effective protection against slashes or thrusts from swords or spears, although clubs could cause trauma without penetrating the armour.
Gambeson
Housecarls wore a padded, quilted jacket under the mail. This cushioned against blows from blunt weapons such as maces and warhammers, as well as providing a further layer of protection against edged weapons. Poorer warriors relied on just this padded jacket for defence.
Greaves
Although archaeological exhumations have shown that leg wounds were fairly common among warriors of this era, greaves were very rare. Some warriors may have used leather ‘puttees’ to protect their calves.
Gloves
Thick, leather gloves were worn, but there is no record of more heavy-duty protection for the hands.
Vambraces
Some warriors may have used leather vambraces to protect their forearms.
Shield
The typical Anglo-Saxon shield was round, with a central boss, and made of lime, alder or poplar – light woods which are resistant to splitting. By the eleventh century, the teardrop shaped shield had also become widespread. It provided greater whole body protection and, because it could more easily be jammed into the ground, it allowed housecarls to stand behind it while using the two-handed Dane axe.
Spear
The ubiquitous weapon of the era. Indeed, the mark of a free man was being allowed to carry a spear – slaves could not. Spears were the ideal weapon in the shield wall, as they kept the enemy at distance while allowing the warrior to thrust at exposed areas. Some spears had small projections, or wings, which were used to hook and pull an enemy’s shield out of position. Spears were usually used over arm, aiming at the enemy’s face.
Javelins
At the start of a battle there was an exchange of javelins, with the men at the rear of the shieldwall launching missiles at the enemy. A well-thrown javelin could penetrate a shield. Even if it did not, a spear embedded into a shield would drag the shield downward by its weight, exposing the man holding it to further attack.
Seax
The very name, Saxon, derives from ‘seax’, the all-purpose knife worn at the waist by Anglo-Saxons. It was a single-edged weapon, worn horizontally in a scabbard on the waist, with the edge pointing upwards. Generally too small to cause much damage in combat, it could have been used to finish off a prone enemy.
Sword
The most high-status of weapons but one that was probably not so effective in a shieldwall – it would only really come into play when a shieldwall broke and the battle turned into a general melée or a rout.
Dane axe
The two-handed axe was popularised in England by Cnut and his men, so much so that in the fifty years between the Danish and Norman conquests, it became the preferred weapon of the English housecarls.
The Rule under which a monk lived regimented his life, dividing it into a constant round of prayer and work. All very well for monks living in a monastery, but how were the military monks of the Knights Templar going to organise their lives? The life of a soldier on campaign is anything but regular, even if he is also a monk.
To reconcile the different requirements of the soldier and the monk, the rule of the Templars allowed them to say the Pater Noster (Our Father) in place of the regular monastic services if these had to be missed as a result of being in the field. Thus, if the Knight did not attend matins, he had to say 13 Our Fathers, nine if he missed vespers, and seven for the other monastic offices.
The other advantage of this change in the normal Benedictine Rule was that it allowed men to join the Templars who did not know Latin. All they had to do was learn the Pater Noster off by heart, rather than having to recite all the psalms in Latin, as required of ordinary monks.
Furthermore, the Templars’ Rule also allowed knights to join the order for a fixed period of years, as well as for a lifetime. This opened the Order to pilgrim knights visiting the Holy Land who wanted to put their arms to use while there but whose responsibilities required them to return home eventually. With manpower always an issue, these short-term knights were an important source of fighting men for the Templars.
The Templars’ Rule enjoined humility upon the brother knights. Many of the secular knights of the time were psychopathic peacocks, men capable of extreme violence who also flaunted the richest and most elaborate clothing they could afford. Fur, jewellery or rich clothing was forbidden the Templars as was the decoration of their horse’s harness with gold and silver. The Templars were to wear simple white, their horses to be harnessed in plain leather. As for their appearance, they were to have their hair and beards trimmed regularly. The Order was to be ordered outside as well as within.
The conquest of Jerusalem in 1099 reoped the Holy Land to Christian pilgrims. Hearing the news of the success of the First Crusade, people started setting out for Jerusalem from all over Europe. One of the first was an Englishman, Sæwulf. On his return, he wrote an account of his travels and adventures. Pilgrimage was hugely popular during the Middle Ages and, as the Canterbury Tales attest, there were many motivations apart from piety for making such long and difficult journeys. However, Sæwulf was a serious pilgrim, who ‘though conscious of my unworthiness, went to offer up my prayers at the Holy Sepulchre’.
Having reached Italy, Sæwulf embarked upon a ship for the Holy Land from Monopoli, near Bari in the heel of Itlay on 13 July 1102 – only for the ship to be wrecked the same day. Not one to be put off, Sæwulf found another ship and tried again. It took thirteen weeks to sail from Italy to the port of Jaffa, with many storms and ports of call along the way.
With the Holy Land waiting, Sæwulf and his companions decided not to wait overnight on their ship of passage and hired a boat to take them ashore. Their fervour saved them. A storm blew up over night, wrecking the ships anchored in the harbour. A thousand pilgrims drowned without ever setting foot in the Holy Land.
In his account, Sæwulf recorded the dangers of the road from Jaffa to Jerusalem, telling of the pilgrims killed by the bandits who haunted the Judean hills. Their corpses marked the trail from the port to the holy city. Having survived the journey to Jerusalem, Sæwulf visited the holy sites of the city before travelling through the rest of Palestine, recording the devastation he found, with many of the churches and monasteries having been destroyed by the Saracens. Once he had ‘visited and paid our devotion at all the holy places in the city of Jerusalem and the surrounding country’, Sæwulf returned to Jaffa, embarking for his return journey on 17 May 1108. He had been in Palestine for nearly six years.
Nine men lay prostrate on the floor of the holiest place in Christendom on Christmas Day, 1119.
The place was the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, and it had been twenty years since the knights of the First Crusade had taken the city in blood and war.
The leader of the men was named Hugues de Payens. Among the other eight were Godfrey of Saint-Omer, Geoffrey Bissot, Payen of Montdidier, André of Montbard and Archambaud of Saint-Aignan. Their prostration was the climax of the vows these men were taking, vows of poverty, chastity and obedience.
These were the standard monastic vows of the Church, and there would have been little to set their vow taking apart from those professed by thousands of other monks if not for the name by which they proposed to call their confraternity: ‘The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Jesus Christ’. For these nine men were swearing their lives to Christ and their swords to the protection of their fellow Christians in the Holy Land, the newly conquered realm of Outremer.
But, at the time, barely anyone noticed. There was no chronicler writing down an account of what happened. We don’t even have a complete list of the names of all nine men. Indeed, there might have been as many as thirty men lying on the floor of the holiest church in Christendom that Christmas Day – the sources, which were all written considerably later, disagree. This is hardly surprising. The 12th century was a time of extraordinary monastic renewal, with new orders springing up all over Europe. Of these, some lasted a few years, some a few decades, some continue to the present. But it was hardly unusual that a group of men should be making vows before God, and only the people present in the church at the time would have paid it any heed – then as speedily forgotten all about it when they emerged, blinking, into the cold clear light of a winter’s day in Jerusalem.
Hugues, the leader of these ‘Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Jesus Christ’ was born, probably in Payens, somewhere around 1070. Almost nothing is known of Hugues’ early life. However, he was clearly a member of the knightly caste, for his name appears, appended as a signatory, to a number of charters (documents recording the transfer of land or privileges) pertaining to the estates and properties around Payens. Payens, now known as Payns, lies on the River Seine, downstream from Troyes and 80 miles south west of Paris.
Hugues de Payens was probably one of the retainers of another Hugues, the Count of Champagne (has there ever been a more splendid title), who ruled his principality from his seat at Troyes. Hugues of Champagne was both pious and unhappily married: a situation calculated to make a man take up the cross. Which is exactly what Hugues of Champagne did, twice, first in 1104, spending four years in Outremer, and then again in 1114. While we don’t know if Hugues de Payens accompanied his overlord Hugues on his first journey to the Holy Land, it seems highly likely that he went with him on the second trip.
But when the Count of Champagne returned to France and his loveless marriage, Hugues de Payens remained in Outremer. With his companion, Godfrey of Saint-Omer, Hugues came up with the idea of founding a fraternity of knights that would follow the religious Rule (essentially, a monastic manual, regulating the lives of monks) of Augustine of Hippo while seeking to protect the stream of Christian pilgrims coming to the Holy Land in the wake of its liberation from its Muslim conquerors.
It is not hard to see why Hugues and his companions thought that this was necessary. Although the First Crusade had succeeded, against all odds, in capturing Jerusalem in 1099, and founding the kingdoms of Outremer, the Holy Land was by no means secured. In response to the success of the Crusade, hundreds if not thousands of Christian pilgrims started to make their way to the Holy Land, but the journey there, whether overland or by ship, was perilous, and never more perilous than when they actually arrived in Palestine. The most usual pilgrim route was to take ship to Caesarea or Jaffa on the coast before trekking to Jerusalem.
But the tracks through the Judaean Hills were rife with Saracen marauders and brigands. Pilgrims who went unarmed, seeking to follow in the footsteps of Christ, were all too likely to be killed or taken as slaves. Indeed, events earlier in 1119 may well have served to convince Hugues of the necessity for this military monastic order.
On Easter Saturday, 1119, which in that year took place on 29 March, pilgrims had gathered in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre for the solemn vigil that accompanied Christ’s journey into Hell following his Crucifixion, in order to free the souls of those held there. Pilgrims still gather in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre on Holy Saturday and, like those waiting on 29 March 1119, they are waiting for the miracle of the Holy Fire. This is when an unlit lamp placed upon the rock where Christ’s body was laid bursts spontaneously into flame: the patriarch of Jerusalem then emerges from the tomb, bearing a taper lit from the new fire, and lights the candles of the pilgrims waiting in the dark, in the church. There are, of course, both sceptical denunciations and pious defences, but its importance in history is its continuation.
On 29 March 1119, only twenty years after the recapture of Jerusalem, the assembled pilgrims in the church, having witnessed the event and seeing the new flame burning, burst from the church, intent on seeking a new baptism in the River Jordan. The river lies 20 miles east of the city, so it required a real outpouring of religious fervour to think to make it that far. But none of them made it. Many hundreds were killed by Muslim raiders; those few who survived were taken as slaves.
The Crusade had been launched in part because of the increasing dangers of making a pilgrimage to the Holy Land when it had been under Muslim rule. Now, even though Jerusalem was in Christian hands, it must have seemed that pilgrimage was no safer than it had been before. Outremer trembled on the brink of perpetual war, its rulers always hampered by a chronic lack of manpower. Most of the men who had conquered in 1099 had returned home: Godfrey of Bouillon, the man entrusted with safeguarding the Kingdom of Jerusalem, was left with 300 knights and a thousand foot soldiers. Twenty years later, under the new king of Jerusalem, Baldwin II, the manpower situation remained desperate. Many hundreds of trained knights had come as pilgrims to the Holy Land in the two decades since the capture of Jerusalem, but once their pilgrimage was completed, there was no obvious avenue by which they could use their skills in the way that would best serve the kingdom: through their martial training.
Hugues of Payens, though, did not return home once his pilgrimage was done. In company with other knights, he took to hanging around at the place that was the obvious centre of their world: the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. There Hugues met other knights, who had looked round at the perilous situation in Outremer, and were similarly looking for a way to make a difference. Given the primacy always placed upon Hugues in the later accounts, we must assume that it was he who first came up with the idea of a military confraternity to protect pilgrims and the holy places. The need for such an order was all too obvious. So, with his eight companions, Hugues received permission from Gerard, the prior of the Holy Sepulchre, that they might make their vows in the most sacred church in Christendom. The order of The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Jesus Christ had begun.
One of the key events in European history that helped to conflate the ideas of sorcery and heresy was the trial and condemnation of the Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon, the Knights Templar.
King Philip the Fair of France, having determined to destroy the Knights Templar to obtain their resources and negate his huge debts to them, needed a pretext. The Knights had a reputation for secrecy that had allowed rumours as to their practices to flourish. At dawn on Friday, 13 October 1307, Philip’s agents arrested the master of the order and its highest officers, and put them to torture. The warrant for their arrest began with the telling phrase: “Dieu n’est pas content, nous avons des ennemis de la foi dans le Royaume” [“God is not pleased. We have enemies of the faith in the kingdom”].
Under unimaginable duress, they confessed to heretical acts, blasphemy and sorcery. Although there was little basis in these accusations, they provided sufficient pretext, when combined with the pressure Philip placed on the trial judges, to ensure the condemnation and execution of Jacques de Molay, the order’s Grand Master, and the suppression of the Templars. As well as connecting sorcery and heresy in the European mind, it also prefigured another key aspect of later witchcraft trials: that the prosecuting authority was not the church but the secular authorities.
Listen. Do you hear? That sound. That is the sound of lamentation. Sigurd the dragonslayer and Brynhild the Fair are dead. The trees whisper it, the rivers carry tidings to the heaving, restless sea; the rain and the wind, the sun and the stars tell the news: Sigurd is dead. Brynhild has departed.
There was a man who heard the whisper of rain and wind, who saw the tears of the sun and the grief of the stars. That man was Heimir, foster-father to Brynhild, and his grief for the fair Brynhild was as great as if she had been the daughter of his loins. Then Heimir laid down his plough and put aside his crown and forsook his kingdom. For Brynhild and Sigurd had had a daughter, Aslaug, and they had asked Heimir to take her as foster-daughter in turn. However, Aslaug being yet only three years old, Heimir had not yet brought her to his own kingdom. But now Heimir put aside all else, even his grief, and rushed to Aslaug. For Sigurd had thrown down many men in his might and now that he was dead and fear of him no longer held his enemies in thrall, they would seek vengeance on his living memory, that the seed of Sigurd and Brynhild be utterly destroyed in this middle-earth.
Heimir brought Aslaug back to his kingdom, Hlymdal. But soon the news began to spread that the flesh of Sigurd and Brynhild lived with Heimir. For Aslaug, even as a child, was too beautiful not to be marked. Rumour spread, faster than frost: the child of Sigurd and Brynhild the Fair lives in Hlymdal. Heimir, listening, heard the howling, distant but coming closer. The wolves were gathering.
There was no keeping Aslaug in Hlymdal. But Heimir realised that he could not just flee, for wherever he went, the girl’s beauty and bearing would tell her lineage. No, he must go, but in going keep his foster-daughter hidden, always, when they were in sight of men.
So Heimir had a marvellous harp made with cunning and craft that Aslaug, who was yet little, might be hidden within it. And with her, in the harp, Heimir stowed precious things: gold and silver, and fine clothes, for he foresaw that they would travel far. Then, leaving his kingdom, Heimir set forth, a wanderer, a beggar carrying a harp that he might play for his supper and his bed. They wandered far. Whenever they were far from the eyes of men, Heimir would take the harp apart and let little Aslaug bathe. For food while Aslaug was shut in the harp, he gave to her a wine-leek for its virtue is such that a person may live long on it, even when she has no other food to eat. And when Aslaug cried, for fear of the dark and the confinement of her safety, Heimir would play the harp, quietening her, for he was marvellously skilled at the harp.
In his wanderings, Heimir came to Norway, to a farm called Spangareid. An old couple lived there, Áke and his wife Grima. But when Heimir knocked on their door, Grima answered, for old Áke was gone to the forest where he was chopping wood.
“Why come you here, stranger?” Grima asked.
“I mean you no harm, old woman,” said Heimir. “I am a wanderer, a beggar, far from home. I ask only space near the fire that I might warm these old bones.”
“You’ll be asking me to feed you once you’re sitting by the fire, I’ll be bound,” said Grima.
But Heimir held up his hands, blue with cold. “I am a harpist. I want only to warm these fingers before the black cold takes them.”
“All right,” said Grima. “I’ll let you in. No food, mind. We’ve none to spare for beggars.”
As Grima fed the fire, Heimir set his harp down beside him then held his hands to the flames. But Grima, sharp-eyed, sharp-tongued, sharp-witted Grima, saw something hanging from the harp and as she bustled around the farmhouse she looked closer and saw it was a piece of the richest cloth. Then, looking to Heimir, she saw gold glint through the rags wrapping his fingers. Grima realised that this was no ordinary beggar.
“Listen, beggar. I spoke harshly to you, for we see few enough people here on our farm. Stay a while, for my husband will be back soon from the forest, and I will give you to eat, and a place to sleep tonight.”
Heimir looked at the crafty old woman but the snow blindness dimmed his sight and he did not see the guile glint in her eye.
“I am grateful, old woman. I fear another night in the open would be the end of me.”
“Let me show you where you can sleep.”
So the old woman took Heimir to the barley barn and he lay down there, with the harp beside him, to sleep amid the warm sacks of barley.
While Heimir slept, Grima set to her tasks, but she was too excited to do much. So when Áke, her husband, came home, he found the house unswept, the fire unbanked, and the animals not fed.
Áke looked round, then looked to sharp-eyed Grima and said, “You must be very happy. For every day, I work, chopping wood and hauling it home until my fingers bleed while you sit by the fire and do nothing.”
Then sharp-tongued Grima said, “Would you like to do the work of a moment and, by that work, keep us fat and contented all the rest of our lives?”
“What work is that, old woman?” asked Áke.
“A man came to our farm today. An old man, a beggar he said. But I saw, with these sharp eyes, the gold glint from his finger and gold cloth in his harp. He is very old but I think he must have been a great warrior when he was young. I put him in the barley barn and he is lying there.” Grima looked at her husband. “Fast asleep.”
But Áke shook his head. “No. No. I will not do this thing that you ask.”
Sharp-tongued Grima cut him with her tongue. “Why did I marry a weakling? My mother told me to marry Svein. He wouldn’t have hesitated. If you won’t kill him, Áke, then so help me, I’ll take the beggar man for my husband and we’ll drive you out. You weren’t here when he came: you didn’t hear the honey words he poured over me. But I would not listen – I vowed to stay true to my husband. Much good that does me! Mark this, Áke, and mark it well: I’ll take him to my bed and kill you if you don’t take this chance.” Grima put her hand on Áke’s arm. “We won’t get another chance like this, Áke.”
Then Áke nodded his head and he took his axe and sharpened it. Grima brought Áke to where Heimir lay sleeping, the harp by his side. He was snoring.
“Do it!” whispered Grima. “But run away after you strike, lest he lay hand on you.” Then Grima took the harp and ran back to the farmhouse.
Áke took his axe and stood beside the sleeping, snoring Heimir. He raised his axe and brought it down but, striking, the axe caught on bone and flew from his hands. Heimir roared from his sleep, limbs thrashing, and Áke fled from the barn. But the blow was deep, a death blow, although such were Heimir’s death throes that the whole barn came down about him.
Áke found Grima in the farmhouse with the harp.
“It’s done,” he said.
“We’ll be rich,” said Grima. “Mark my words.”
But the old man shook his head. “This won’t end well. His blood will bring down blood on us.”
“Pah,” said the old lady. And she opened the harp.
But, inside, they found a little girl, although there was also gold.
“This will end badly,” said Áke.
“It’s true,” said Grima, “she is not what I expected. Who are you?” But to whatever question they asked, Aslaug gave no answer. It was as if she had no speech.
“This is bad,” said Áke.
“Nonsense,” said Grima. “I need some help around the house. She will be called Kráka, after my mother, and I will say, if anyone asks, that she is our daughter.”
“No one will believe you,” said Áke. “We’re both so ugly. No one will believe Kráka is our daughter.”
“I will make her ugly,” said Grima. “I will shave her head, and tar it, and dress her in rags, so people will think she is my daughter. Besides, husband, don’t you remember how beautiful I was in my youth?”
Áke looked at her. “No,” he said.
“Oh, shut up,” said Grima. And she set the girl to doing all the hardest chores on the farm. There Kráka grew up, in poverty and silence.
*
In Gautland there was a jarl named Herrud. He was wealthy and powerful, and he had a daughter named Þóra. Of all women she was the most beautiful and her manner was as lovely and gracious as her appearance. Her nickname was Fortress-Hart, for she excelled other women as the deer excels other animals. Herrud doted on his daughter, and had a bower made for her use, near his hall. Every day Herrud would send Þóra a gift. One day he sent her a little snake of great beauty. Þóra liked the snake and put it in a box with a piece of gold for its bed. But at once the snake began to grow, so that within a few days it was too big for its box, and it lay curled round it. Once out of the box, the snake grew the quicker, so that it soon lay wrapped around Þóra’s bower and none might enter or leave save only the man who brought the serpent its food: a whole ox. The gold beneath the snake grew with it too, so that it lay upon a great hoard. Then Herrud swore an oath that whatever man killed the snake and freed Þóra would have Þóra as his wife and the snake’s gold as her dowry. Many men heard this, but none dared to face the serpent, for it had grown very great indeed.
The king of Denmark was Sigurd Hring. His fame was great, for he had killed Harald Wartooth at the battle of Bravellir.
Ragnar was son of Sigurd. He was a giant among men, handsome, feared by his enemies and beloved of his friends. He had already gathered men to his warship and earned a reputation as a great warrior when he heard of the promise Jarl Herrud had made. But Ragnar made no oath, nor did he talk of the serpent that had imprisoned Þóra. Instead, he had some clothes made: shaggy trousers and a shaggy cape, which he boiled in tar. Then he sailed to Gautland and pulled his warship up on a beach not far from Jarl Harrud’s hall. But Ragnar did not go to greet the jarl that night. Instead, he woke early, before anyone else had got up, and Ragnar put on the tar-covered trousers and cape he had made, and he took a spear from the rack. Climbing down from his ship, Ragnar rolled on the beach, covering his trousers and cloak in sand. Then he removed the rivet holding the spear head on its shaft.
Ragnar went through the dawn to the jarl’s hall. All were sleeping there. Ragnar went to Þóra’s bower. He saw the serpent coiled round it, asleep. At once, he stabbed it with the spear. Pulling the spear out, he stabbed again, cutting through the serpent’s spine, and he twisted the spear so the spear head broke off.
In its death throes, a stream of acid blood gushed from the serpent, striking Ragnar. But the shaggy cloak and shaggy trousers protected him from the deadly blood.
Þóra, wakened by the death agony of the serpent, saw a hooded man striding away and she called after him. But Ragnar did not turn, and answered in riddle, before walking away.
Þóra wondered who the man might be who had killed the serpent and freed her: could such a giant be a man? When Jarl Harrud, wakened by the serpent’s death thrashing, came he found the spear point embedded in the animal’s spine but so great was its size that Harrud too wondered if a man could have wielded such a weapon.
Then Þóra advised her father to call a great assembly of the people. For whoever had killed the serpent would carry the shaft that fitted the spear head that had slain the snake.
Ragnar and his men heard the call to assembly and went to it, sitting apart from the other men.
Jarl Harrud stood and spoke to his people. “The snake that held my daughter captive is dead and the man who killed it left in the beast its death. Let he who wielded that spear bring it forward and I shall keep my promise to him, whatever his degree.” Many men tried, but no one had a spear shaft that matched the spear head.
Then Ragnar stood forth, and claimed the spear was his, and fitted the spear head to the shaft he carried. News of this deed spread through all the Northlands and beyond; Ragnar’s name was sung from the white north to Miklagard itself. Jarl Harrud, right glad at so worthy a match, gave Þóra to be Ragnar’s wife, and he took her home to Denmark. Ragnar loved Þóra and she gave him two sons, Eirek and Agnar. They grew to be great men.
But then Þóra took sick and died. In his grief, Ragnar put aside his kingdom, giving it to the keeping of others, and to still his sorrow he took his warship and went viking.
One morning when they were anchored in a small inlet, Ragnar’s men woke early and took the rowing boat and rowed to land to bake bread. On the beach, they saw a farm not far away and the men took their wheat to the farm so that they might use its oven. An old woman greeted them, chewing her breakfast though she had no teeth. The men asked her name and the old lady said, “My name is Grima. Who are you?”
“We are the men of the great Ragnar Loðbrók. Now help us bake his bread.”
But the old woman held up her hands. Her fingers were twisted and bent. “These old hands can’t do such hard work. But I have a daughter who can do the baking for you. Her name is Kráka, but she has grown so headstrong I can bare control her. Ask her yourself when she gets back.”
For Kráka had taken the cattle to water in the morning. But as she watered the cattle, she had seen the great ship, moored in the inlet, with painted shields lining its sides and the painted head of a great serpent at its prow. Seeing the ship, Kráka undressed and washed herself, despite Grima having forbidden it. Then she brushed her golden hair that had grown long, hanging down to the ground. For few people came to Spangareid and, with so few visitors, Grima had grown lazy and stopped shaving the hair from Kráka’s head.
Leading the cattle, Kráka came home. And the men, bent over the fire, stopped what they were doing when they saw her and they turned to Grima and asked, “Is this your daughter?”
“She is,” said Grima.
“How can that be,” said the men, “when she is so beautiful and you are so ugly?”
“Don’t judge this old woman in her age: I was a beauty too when I was young.”
The men asked Kráka to help them bake the bread, telling her to knead the dough into loaves that they would then bake. Kráka bent over the dough, kneading it, then handing it to the men when each loaf was ready. But the men could not stop turning to stare at her, so that they burned all the bread as they baked it.
The bread baked, although burnt, they returned to the ship. But when they served the bread to the crew, the crew complained that they had never been given such burnt bread.
“You had one task,” said Ragnar, who hungered. “You could not even do that.”
“It’s not our fault,” said the men. “There was this woman there, and she was so beautiful we could not stop staring at her, and so we burned the bread.”
“No woman is as beautiful as Þóra,” said Ragnar and his voice was low and threatening.
But the men, desiring to excuse themselves, did not hear the threat but protested all the more that the woman they had seen was indeed more beautiful than Þóra.
Then Ragnar spoke. “I will send other men and they will bring back report of this woman of whom you speak. If it be as you say, then I will pardon your incompetence. But if she be one whit less beautiful than Þóra, then you will die.”
But when Ragnar’s messengers tried to sail to the beach, the headwind was too great and they could not reach the land.
Denied, Ragnar’s eagerness to see this maiden waxed and he told his men to give her this message: “If she is truly more beautiful than Þóra, then I want her for my bed. Tell her I will meet her, but that she must come to Ragnar Loðbrók naked but clothed, full yet hungry, alone and with company.”
When the wind turned, Ragnar’s messengers set sail. They landed and went up to the farmhouse and found Kráka waiting for them there. Then they looked upon her and saw that the reports of her beauty were nothing less than the truth: she was indeed more fair than Þóra the Fair. Then the messengers bowed before her, and told her they came with word from Ragnar Loðbrók, renowned throughout the northlands. And they gave her his message.
Grima, hearing it, cackled. “The famous Ragnar is mad. No maid may come to him in such a way.”
But Kráka said, “I will come to your ship tomorrow, as the great Ragnar Loðbrók commands.”
She watched the messengers sail back to Ragnar’s warship, moored in the bay. And through the night, Kráka thought upon Ragnar’s message. Then, when dawn was breaking, she went to see Áke. The old man was chopping wood. His dog, the only creature he loved, snarled at Kráka when he smelled her, but she ignored the animal.
“Will you lend me your fishing net?” Kráka asked him. “I will catch us some fish for our lunch.”
“Take it,” said Áke. “Saves me getting wet and cold, standing in the bay.”
“I’ll need to take the dog too,” said Kráka, “or the gulls will steal the fish.”
“About time someone else did some work round here,” said Áke. “Go with her dog.” The dog, disguntled, followed Kráka back to the farmhouse. In the house, Kráka took an onion, then stripped her shift off and, naked, wrapped Áke’s net around her body and draped her long hair over her breasts.
“Come, dog,” Kráka said and, with the animal following, she went down to the bay. Grima, returning from the well saw her walking down to the beach: naked yet clothed, alone but with company. And she realised, suddenly, the wit of the girl who had been so long her drudge.
“But she is not full yet hungry.”
Then Grima saw Kráka raise the onion to her lips, bite into it, chew and then spit it out.
“Ragnar will smell the onion and know she has eaten but is not sated.”
Overnight, Ragnar, eager to see the fair maid, had moved his warship closer to the beach. Now, seeing her upon the strand, he called to her, asking if she was the one whom men said was fairer than Þóra the Fair.
“I come at the bidding of Ragnar, renowned through all the northlands – no maid would dare refuse him. As you commanded, I stand before you naked yet clothed, neither hungry nor full, alone but with a companion.”
“Come to me,” called Ragnar.
“I will come to you if you promise me and my companion safe conduct,” said the brave maiden.
“You shall have it,” said Ragnar. He sent his men to row her to the warship.
When Kráka stood before him, naked yet clothed, the blood rose in Ragnar Loðbrók as it had not done since Þóra took sick, and he reached for her. But Áke’s dog, seeing this, bit Ragnar’s hand. Then Ragnar’s men prised the animal’s jaws apart and pulled it off the king and strangled it. Thus died the only creature that Áke, the old man, loved.
The wound was not deep, and Ragnar seated Kráka beside him while it was bound and spoke with her.
“The kindness of a king might expect to be repaid by the embrace of a fair maid,” he said, and as he spoke he had his men lay out rich cloth and gold and jewels before Kráka.
But the wily maid replied, “A true king keeps his word. You have promised me safe conduct: surely you will honour your oath and let me go hence, a maid intact.”
Ragnar looked upon Kráka and saw that she was truly more beautiful than Þóra. So he said to her, “I would wish that you come with me.”
Kráka shook her head. “I know well you have set forth upon some task: you are a-viking, and it may well be that when you return you will have forgotten me. But know this, O King. If, when you sail again past the farm at Spangareid, you remember me, then I will give thought again on coming with you to your land.”
Ragnar had his men bring forth a dress of woven gold, one that Þóra herself had worn, and laid it before Kráka.
But Kráka refused the gift. “What suits this maid, who drives the goats and cattle to water, are rags, not the fine clothes of Þóra the All-Fair. Nor can I wear such clothes while I live with Grima and Áke. But if you still wish me to go with you when you return, then send your men to call for me and I will listen to their words.”
Ragnar swore oath upon his gold armband that he would not forget Kráka. But Kráka gave him no more answer, and Ragnar had his men take her back to shore. Then, with the wind shifting, Ragnar set sail, to finish his viking.
But always before his eyes was the memory of the maid who had come to him naked and yet clothed.
Then came the evening when, looking to the bay, Kráka saw the snake-prowed ship riding there, and men rowing to shore.
“The king has returned for you, as he swore,” they said.
“I will come with you in the morning,” said Kráka. “I must make my farewell.”
As the sun rose, Kráka went to where Grima and Áke lay abed.
“You think me too young to remember what you did when first I came to you: how, though bound by guest law, you killed my foster-father, Heimir the Faithful. But I remember well.” Kráka pointed at Áke. “I killed the dog, which alone you loved, for in truth none could love Grima Sharp-Tongue. I could have paid you back myself, killing you as you slept just as you killed Heimir, but in memory of the years I have lived with you I have stayed my hand. But know this: I now pronounce your doom. From today, each day that passes shall be worse than the day it follows, and the worst shall be your last. Now, we part forever.”
Then Kráka went to where the boat waited for her, and she boarded Ragnar’s warship. The king welcomed her but when night came and he would sleep with her, Kráka refused.
“Before I come to your bed, I would have a wedding feast, and a welcome in your land, that any heirs I bear for you be accepted by all.”
Ragnar, hearing the wisdom of this, accepted, but urged his men to sail all the faster.
Then, coming to his kingdom, Ragnar ordered a great wedding feast and Ragnar and Kráka were married. But that night, when Ragnar would lie with her for the first time, Kráka put her finger to his lips.
“Wait,” she said. “You have waited long, but wait three nights more. For if we share a bed tonight, then my heart tells me the child I bear shall suffer for our impatience.”
But Ragnar roared with laughter. “I have waited months, Kráka, months. I have given you gold and silver, my kingdom and my heart. I will wait no longer.”
So that night they were joined, and their marriage healed the pain of Þóra’s loss. But the telling of Kráka’s heart proved true, for their first child, born of that first coupling, was born with gristle where his bones should have been, and he was named Ivar the Boneless. Though boundless in wit, his men had to bear him on their shields for he could barely walk.
There were other sons born to Ragnar and Kráka: Bjorn, Hvitserk and Rognvald. But some of Ragnar’s men began to whisper that it was not fit for so great a king to be married to a peasant. Eystein, king of the Swedes, had a daughter of great beauty. Better for Ragnar to put Kráka aside and marry the daughter of a king. But Kráka, hearing tell of this, spoke to Ragnar when they lay abed and told him the tale of how she was Aslaug, the daughter of Sigurd and Brynhild the Fair. But Ragnar would not believe her tale. Then Kráka said, “If my words be true, then the son who sits now in my belly will bear a mark like a snake lying in his eye and you will call him Sigurd Snake-in-the-Eye.”
So it was. Kráka gave birth to a baby boy and when he opened his eyes for the first time, Ragnar saw there a mark like a coiled snake. And all men came to know that Kráka was, in truth, Aslaug, daughter of Sigurd Dragon Slayer and Brynhild the Fair.
The tale of their sons is told in the saga of the sons of Ragnar. There too is told of how Ragnar met his death when King Ælle cast him into a pit of serpents, and Ragnar had his end by the bite of a snake who had first gained his glory by the slaying of the great serpent. There too is told how the sons of Ragnar took terrible vengeance for the killing of their father, and many other things beside. But now, this tale of Ragnar Loðbrók is done.