Historical Setting: 793 C.E. Skåne
In a Christian world, when Christianity ruled people with authority even over imagination, any ship that could speed against the wind seeming to move faster than the rowers could dip and pull would be called a holy miracle. But in this new time and place, I call “future,” these men don’t attribute the amazing speed of the longship to any gods. They claim it as a work of human design. They built them; they know. These longships for war are human refinements of old designs in mounting a mast to a shallow keel. The clinker-built hull of smooth split oak aligns the lapstrake to flow the wake away from prow rather than simply floating on the water and moving forward by plowing into the sea.
We slip into one of these inlets between the mountains where other ships are already waiting and where we also will wait for more of these other longships to arrive. Apparently, as more longships gather, the expectation is that by sunset we will be a full fleet and tomorrow morning we will all sail on to Bergenshalvoyen to receive our full instructions.
My language has been twisting and stretching to understand these futuristic dialects, so already I am much more able to communicate with these other men though my accent, I am told, is “thrall.” That’s what they call Frankish Gaul where they get their slaves.
Here in this place where we’ve landed stands a runestone. I ask Emil what it says.
“They say it is a story of the great honors that await us if we die as heroes in the battle.”
“Did you read the runes to know that?”
“Of course I know it. No one needs to look at each little rune carved in the stone and imagine its meaning and then put all that together to say what they already know it says. No one needs to read if we already know the story.”
“You don’t think there is something to be learned from reading?”
“Why? It is such a Christian kind of thing to read stories that are already known.”
“How do you know they are known? And how do you know of Christian things?”
“Take a look at what I have here.”
He opens the little chest he sits on in the ship and there are all of his personal things. Folded neatly, under his fleece are some little squares of pure white cloth, chism, used in the anointing of oil in Christian baptism.
“Why do you have these?” I ask this proud Pagan.
(Continues Tuesday, April 15, 2025)
Lazarus Ink 