Eric Brighteyes

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ERIC BRIGHTEYES

by H. Rider Haggard




DEDICATION

Madam,

You have graciously conveyed to me the intelligence that during the
weary weeks spent far from his home--in alternate hope and fear,
in suffering and mortal trial--a Prince whose memory all men must
reverence, the Emperor Frederick, found pleasure in the reading of my
stories: that "they interested and fascinated him."

While the world was watching daily at the bedside of your Majesty's
Imperial husband, while many were endeavouring to learn courage in our
supremest need from the spectacle of that heroic patience, a distant
writer little knew that it had been his fortune to bring to such a
sufferer an hour's forgetfulness of sorrow and pain.

This knowledge, to an author, is far dearer than any praise, and it is
in gratitude that, with your Majesty's permission, I venture to dedicate
to you the tale of Eric Brighteyes.

The late Emperor, at heart a lover of peace, though by duty a soldier of
soldiers, might perhaps have cared to interest himself in a warrior of
long ago, a hero of our Northern stock, whose days were spent in strife,
and whose latest desire was Rest. But it may not be; like the Golden
Eric of this Saga, and after a nobler fashion, he has passed through the
Hundred Gates into the Valhalla of Renown.

To you, then, Madam, I dedicate this book, a token, however slight and
unworthy, of profound respect and sympathy.

I am, Madam,

Your Majesty's most obedient servant,

H. Rider Haggard.

November 17, 1889.

To H.I.M. Victoria, Empress Frederick of Germany.




INTRODUCTION

"Eric Brighteyes" is a romance founded on the Icelandic Sagas. "What is
a saga?" "Is it a fable or a true story?" The answer is not altogether
simple. For such sagas as those of Burnt Njal and Grettir the Strong
partake both of truth and fiction: historians dispute as to the
proportions. This was the manner of the saga's growth: In the early days
of the Iceland community--that republic of aristocrats--say, between the
dates 900 and 1100 of our era, a quarrel would arise between two great
families. As in the case of the Njal Saga, its cause, probably, was the
ill doings of some noble woman. This quarrel would lead to manslaughter.
Then blood called for blood, and a vendetta was set on foot that ended
only with the death by violence of a majority of the actors in the drama
and of large numbers of their adherents. In the course of the feud, men
of heroic strength and mould would come to the front and perform deeds
worthy of the iron age which bore them. Women also would help to
fashion the tale, for good or ill, according to their natural gifts
and characters. At last the tragedy was covered up by death and time,
leaving only a few dinted shields and haunted cairns to tell of those
who had played its leading parts.

But its fame lived on in the minds of men. From generation to generation
skalds wandered through the winter snows, much as Homer may have
wandered in his day across the Grecian vales and mountains, to find a
welcome at every stead, because of the old-time story they had to tell.
Here, night after night, they would sit in the ingle and while away
the weariness of the dayless dark with histories of the times when men
carried their lives in their hands, and thought them well lost if there
might be a song in the ears of folk to come. To alter the tale was one
of the greatest of crimes: the skald must repeat it as it came to him;
but by degrees undoubtedly the sagas did suffer alteration. The facts
remained the same indeed, but around them gathered a mist of miraculous
occurrences and legends. To take a single instance: the account of
the burning of Bergthorsknoll in the Njal Saga is not only a piece of
descriptive writing that for vivid, simple force and insight is scarcely
to be matched out of Homer and the Bible, it is also obviously true. We
feel as we read, that no man could have invented that story, though some
great skald threw it into shape. That the tale is true, the writer of
"Eric" can testify, for, saga in hand, he has followed every act of the
drama on its very site. There he who digs beneath the surface of the
lonely mound that looks across plain and sea to Westman Isles may still
find traces of the burning, and see what appears to be the black sand
with which the hands of Bergthora and her women strewed the earthen
floor some nine hundred years ago, and even the greasy and clotted
remains of the whey that they threw upon the flame to quench it. He may
discover the places where Fosi drew up his men, where Skarphedinn died,
singing while his legs were burnt from off him, where Kari leapt from
the flaming ruin, and the dell in which he laid down to rest--at every
step, in short, the truth of the narrative becomes more obvious. And yet
the tale has been added to, for, unless we may believe that some human
beings are gifted with second sight, we cannot accept as true the
prophetic vision that came to Runolf, Thorstein's son; or that of Njal
who, on the evening of the onslaught, like Theoclymenus in the Odyssey,
saw the whole board and the meats upon it "one gore of blood."

Thus, in the Norse romance now offered to the reader, the tale of Eric
and his deeds would be true; but the dream of Asmund, the witchcraft of
Swanhild, the incident of the speaking head, and the visions of Eric
and Skallagrim, would owe their origin to the imagination of successive
generations of skalds; and, finally, in the fifteenth or sixteenth
century, the story would have been written down with all its
supernatural additions.

The tendency of the human mind--and more especially of the Norse
mind--is to supply uncommon and extraordinary reasons for actions and
facts that are to be amply accounted for by the working of natural
forces. Swanhild would have needed no "familiar" to instruct her in her
evil schemes; Eric would have wanted no love-draught to bring about his
overthrow. Our common experience of mankind as it is, in opposition to
mankind as we fable it to be, is sufficient to teach us that the passion
of one and the human weakness of the other would suffice to these ends.
The natural magic, the beauty and inherent power of such a woman
as Swanhild, are things more forceful than any spell magicians have
invented, or any demon they are supposed to have summoned to their
aid. But no saga would be complete without the intervention of such
extraneous forces: the need of them was always felt, in order to throw
up the acts of heroes and heroines, and to invest their persons with
an added importance. Even Homer felt this need, and did not scruple to
introduce not only second sight, but gods and goddesses, and to bring
their supernatural agency to bear directly on the personages of his
chant, and that far more freely than any Norse sagaman. A word may be
added in explanation of the appearances of "familiars" in the shapes
of animals, an instance of which will be found in this story. It was
believed in Iceland, as now by the Finns and Eskimo, that the passions
and desires of sorcerers took visible form in such creatures as wolves
or rats. These were called "sendings," and there are many allusions to
them in the Sagas.

Another peculiarity that may be briefly alluded to as eminently
characteristic of the Sagas is their fatefulness. As we read we seem
to hear the voice of Doom speaking continually. "_Things will happen as
they are fated_": that is the keynote of them all. The Norse mind had
little belief in free will, less even than we have to-day. Men and women
were born with certain characters and tendencies, given to them in order
that their lives should run in appointed channels, and their acts bring
about an appointed end. They do not these things of their own desire,
though their desires prompt them to the deeds: they do them because they
must. The Norns, as they name Fate, have mapped out their path long and
long ago; their feet are set therein, and they must tread it to the end.
Such was the conclusion of our Scandinavian ancestors--a belief forced
upon them by their intense realisation of the futility of human hopes
and schemings, of the terror and the tragedy of life, the vanity of its
desires, and the untravelled gloom or sleep, dreamless or dreamfull,
which lies beyond its end.

Though the Sagas are entrancing, both as examples of literature of which
there is but little in the world and because of their living interest,
they are scarcely known to the English-speaking public. This is easy
to account for: it is hard to persuade the nineteenth century world to
interest itself in people who lived and events that happened a thousand
years ago. Moreover, the Sagas are undoubtedly difficult reading. The
archaic nature of the work, even in a translation; the multitude of its
actors; the Norse sagaman's habit of interweaving endless side-plots,
and the persistence with which he introduces the genealogy and
adventures of the ancestors of every unimportant character, are none of
them to the taste of the modern reader.

"Eric Brighteyes" therefore, is clipped of these peculiarities, and,
to some extent, is cast in the form of the romance of our own day,
archaisms being avoided as much as possible. The author will be
gratified should he succeed in exciting interest in the troubled lives
of our Norse forefathers, and still more so if his difficult experiment
brings readers to the Sagas--to the prose epics of our own race. Too
ample, too prolix, too crowded with detail, they cannot indeed vie in
art with the epics of Greece; but in their pictures of life, simple and
heroic, they fall beneath no literature in the world, save the Iliad and
the Odyssey alone.





ERIC BRIGHTEYES




I

HOW ASMUND THE PRIEST FOUND GROA THE WITCH

There lived a man in the south, before Thangbrand, Wilibald's son,
preached the White Christ in Iceland. He was named Eric Brighteyes,
Thorgrimur's son, and in those days there was no man like him for
strength, beauty and daring, for in all these things he was the first.
But he was not the first in good-luck.

Two women lived in the south, not far from where the Westman Islands
stand above the sea. Gudruda the Fair was the name of the one, and
Swanhild, called the Fatherless, Groa's daughter, was the other. They
were half-sisters, and there were none like them in those days, for they
were the fairest of all women, though they had nothing in common except
their blood and hate.

Now of Eric Brighteyes, of Gudruda the Fair and of Swanhild the
Fatherless, there is a tale to tell.

These two fair women saw the light in the self-same hour. But Eric
Brighteyes was their elder by five years. The father of Eric was
Thorgrimur Iron-Toe. He had been a mighty man; but in fighting with a
Baresark,[*] who fell upon him as he came up from sowing his wheat, his
foot was hewn from him, so that afterwards he went upon a wooden leg
shod with iron. Still, he slew the Baresark, standing on one leg and
leaning against a rock, and for that deed people honoured him much.
Thorgrimur was a wealthy yeoman, slow to wrath, just, and rich in
friends. Somewhat late in life he took to wife Saevuna, Thorod's
daughter. She was the best of women, strong in mind and second-sighted,
and she could cover herself in her hair. But these two never loved each
other overmuch, and they had but one child, Eric, who was born when
Saevuna was well on in years.

[*] The Baresarks were men on whom a passing fury of battle
came; they were usually outlawed.

The father of Gudruda was Asmund Asmundson, the Priest of Middalhof. He
was the wisest and the wealthiest of all men who lived in the south
of Iceland in those days, owning many farms and, also, two ships of
merchandise and one long ship of war, and having much money out at
interest. He had won his wealth by viking's work, robbing the English
coasts, and black tales were told of his doings in his youth on the sea,
for he was a "red-hand" viking. Asmund was a handsome man, with blue
eyes and a large beard, and, moreover, was very skilled in matters of
law. He loved money much, and was feared of all. Still, he had many
friends, for as he aged he grew more kindly. He had in marriage Gudruda,
the daughter of Bjoern, who was very sweet and kindly of nature, so that
they called her Gudruda the Gentle. Of this marriage there were two
children, Bjoern and Gudruda the Fair; but Bjoern grew up like his father
in youth, strong and hard, and greedy of gain, while, except for her
wonderful beauty, Gudruda was her mother's child alone.

The mother of Swanhild the Fatherless was Groa the Witch. She was a
Finn, and it is told of her that the ship on which she sailed, trying
to run under the lee of the Westman Isles in a great gale from the
north-east, was dashed to pieces on a rock, and all those on board of
her were caught in the net of Ran[*] and drowned, except Groa herself,
who was saved by her magic art. This at the least is true, that, as
Asmund the Priest rode down by the sea-shore on the morning after the
gale, seeking for some strayed horses, he found a beautiful woman,
who wore a purple cloak and a great girdle of gold, seated on a rock,
combing her black hair and singing the while; and, at her feet, washing
to and fro in a pool, was a dead man. He asked whence she came, and she
answered:

"Out of the Swan's Bath."

[*] The Norse goddess of the sea.

Next, he asked her where were her kin. But, pointing to the dead man,
she said that this alone was left of them.

"Who was the man, then?" said Asmund the Priest.

She laughed again and sang this song:--

Groa sails up from the Swan's Bath,
Death Gods grip the Dead Man's hand.
Look where lies her luckless husband,
Bolder sea-king ne'er swung sword!
Asmund, keep the kirtle-wearer,
For last night the Norns were crying,
And Groa thought they told of thee:
Yea, told of thee and babes unborn.

"How knowest thou my name?" asked Asmund.

"The sea-mews cried it as the ship sank, thine and others--and they
shall be heard in story."

"Then that is the best of luck," quoth Asmund; "but I think that thou
art fey."[*]

[*] I.e. subject to supernatural presentiments, generally
connected with approaching doom.

"Ay," she answered, "fey and fair."

"True enough thou art fair. What shall we do with this dead man?"

"Leave him in the arms of Ran. So may all husbands lie."

They spoke no more with her at that time, seeing that she was a
witchwoman. But Asmund took her up to Middalhof, and gave her a farm,
and she lived there alone, and he profited much by her wisdom.


Now it chanced that Gudruda the Gentle was with child, and when her time
came she gave a daughter birth--a very fair girl, with dark eyes. On
the same day, Groa the witchwoman brought forth a girl-child, and men
wondered who was its father, for Groa was no man's wife. It was women's
talk that Asmund the Priest was the father of this child also; but when
he heard it he was angry, and said that no witchwoman should bear a
bairn of his, howsoever fair she was. Nevertheless, it was still said
that the child was his, and it is certain that he loved it as a man
loves his own; but of all things, this is the hardest to know. When Groa
was questioned she laughed darkly, as was her fashion, and said that she
knew nothing of it, never having seen the face of the child's father,
who rose out of the sea at night. And for this cause some thought him
to have been a wizard or the wraith of her dead husband; but others said
that Groa lied, as many women have done on such matters. But of all this
talk the child alone remained and she was named Swanhild.

Now, but an hour before the child of Gudruda the Gentle was born, Asmund
went up from his house to the Temple, to tend the holy fire that burned
night and day upon the altar. When he had tended the fire, he sat down
upon the cross-benches before the shrine, and, gazing on the image of
the Goddess Freya, he fell asleep and dreamed a very evil dream.

He dreamed that Gudruda the Gentle bore a dove most beautiful to see,
for all its feathers were of silver; but that Groa the Witch bore a
golden snake. And the snake and the dove dwelt together, and ever the
snake sought to slay the dove. At length there came a great white swan
flying over Coldback Fell, and its tongue was a sharp sword. Now the
swan saw the dove and loved it, and the dove loved the swan; but the
snake reared itself, and hissed, and sought to kill the dove. But the
swan covered her with his wings, and beat the snake away. Then he,
Asmund, came out and drove away the swan, as the swan had driven the
snake, and it wheeled high into the air and flew south, and the snake
swam away also through the sea. But the dove drooped and now it was
blind. Then an eagle came from the north, and would have taken the dove,
but it fled round and round, crying, and always the eagle drew nearer
to it. At length, from the south the swan came back, flying heavily, and
about its neck was twined the golden snake, and with it came a raven.
And it saw the eagle and loud it trumpeted, and shook the snake from it
so that it fell like a gleam of gold into the sea. Then the eagle and
the swan met in battle, and the swan drove the eagle down and broke it
with his wings, and, flying to the dove, comforted it. But those in the
house ran out and shot at the swan with bows and drove it away, but now
he, Asmund, was not with them. And once more the dove drooped. Again the
swan came back, and with it the raven, and a great host were gathered
against them, and, among them, all of Asmund's kith and kin, and the men
of his quarter and some of his priesthood, and many whom he did not know
by face. And the swan flew at Bjoern his son, and shot out the sword of
its tongue and slew him, and many a man it slew thus. And the raven,
with a beak and claws of steel, slew also many a man, so that Asmund's
kindred fled and the swan slept by the dove. But as it slept the golden
snake crawled out of the sea, and hissed in the ears of men, and they
rose up to follow it. It came to the swan and twined itself about its
neck. It struck at the dove and slew it. Then the swan awoke and the
raven awoke, and they did battle till all who remained of Asmund's
kindred and people were dead. But still the snake clung about the swan's
neck, and presently snake and swan fell into the sea, and far out on the
sea there burned a flame of fire. And Asmund awoke trembling and left
the Temple.

Now as he went, a woman came running, and weeping as she ran.

"Haste, haste!" she cried; "a daughter is born to thee, and Gudruda thy
wife is dying!"

"Is it so?" said Asmund; "after ill dreams ill tidings."

Now in the bed-closet off the great hall of Middalhof lay Gudruda the
Gentle and she was dying.

"Art thou there, husband?" she said.

"Even so, wife."

"Thou comest in an evil hour, for it is my last. Now hearken. Take thou
the new-born babe within thine arms and kiss it, and pour water over it,
and name it with my name."

This Asmund did.

"Hearken, my husband. I have been a good wife to thee, though thou hast
not been all good to me. But thus shalt thou atone: thou shalt swear
that, though she is a girl, thou wilt not cast this bairn forth to
perish, but wilt cherish and nurture her."

"I swear it," he said.

"And thou shalt swear that thou wilt not take the witchwoman Groa to
wife, nor have anything to do with her, and this for thine own sake:
for, if thou dost, she will be thy death. Dost thou swear?"

"I swear it," he said.

"It is well; but, husband, if thou dost break thine oath, either in the
words or in the spirit of the words, evil shall overtake thee and all
thy house. Now bid me farewell, for I die."

He bent over her and kissed her, and it is said that Asmund wept in that
hour, for after his fashion he loved his wife.

"Give me the babe," she said, "that it may lie once upon my breast."

They gave her the babe and she looked upon its dark eyes and said:

"Fairest of women shalt thou be, Gudruda--fair as no woman in Iceland
ever was before thee; and thou shalt love with a mighty love--and thou
shalt lose--and, losing, thou shalt find again."

Now, it is said that, as she spoke these words, her face grew bright as
a spirit's, and, having spoken them, she fell back dead. And they laid
her in earth, but Asmund mourned her much.

But, when all was over and done, the dream that he had dreamed lay heavy
on him. Now of all diviners of dreams Groa was the most skilled, and
when Gudruda had been in earth seven full days, Asmund went to Groa,
though doubtfully, because of his oath.

He came to the house and entered. On a couch in the chamber lay Groa,
and her babe was on her breast and she was very fair to see.

"Greeting, lord!" she said. "What wouldest thou here?"

"I have dreamed a dream, and thou alone canst read it."

"That is as it may be," she answered. "It is true that I have some skill
in dreams. At the least I will hear it."

Then he unfolded it to her every word.

"What wilt thou give me if I read thy dream?" she said.

"What dost thou ask? Methinks I have given thee much."

"Yea, lord," and she looked at the babe upon her breast. "I ask but a
little thing: that thou shalt take this bairn in thy arms, pour water
over it and name it."

"Men will talk if I do this, for it is the father's part."

"It is a little thing what men say: talk goes by as the wind. Moreover,
thou shalt give them the lie in the child's name, for it shall be
Swanhild the Fatherless. Nevertheless that is my price. Pay it if thou
wilt."

"Read me the dream and I will name the child."

"Nay, first name thou the babe: for then no harm shall come to her at
thy hands."

So Asmund took the child, poured water over her, and named her.

Then Groa spoke: "This lord, is the reading of thy dream, else my wisdom
is at fault: The silver dove is thy daughter Gudruda, the golden snake
is my daughter Swanhild, and these two shall hate one the other and
strive against each other. But the swan is a mighty man whom both shall
love, and, if he love not both, yet shall belong to both. And thou shalt
send him away; but he shall return and bring bad luck to thee and thy
house, and thy daughter shall be blind with love of him. And in the end
he shall slay the eagle, a great lord from the north who shall seek to
wed thy daughter, and many another shall he slay, by the help of that
raven with the bill of steel who shall be with him. But Swanhild shall
triumph over thy daughter Gudruda, and this man, and the two of them,
shall die at her hands, and, for the rest, who can say? But this is
true--that the mighty man shall bring all thy race to an end. See now, I
have read thy rede."

Then Asmund was very wroth. "Thou wast wise to beguile me to name thy
bastard brat," he said; "else had I been its death within this hour."

"This thou canst not do, lord, seeing that thou hast held it in thy
arms," Groa answered, laughing. "Go rather and lay out Gudruda the Fair
on Coldback Hill; so shalt thou make an end of the evil, for Gudruda
shall be its very root. Learn this, moreover: that thy dream does not
tell all, seeing that thou thyself must play a part in the fate. Go,
send forth the babe Gudruda, and be at rest."

"That cannot be, for I have sworn to cherish it, and with an oath that
may not be broken."

"It is well," laughed Groa. "Things will befall as they are fated; let
them befall in their season. There is space for cairns on Coldback and
the sea can shroud its dead!"

And Asmund went thence, angered at heart.




II

HOW ERIC TOLD HIS LOVE TO GUDRUDA IN THE SNOW ON COLDBACK

Now, it must be told that, five years before the day of the death of
Gudruda the Gentle, Saevuna, the wife of Thorgrimur Iron-Toe, gave birth
to a son, at Coldback in the Marsh, on Ran River, and when his father
came to look upon the child he called out aloud:

"Here we have a wondrous bairn, for his hair is yellow like gold and his
eyes shine bright as stars." And Thorgrimur named him Eric Brighteyes.

Now, Coldback is but an hour's ride from Middalhof, and it chanced,
in after years, that Thorgrimur went up to Middalhof, to keep the Yule
feast and worship in the Temple, for he was in the priesthood of Asmund
Asmundson, bringing the boy Eric with him. There also was Groa with
Swanhild, for now she dwelt at Middalhof; and the three fair children
were set together in the hall to play, and men thought it great sport to
see them. Now, Gudruda had a horse of wood and would ride it while Eric
pushed the horse along. But Swanhild smote her from the horse and called
to Eric to make it move; but he comforted Gudruda and would not, and at
that Swanhild was angry and lisped out:

"Push thou must, if I will it, Eric."

Then he pushed sideways and with such good will that Swanhild fell
almost into the fire of the hearth, and, leaping up, she snatched a
brand and threw it at Gudruda, firing her clothes. Men laughed at this;
but Groa, standing apart, frowned and muttered witch-words.

"Why lookest thou so darkly, housekeeper?" said Asmund; "the boy is
bonny and high of heart."