THORSTEIN OF THE MERE: A SAGA OF THE NORTHMEN IN LAKELAND.

Thorstein finds Thurston-water.

THORSTEIN OF THE MERE: A SAGA OF THE NORTHMEN IN LAKELAND: BY W. G. COLLINGWOOD.

London: EDWARD ARNOLD, Publisher to the India Office.

T. WILSON, PRINTER, KENDAL. 1895.

(All rights reserved.)

TO R. C.

GREENODD ON THE LEVEN

[1]

CHAPTER I. THE COMING OF THE NORTHMEN.

There was a man called Swein, who came into our country once upon a time, and built a house at Greenodd on the Leven. His father Biorn had been a landholder in Norway, ploughing his own acres, and living in health and wealth, until King Harald Fairhair fell upon the people, and fought with them and made himself lord and master. Then, it is well known, good men of the old sort, who could not abide to see new laws made and old laws undone, took to their ships and sailed away west. Some of them landed in Iceland; some went to Orkney, and others wandered about the coasts of the Irish Sea to find a home; and wherever they could get shelter and safety, there they settled.

Biorn, with his people and his young child Swein, came to the South Isles, as they called them then,—the Western Isles we call them nowadays. He lived as best he might, and died at last in battle, when Harald swept the vikings from out of the seas between Lewis and Man. But Swein found friends and plenty of work; for there was always farming to do in spring and fighting in summer; and in the end he wedded well, and sat down under Bardi Ottarson, who was then the chief among the Northmen in the Isle of Man. For by this time Ketel Flatnose and his folk were gone to [2]Iceland, and the good King Orry was not yet come therefrom.

Unna was wife to Swein Biornson. She was the child of a viking akin to Olaf the White, the great King of Dublin, and her mother was Irish. Unna was a notable dame, and Swein was the sort of man who could serve his friends; so that they were both well thought of in the island, and hoped for a safe home there. But before long came Ragnwald the Dane, of the sons of Ivar, he that was king in Waterford for a little while afterwards; and he killed Bardi and most of his people in a sea-fight.

Then Swein fled out of the battle hastily, and took his wife and whatever he could lay hands on, and steered for the far-away blue fells that showed under the morning sun, over against the Manx fells. For he knew that some of his kinsfolk had already found lodging on the coasts of Galloway and Cumberland and Wales, where the land was no man’s land at that time; and creeks and firths among the hills gave them sheltered hiding places, well out of sight when great fleets swept the high seas and ravaged the open shore.

When Black Comb grew tall on the skyline, arose a stormy north-easter, and drove him down the Cumberland coast, until he made Furness, the great foreland in the bay of Morecambe. When the wind fell, the tide flowed, and carried him up a broad firth like a gate into the hills. Upward he drifted, spying on all sides for a good landing spot; and try [3]as he might to the shoreward, he ran upon sand, and never came nigh the soil. But in a while he turned round a green point, high and rocky and covered with trees, standing out into the deep channel. Behind it was a green field, even with the water, snug and sheltered among hanging woods. A great beck flowed through the field to meet the broad firth. There were no people to be seen, nor smoke of houses, nor cattle about in the good lea-land. And the channel of the river at last came in-shore. So he stayed there, and called that green point in his language Græn Oddi, and Greenodd it is called to this day.

CHAPTER II. THE HOMESTEAD AT GREENODD.

Once upon an afternoon in summer time it was that our story begins; and so long ago that we may live perhaps to call it a thousand years since. Swein and his people had not been ten winters yet at Greenodd; but they had built a good house, and cleared land to farm it, and made the place look something like home.

So one afternoon before summer was over, Unna sat rocking her baby Thorstein to sleep, and sewing as she stirred the cradle with her foot, and singing as she sewed. She wore a long gown of ruddy colour, long sleeved; with a kerchief round her neck, and a housewife’s apron; but because she was of high birth, she had a gold band like a crown round her head, and her yellow hair was tucked around it and [4]fell away unbraided from under a high white cap. A silken pocket hung from her belt, and on her finger was a gold ring; but her jewels for the most part were locked away in a kist, against high-days and holidays. For this was a working day, and every one was busy.

Most folk were out of doors that time of year; only the mother was at home, minding the baby after her morning’s turn round the farm; and to keep her company, an old nurse who, being a brisk body, was putting in a spell of work at a standing loom of the ancient make. She threw the shuttle slowly, and combed up the web but slackly, for the afternoon was warm, and the sun outside beat upon the roof of the house and made it hot. For the house was like one of our barns with its rafters and beams unceiled: and though it was heavily thatched, the air was hot within. It was somewhat gloomy too, in spite of the bright sheen that lay on field and fell. Though door and porch door stood open, the rest of the place was lit only by windows that stood high up near the roof, in a row on either side of the long hall: and they were filled with bladder, which kept out the sun. One spot there was which had been burst by the stone-throwing of the boys, and not mended yet for want of hands in this busy summer-time. Through the hole a ray of sunlight shot across

the hall, and caught on the chain of the hanging lamp, and lit up the thin smoke that rose in the midst. For the hearth fire was never let out if they could help. Even in summer it was needed [5]morning and evening for their cooking, and bad to kindle from fire-stones and rotten sticks. So as wood and peat were plentiful, it was smothered between whiles just to keep it alight, and thus went on from year’s end to year’s end.

The hearth was in the middle of the floor, then-a-days, raised a little and paved with cobbles set in sammel clay. One could sit round it, as you can still at a fire-spot in a farm-house of the right old sort. And grand times they had of winter’s evenings with their great chat fires, or else logs of which one end was out at the door while the other was blazing under the black pot. There folk would sit working and tale-telling, and watching acorns and crab apples roast, and the boiling of their porridge in that same great pot that hung by an iron crook and a chain from the house-beam overhead, the “rannal balk” as our folk, the Northmen’s children, call it still.

Up through the gloom and the little space of sun went the thin blue smoke, like a stripe of rain out of April clouds. Half way to the roof it was met by the chimney flue, that hung down likest of ought to a great bell hanging from the roof tree, narrow at the top and covered like a belfry with a flagstone laid flat upon pillars, but opening out beneath and crossed by the house-beam. And in this luffer or chimney hung the last hams and smoked meat of the year before. For at the back end of the year they always hung their flesh meat against the winter, and Unna was too wise a house-wife to [6]let them eat all up before the next store was laid in, however plentiful the season might be.

You must know this “firehouse” (as we still say) was the main hall and living room of the homestead. Bed-chambers there were alongside of it behind the wall, and out-buildings; not to say lofts among the beams, and an earth-house or cellar dug out under the floor at one end of the hall. But the firehouse was the House, as one may say; and in a homely spot like this backwood bigging at Greenodd a thousand years since, everything went forward in the firehouse; cooking and eating, work and play, business and pleasure. This was their hearth and home.

At one corner were its door and porch opening upon the garth, and at the opposite corner there was another door: and at the back part were out-buildings rising sharply up the hill behind. At the ends of the hall under the gables were great arks and kists against the wall, and at one end the aforesaid loom: but along the side were hung the men’s weapons, spears and shields and coats of mail, and their hunting and fishing tackle, well out of the way in a row beneath the row of windows, and over long benches that lined the hall on either hand.

In the middle of the benches were two high seats, one on this side and one on that over against it. They were like the great elbow-chairs or settles you see in old farm-houses; roomy enough for three, carved on their high backs, and with carved heads to their posts in front. The children had a tale that one head [7]was father and one was mother: older folk would say the figures stood for Odin and Freya. Anyway they were something more than just ornaments; they gave a holiness to the place, and made the high seat of the master as it were a kind of temple-stall.

Before the benches on one side of the hall stood a long table, all of oak, like the seats and the wainscotting and the rest, brown already with age and bright with rubbing: but on the other side the tables had been taken off their trestles and laid up to make more room, and because half their men were abroad with Swein at sea. On this side sat Unna in her own high seat with the cradle at her feet, and before her the hearth with its thin smoke going up, and the sun-ray striking through it, and blazing in the fern that was strewed on the floor. And when the sun-spot crept upon the cradle she stooped down and moved it a little backwards, so that the bright light should not wake the baby. And when he stirred she pushed the cradle with her foot and sang again while she sewed at his shirt. And the loom went clattering on with the steady noise that is good for babies’ slumber. Nothing else was heard, except the birds singing in the green-wood around, and far-away clamour of people working in the fields.

When the baby was sound asleep again, Unna rose, and walked softly to see where his brothers might be: and her gown trained on the ferny floor. She stood in the porch and called, but [8]not too loudly, “Ho! Orm! Hundi! where are you? what are you doing?”

But they were off. And so she sat down again and sewed till her eyelids were heavy with the warmth and the dimness of the place.

“Eh, barn,” she said, “what makes one so drowsy? sleep by day and starve at night, they used to say.”

“Most like a stranger is coming,” said the old woman from the loom.

For it was thought that a man’s fetch went before and brought slumber.

“Few strangers here but bad ones,” said Unna.

“May be it’s the master and the men.”

“Why, they are gone but these three weeks, and who knows when they may come back, and how? And it’s weary waiting, and a deal on one’s hands: let alone the chances of raid and robbery.”

“What, there’s Raud thy brother and all,” said the old woman sharply. “And folk must live. It would be ill liked if the master never brought home an armful of finery, or another hand or so for the farm, or a barrel of somewhat sharper than we can brew.”

“Aye, its a lone spot: not that I complain: for Raud is a handy lad. It will be a bad day when he takes land up-bank, as he talks of doing.”

“Nay, never heed his talk. He must light on some one fit first,” answered the weaver: “and how will he do that hereaway, I’d like to [9]know? As for thy man, and my man, and the rest, they are men, with hands to their elbows and heads on their shoulders.”

“Or had, you may say, to start with,” said Unna with a sigh.

“Heads, aye, and know their ways about. Look at my old man. These forty winters he has come back to me the same as ever.”

“Aye, he has a cat’s life, has old Toli.”

“Not so old as that comes to, neither,” said the crone. “And thankful we should be for our good men and for a good roof over us. Eh, child, when I think on all we have come through.”

“No fells, no dales,” said she: “no loom, no clatter;” but she hastened to add “I am out of sorts to-day. There’s overmuch to be done before they come, to redd all up for the back end. There’s yon window now. I wonder if the ladder is handy. One might do it oneself sooner than bide for those lazy carles.” And she got up and walked uneasily to the door again.

“Nay barn, let it be: its none of thy job,” said the old woman; muttering to her loom, for there was nobody else to hear. “The mistress is queer and fidgetty to-day. One might think somewhat was going to happen.”

But the ladder was up against a rick in the distance, and men were on it, thatching and shouting. Over the water, and all round, wooded hills shook in the heat-haze. Unna shaded her eyes and looked once more for Orm [10]and Hundi, but nought she spied. She came back and sat on a stool against her high-seat, and tried to sew. But the sun-spot crept on to her lap, like some little wounded animal, dragging itself painfully to refuge there. It shone through her work, and through her fingers, so that they seemed blood-red: and it dived into the red stone in her ring, and made it redder than blood: and it burned on the gold like the whole sun itself, a blaze of mystery, a dream of glory.

Clitter-clatter went on the loom. “Poor soul,” said the old woman: “best thing she can do”—as she saw Unna’s tired head sink back against the post of the high-seat, and her long white throat slide out of the white neckerchief, and her chin heaved up, like a blown wild rose leaf, warm in the reflected sunshine.

Then in the stillness the sun-spot dragged itself off her hand and off her lap, and tumbled to the floor again in one roundel, just like a bubble that gathers itself together in the dark pool under a waterfall, out of the shattering of the spray: a dream of death.

Clitter-clatter went on the loom nevertheless: and the birds sang still in the green world outside. The mother’s dreams were soft and sweet, of life’s love, and life’s labour, that never fail nor come to bitterness; for these regard not glory, and fear not death.

[11]

CHAPTER III. SWEIN’S HOME-COMING.

Now we leave Mistress Unna and baby Thorstein asleep, to tell about Orm and Hundi and how they floated boats. Those boys had run off to the work-shop where smithying was done, and found a heap of chips and shavings, and made each of them a boat, with a thin shaving for a sail: and of course they must away to the beck, as nobody was there to shout after them. So they ran over the cobble-paved garth between the byres, and out at the gate of the turf wall that stood round about the “town.” Then they were at the boat-landing, among planks and rollers, ropes and chains, and the delicious smell of tar that hung about the boat building sheds, and reeked in the hot sunshine.

The shore was steep, and shelving into a dub just there: so they ran down-bank towards the flats that open out below the point. Under the crags and fir-trees of the nab they had to scramble over rocks and stones, and to splash through salt pools left by the outgoing tide: but soon they came to a stretch of rippled sand between fell and firth, and waded a beck that flowed from the woods and wound northward along their edge to join the Leven.

“Ha!” said Orm, “now we are on my fairy island. It is all gold, and yon side the beck runs down, and yon side the beck runs up. Now we are on my holm, and I will fight thee for thy boat.”

For it was a custom among these Northmen [12]when two had a quarrel to go upon an island and fight it out. So Orm beat Hundi, and ran off with both the boats and pushed them from the shore until they sailed down-bank with the tide. There was no one to cry for, so Hundi held his peace: he brushed his eyes with his hand and pattered on, his bare feet crisping the soppy sand ripples, and leaving their prints in a chain of little tarns. And when he came to the next bend in the river, lo and behold his own boat came straight to shore and into his hands, while the boat that Orm had made was rocking in mid-channel with its sail draggled in the water. Orm began to throw handfuls of sand over it, to draw it in: and while they were intent upon this job and keeping no look out, suddenly they heard shouts not far off, and the clash of oars, and a great craft swung round into that reach and bore straight down upon the chip boat. A moment they stood dumfoundered, and then turned and ran for the woods like young rabbits. For in those days it was no idle threat when mothers said to

truant boys, “Mind you don’t go out of sight, for fear a man catches you.”

But just when the throb began to beat very hard in their throats, and they were stopped by the steep crumbling banks of the little beck that bounded the holm, they heard, like a shepherd calling sheep, “Ho, Orm! ho, Hundi! ho!” and they turned and looked: and then looked at one another with bright eyes and panting too much to laugh. They set off [13]running back to the ship, which they knew well enough now. The rowers had easied and brought her close to the edge of the sandbank: and that could well be done, for she drew very little water and was nigh flat bottomed. Swein, with a brown square face, and bushy fair beard, and bright blue eyes laughing out of the locks of his tawny hair, came wading ashore. He caught up one child under each arm, waded out again, and hoisted them to hands aboard. Then catching at the gunwale near the steering oar, he raised himself half-length and vaulted over. The water dripped from his gartered hose and blue kirtle skirts: for his mail-coat was doffed, and he wore only a belted kirtle or blouse over his white linen sark.

“Eh, father, mother will snape thee for forgetting of thyself in a mess!” said Hundi compassionately. “But never heed her: I’ll say it was to fetch us aboard.”

“But my dragon is wrecked,” grumbled Orm.

“And is that all you have to say to your old father when he comes home?”

“Nay,” said Orm looking round coolly, “What have ye brought me?”

“No great things, barn, this trip,” said Swein, with half a smile, as he took the steering oar. “Now then, lads, all’s well, by this token. The barns say little, but there is enough of it, and enow of them. Forward all now: a spurt to finish our day’s work. Lift her! here she goes. Lift her!”

A dozen of long blades, six aside, with a [14]couple of men at each, churned the sandy shallows, as the boat swept round the curve and up stream. Long in the keel and low in the board she was, with swinging curves at stem and stern rising swan-like to the figure-head and the carved stern-post. But the ugly mask of a spitfire dragon was taken off the bows, now that they were so near home; for it was a belief among these people that the land-wights, the good fairies and useful brownies, would be scared by such a sight, or at least take it in dudgeon, and depart. So the figure-head had a good face for home waters, and a hideous one to put on when they got out to sea and to work among strangers. The gunwales were notched into dog-tooth markings and what old wives call box-pattern in their quiltings. The strong upstanding tholes were curiously carved with knots and worm-twists. Great oars were lashed to these tholes and the rowers stood to their work and pushed the handles. There was a step for a mast forward, but the mast and yard were lying along the gangway that ran between