Historical Setting: 793 C.E. Mooring at Bergenshalvoyen
I’ve found Gunnar, one of the sailors who brought us over, the one I had told that Sjókona was alone in the house with no door. I had heard a storyteller’s version spinning up a yarn of strange details and now I am hearing the story from Gunnar who was actually there.
He explains, “When we stopped for her, she told me there had been two visitors with her there, and both were gone, so she was alone. Had she remembered you, there would have been three.”
“Three would make it a magical tale.”
“Yes, a better story that would be indeed with a little mortal truth to it. But the first, she said, was the Christian god. He shape-changed into a man, but he feared the power of her touch and ran away.”
I smirked. My reaction demanded an explanation.
“You know the Christian God is invisible, all encompassing, Creator of everything, not likely to shape change into a man.”
“No, no. I’ve been to many Christian ports. I know the Christians have many gods and they actually do shape-change into mortal humans all the time. There is that Jesus on the cross. And then their gods die off and leave bones on the altars for sacrifice. People crowd to these shrines to get the miracles. Of course, you have to believe in the Christian things to get any miracles. But otherwise, the shrines are places where Christians leave their riches for Vikings to gather up.”
What can I say? Christianity perceived through Pagan imagination is Pagan. But, of course, Paganism perceived from the Christian perspective still isn’t Christian, it’s also Paganism.
Dear God thank you for staying close to us, for listening to our prayers, for speaking with touch and always reminding us of your loving presence. But now I wonder if the Pagan magic is a reminder of your closeness to all people, or a blinder separating us from you. Let me always find you even through the haze of human whimsy. Thank you.
Gunnar tells me more of this. “She told us that after the ‘Christian god’ left, then her own mother came down to the house by the shore as she did often, it seems. Her mother was a thrall taken from a faraway land in the east to become a concubine for a powerful Norseman who intended his sons to be as powerful as Huns. So, an infant daughter had no place in his imagination. And, of course, this woman’s infant daughter had to put out for exposure.”
(Continues Tuesday, May 13)
Lazarus Ink 