The Islands of the Blessed - Nancy

A single leaf unfurling in springtime is worth more than all your realm, said Jack, surprising himself. He hadn’t planned to say that. It was one thing to resist the awesome power before him and quite another to pick a fight.

War is inevitable, Odin thundered. All exists to kill and be killed, and only courage in the face of death is beautiful.

What good is this courage when you fear life itself? said Jack. If you are deaf to the laughter of your children or cannot understand why your wives rejoice when you return from a voyage, are you not already dead? What courage does it take to leave a world when you are blind to its wonders? Jack was pretty impressed with his poetry, but he was also afraid of how Odin might react. He didn’t seem able to stop arguing. The words simply rolled out.

In the end night covers all, said the war god. The bonds of this world will break, and Garm, the hound of Hel, will be freed from his leash. The frost giants will make war upon light. The ship of death, made from the finger- and toenails of corpses, will set sail to bring destruction upon the living. Ragnarok is coming, the final battle. None can escape it.

Jack gazed at the being looming up and up and up until it brushed the racing clouds. His blood sang in his ears as it had on the Northman ship with the waves foaming beneath the prow and a fine breeze following. Your world is only one leaf on the Great Tree, Jack said. It is already falling from the branch. I do not believe in Ragnarok. Warmth spread from St. Columba’s staff to his hand and on to the rest of his body. A light radiated and fell on the throne.

It was empty.

It wasn’t even a throne, but an outcropping of gray stone that had weathered until it was pitted and broken. Lumps of rock at the side had been the wolves.

Olaf One-Brow was sitting on one of the lumps. He removed his helmet and squinted at the boy. “Jack!” he cried delightedly. “How did you get here? Don’t tell me you fell in battle.”

Jack’s ears still sang with blood. It took him a moment to realize where he was. “I’m not dead, Olaf. At least I don’t think so. Thorgil’s with me, but she’s afraid you don’t want to see her.” 

Chapter Forty

A JOYFUL REUNION

They found her eating at one of the tables. She dropped the chicken leg she was holding and held out her arms.

“What a treat, heart-daughter!” bellowed Olaf, swinging her into the air. “The very idea, thinking I wouldn’t welcome you! Nothing could cheer this battle-scarred old heart more. It’s too bad you didn’t see me earlier. I killed five warriors and maimed a dozen others.”

“I heard the last part of it, when you cut off Bjorn Skull-Splitter’s head.” Thorgil was laughing and crying at the same time.

“Between you and me, he got soft sitting around on Horse Island,” Olaf confided. “But he acquitted himself well at the end.” He put the shield maiden down.

Her knees buckled and she had to hold on to him. “I’m sorry, heart-father. I’ve been on short rations for a while.”

“That’s easily fixed,” her foster father said. He went to the fire pit and tore off a rib blackened with smoke. Jack was surprised to see that so much meat was left after the scores of warriors who had been feasting. Perhaps the boar, like Heidrun, was a never-ending supply of food.

“Is it safe to eat?” Jack said, though the smell was driving him mad. “I mean, for the living.”

“Who cares?” said Thorgil, tearing into the meat. Soon her face was smeared with grease and soot. Olaf fetched her another rib, as well as one for Jack. The boy ate carefully, mindful of St. Columba’s white cloak, and wiped his fingers on the grass. He was still somewhat dazed from his encounter with Odin. How could he have dared to challenge such a foe? It seemed that St. Columba’s staff had a will of its own.

They helped themselves to pickled herring, grouse, leeks in cream sauce, baked apples, and many other wonderful dishes from the tables. Olaf thrust a bowl of purplish lumps floating in a slimy gray liquid in front of Jack’s nose. “Graffisk. Have some,” he urged.

Jack almost threw up at the odor of rotten teeth and bilge water. “No, thanks.”

“HAVE SOME,” roared the Northman.

But Jack was no longer a frightened slave in fear for his life. “IT’S THE NASTIEST STUFF I’VE EVER SEEN. YOU EAT IT,” he roared back.

And to his very great surprise Olaf did. “I don’t understand why people don’t enjoy this,” the giant said as he mopped up nauseating gobbets of graffisk with bread. “I had to sit on Dotti and Lotti to force it down their throats. They never did get the hang of it.” He shook his head over the perversity of wives.

By the time they were finished, most of the men had passed out. Valkyries were dragging them into orderly rows near the fire pit. The warrior women settled around Heidrun and dipped their drinking horns into the tub of mead. “Do you remember that battle where I picked up the wrong hero by mistake?” one of them remembered.

“Oh, yes!” another said. “You had to drop him and go back. It was someone who’d converted to Christianity, and they had a claim on him.”

“It’s getting harder and harder to sort them out,” the first one said.

Jack and Thorgil found a stream near the clearing and washed their faces and hands. “I’m confused,” Thorgil said to Olaf when they had returned to the table. “Is Grim’s Island a corner of Valhalla?”

“No, Valhalla is much more glorious than this,” said Olaf, leaning back and gazing at the storm clouds rushing past. “Its walls are made of thousands of spears, and its ceiling is covered in shields as thick as shells on a beach. It has hundreds of doors, enough for all the berserkers in the world to rush out at once, when Ragnarok is declared.”

Ragnarok, thought Jack. What an evil destiny, for warriors to slaughter one another endlessly until the final battle, where they each got slaughtered for the last time.

“You have no idea how magnificent everything is, and yet…” A look of regret crossed Olaf’s face. “I mean, I’m honored to be there with the gods, but sometimes it’s just a little too grand for me. I miss honest dirt. And trees. And rolling in a meadow. That’s why some of us get together for a Wild Hunt.”

“So this is a Wild Hunt,” said Jack.

“Grim’s Island is where we rest up afterward,” the giant explained. “It’s a fine place. Good forest, plenty of kindling, no nosy neighbors.”

The boy suddenly remembered the blacksmith’s slaves, Gog and Magog. “Exactly what do you hunt?”

“Our old piggy. Sæhr�mnir is his name.” Olaf pointed at the fire pit where the boar was still roasting.

“But he’s… dead.”

“So are most of us at the end of the day,” said the giant. “We pull ourselves together and go on. Tomorrow morning Sæhr�mnir’s bones will cover themselves with flesh and he’ll be pawing the ground, ready for another run.”

It didn’t sound like fun, getting roasted every night, but maybe the boar liked it. He was probably as dim-witted as the berserkers. What bothered Jack most was that Thorgil valued this afterlife. “When you came through our village,” he said, “there was a pair of brothers called Gog and Magog. They liked to sit outside during storms and watch the sky. After you left, they were gone.”

“Gog and Magog. I didn’t know they had names,” said Olaf. He went over to the mead bucket, shoved a Valkyrie aside, and filled his horn. “They’re around here somewhere. They were so pleased to see us that we brought them along. They’ve been as happy as a pair of ticks on a fat dog ever since. They stay on this mountain all the time, keeping the campsite tidy, gathering kindling, and so on. Very restful companions, Gog and Magog. Never bother you with conversation.”

Jack was aware that Thorgil had said nothing for some time. He glanced at her and saw that one of her gloomy moods was building up inside, not unlike the storm clouds boiling overhead. He knew the reason for it, of course. Olaf had chosen Gog and Magog over her. “Why did you leave Thorgil behind?” Jack said.

She looked up, her face pale with emotion.

“Leave her where?” Olaf belched richly and wiped his mouth on his arm.

“When you went over our village, she begged you to take her with you.”

“She did?”

“Yes, I did,” cried Thorgil. The paleness was being replaced with a rosy flush of irritation. “Only, I didn’t beg. I asked, and you looked down and pretended you couldn’t see me. And then you rode off. It’s because I have a paralyzed hand, isn’t it?” Jack was almost relieved. Anger had replaced sorrow, and with Thorgil, this was a much easier thing to deal with.

Olaf looked puzzled. “Believe me, daughter, I didn’t know you were there. We’d just picked up Gog and Magog, and Sæhr�mnir was running for all he was worth. I had my eye on that pig and my spear was ready to bring him down. Are you sure you saw me?”

“Of course!” shouted Thorgil.

“Put it down to the heat of battle, then. There’s a blindness that comes over you when you’re really involved. At any rate, an injury doesn’t disqualify you from entering Valhalla. Tyr had his hand chomped off by Fenris. Hoder is blind and still leads men into battle. He sometimes hits the wrong target, though,” Olaf said thoughtfully. “They have special privileges because they’re gods, but I’ve seen a number of men missing body parts. What keeps you out of Valhalla is being alive.”

Olaf drained his mead-horn, oblivious to Thorgil’s simmering emotions.

“I suppose I could throw myself off this mountain,” the shield maiden said sarcastically.

“There you go. You’d find yourself in Valhalla in no time. Hey, Brynhilda! Stir your stumps and fetch us another horn of mead.” A Valkyrie stood up from the group clustered around Heidrun and obeyed.

“But I’ve sworn an oath to save Dragon Tongue’s daughter. I can’t die until I fulfill it,” Thorgil said sulkily.

“Oh, well. I guess you’ll have to wait,” said Olaf, who didn’t sound particularly disappointed. “How is old Dragon Tongue? Is he still making Northman kings run for cover?”

Jack stepped in before Thorgil could completely lose her temper. He described the visit to Notland, and sorrow weighed heavily upon him as he recalled how the Bard had walked into the tomb with the draugr following. But Olaf listened with only half an ear. Perhaps that was how it was with the dead. Being shut into a tomb wasn’t the devastating thing it was to the living.

It was clear something else was on Olaf’s mind, and after Jack was finished, the giant said shyly, “You wouldn’t mind… I mean, it would please me very much…” He blushed deeply. “I’d really like to hear that praise-poem you wrote for me again.”

And so Jack recounted the poem he’d sung in the court of King Ivar the Boneless, and again on Olaf’s funeral pyre: